CHAPTER TWO

      THE HOUSE WAS pleasantly full, closing in on crowded, a steady stream of curious neighbours, local businesses and carefully selected potential clients passing through to sample Amber’s spectacular canapés, have a glass of champagne and toast the Happy Ever After Agency’s launch. Harriet had watched Alexandra and Emilia turn on their cool, professional charm, while Amber tempted people with tray after tray of delicious treats, disbelief that it was really happening looping around her stomach. This was it. They existed. Their future was entirely in their hands—it was both thrilling and terrifying. Had they really thought when they’d first come up with the idea that it would actually happen? For so long it had seemed a nice pipe dream, not an actual plan.

      No more dreaming. Things had just got serious and for the agency to work they needed clients and fast. This party was just the start. It had to be a success.

      Leaning against the wall, Harriet pushed away the misgivings that liked to whisper in her ear; she could be at her desk right now, clocking off for the evening, earning a good salary, pension, benefits—safety. It was time she struck out and dared to do—to be—someone new. No longer the mousy little PA, more part of the office furniture than warm flesh and blood. Of so little significance that after three years Deangelo Santos hadn’t even said goodbye. She swallowed. She was a fool to be disappointed by the omission, a fool to care. Just because, occasionally, very occasionally, that keen stare had seemed to see her, seemed to know her, didn’t mean the connection she’d imagined was real. She might be a Jane Eyre type but that didn’t make him Rochester—which was a good thing. Harriet had never visited Deangelo’s penthouse suite but she was pretty sure he didn’t keep a wife hidden away there!

      Enough. She had clients to woo and impress and moping over her old boss’s indifference would help nobody. She smiled even though there was no one there to see it, tilting her chin and pushing her shoulders back. Fake confidence if you don’t feel it was Amber’s mantra. It was one she was going to adopt.

      Harriet’s own job for the evening was, by choice, greeting guests at the door, handing out brochures and booking in appointments and jobs. Small talk had never been her forte; she much preferred having an actual task to do. Besides, this was her job, just as networking and promoting was Alex and Emilia’s. She would be managing the office for all four of them as well as recruiting and placing the army of temps she hoped to have in place before too long, providing emergency PA cover herself if necessary. She liked the tidiness of admin work, sorting and solving problems, organising. She liked to be needed.

      Outside this house there was nobody who needed her any more, nobody who even noticed her. Somehow, between school and now, she’d turned into the invisible woman. She would never regret the decisions that had taken her to this place. Never regret the years she had spent as her dad’s carer, the dates she had turned down, the potential friendships that had never come to fruition, the two fledgling relationships that had never progressed beyond possibility, the university place postponed until she had finally, regretfully withdrawn her application. She had no one but her father, and he had no one but her.

      But now his dementia had progressed to a level in which she didn’t even exist. So where did that leave her?

      Harriet summoned up a smile as a couple of guests passed her on their way out, copies of the agency’s promotional brochure in their hands. Stop being so self-pitying. She had her friends now—and more. She had a new way forward. Thanks to Alex’s inheritance she had a new job, a new home, a new purpose and with it a new resolve: that it was time to stop living on the sidelines, time to step out, actually try living not merely existing. To try and live a life that was more than work and responsibility, now that her father didn’t know who she was, now she no longer needed to spend every spare hour by his side. She would start by signing up for the evening language courses and the local book group and see about local volunteering opportunities. Not the wildest activities for someone just turned twenty-six, but a lot wilder than a night in alone with a herbal tea and a book.

      And maybe while she was in this spirit she should stop skulking in the hallway with a tablet and a handful of leaflets and go and circulate as the other three were so effortlessly doing. She’d been to many work receptions while she worked at Aion, all over the world. She could do this... Resolutely she turned around but, as she did so, the old-fashioned doorbell rang its sonorous chime.

      Pausing, Harriet cast a quick glance in the mirror to make sure she still looked like the professional, aspirational businesswoman stroke hostess that she was trying to be. Okay. Her strawberry-blonde hair hung in a silky sheet, the frizz ruthlessly tamed and controlled, and a discreet coating of lipstick still covered her overly generous mouth. Her wrap dress wasn’t gaping and she hadn’t spilt anything down it. All that counted as a win. For the umpteenth time in the last two hours Harriet pinned an appropriately pleasant yet professional smile onto her face and opened the door. ‘Welcome to...’ She looked up before she could complete the sentence and her gaze met a pair of hard amber eyes. She faltered, the door swinging back as she stepped back in shock.

      Was she dreaming? Imagining things? Tentatively she reopened the door and looked again. No. No imagining. Tall, broad, the body of a street fighter, face of a fallen angel, marred—or enhanced—by the scar that ran right down one side of his face, temple to chin. A face she knew as well as she knew her own—better, she’d seen it every day for the last three years. ‘Deangelo? I mean, Mr Santos, what are you doing here?’

      ‘You’re holding a party, aren’t you?’

      ‘Erm...yes,’ she managed.

      ‘Then aren’t you going to invite me in?’

      ‘I...of course.’ Harriet was hurriedly running through the many invitations they’d sent and no, she didn’t recall the billionaire businessman’s name on any of them. Aion’s HR staff of course, some of their old colleagues, but not the man himself. He wasn’t exactly the party type—and, even after working in close proximity with him, they weren’t on invite terms. But, invite or not, Deangelo Santos was not the kind of man to leave cooling his heels on a doorstep, not even a Chelsea doorstep. Besides, she would be mad to turn a man with his money and influence away, and the gleam in his eyes told her he was well aware of the fact. Harriet stood back and nervously, as if she were inviting a predator into her home, said, ‘You’d better come in.’

      The air seemed to shift as he stepped into the hallway and Harriet was reminded irresistibly of the old vampire movies and the dangers of inviting the powerful over your doorstep. ‘Okay, the party is this way. We’re actually expecting a few people from Aion.’ She smothered a smile at the thought of the shock on their faces when they walked in to see their famously reclusive boss at the party. ‘Let me show you around.’ She started towards the open partition which linked the hallway to the reception area but Deangelo made no move to follow her.

      ‘Why did you say no?’

      Harriet stopped and turned back to face him, startled by the abrupt words. Was that why he was here? Surely not. She was a good PA but not that good. ‘No? You mean to the temping