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CHAPTER ONE

LEON MARANZ lifted a glass of cha just inside the entrance to the large, crowded first floor salon of the exclusive Regent’s Park apartment that he’d just been shown into by one of the household staff and surveyed the scene before hi he was very familiar with A cocktail party in one of London’s preuests, however disparate, unified by one common factor

Wealth

A great deal of it

A casual flick of Leon’s opaque eyes could tell hiner outfits the woems at their throats, ears and wrists The women uniformly had a look about them of pampered, sleek felines, and the men were also uniformly alike in their projection of self-assurance and self-worth in the eyes of the world

Leon’s htened infinitesiuarantee of the solidity of the worth behind it Probingly, his dark eyes lanced through the throng, seeking its target Alistair Lassiter’s back was turned to the entrance of the salon, but Leon recognised hinised, too, what he wanted to see Probably invisible to the rest of the guests, but not to hier he held his gaze Then, his assessing surveillance done, he lifted his glass of chane to his mouth But even as he did so he stilled

A wo at him

She was nowhere near Alistair Lassiter, but Leon could see her at the periphery of his vision Every finely tuned antenna told hi a stare at him that had an intensity about it that demonstrated she had no idea he are of her scrutiny But Leon had been on the receiving end of fe before he had h prime attraction for women these days Far and away , saturnine looks that had been his appeal when young and i all that beautiful fe at him

And this one wasat him

He took a htly as he did so, to move the woman into the central frame of his vision

She was in the English style, with a fine-boned face, oval, contoured with a delicate, narrow nose and wide, clear eyes Her chestnut hair was drawn off her face into a chignon that would have looked severe on any woo raw silk cocktail dress would have looked plain on a woman with a less than perfect body But this woently rounded hips and, Leon could see, despite the enerous breasts The bracelet sleeves of her cocktail frock showed the length of her forearlass of mineral water The heth, displaying long, slender legs lengthened by high heels

The total impact was, despite the severity of her style—or perhaps because of it—stunning,every other woman present appear overdressed and flawed Leon felt anticipation fizz through hi ahead was clearly not going to be only about business after all …

He narrowed his eyes and let his gaze rest on her, acknowledging what she made him feel The flare of desire …

His gaze swept back up to her face, intercepting her scrutiny, ready to ister his interest in her, to start to move towards her

And immediately the shutters came down over her face

It was like aover her features An icy mask that froze her expression

Froze hih him as if he were not there, as if he did not exist … as if he were not even the barest part of her universe

Abruptly, she h hi tiaze continued to hold Then he

Flavia forced a polite s attention to whatever it was that was being discussed She hadpolite conversation to her father’s guests here tonight A lot more

She didn’t want to be here, in her father’s opulent Regent’s Park apart the paent millionaire when both she and her father knew that that was bitterly far from the truth

What did she care for this stupid cocktail party? For standing around looking expensively ornaned only to ilass and chroold fittings and showy furniture, conspicuous state but a total alien here

She wanted to be home! Home in the heart of rural Dorset, deep in the countryside Hoian house that she loved so e and sash s, filled with furniture that had aged with the house where she had grown up, roa the narrow hedged lanes, ra horandparents she’d adored, who had raised her after the tragically early death of herarms