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CHAPTER ONE

THE restaurant bar had becole to lift her glass to her lips Not that she ht, noisy atht of her felloorkla’s introductory treat laid on by their new boss

It had been so long since she’d been to anything like this and it felt so good to be here She’d even indulged in a frighteningly expensive new dress for herself, made of a smooth black-on-charcoal eure and felt fabulously stylish and chic With her hair professionally cut and styled for the first tiolden locks felt wonderful as they brushed against her naked shoulders whenever she moved her head

‘Your eyes are sparkling like big shiny e this, aren’t you?’

A brilliant slosseda part of such a noisy, mad crush!’

‘Well, here’s to a lot more of the saed to lift her glass high enough to chink it against Cassie’s ‘No e now you don’t need to pay those crazy pre-school nursery fees’

‘Froirl in one leap’ Cassie laughed ‘Do you wantat the same time?’

‘God, no’ Ella shuddered and Cassie watched a cloud settle across her friend’s pretty face

Ella was fresh out of a long-teruy who’d du day with the classic—I’m just not ready to be tied down—excuse Cassie knew exactly what that felt like—the dunant with twins

‘He’s history, Ella,’ she reet about him’

With a blink of her long black eyelashes Ella nodded, setting her bobbed dark hair swinging around her face ‘Yes, I’ve moved on, haven’t I?’

Haven’t we both? Cassie thought ‘With bells on,’ she agreed and gave their glasses a second chink ‘Think huge great bodybuilder with the temperament of a pussycat instead of razor-sharp share-dealer with the genetic make-up of a slithery snake’

Ella burst out laughing at the coot away The sound of her laughter caught the attention of several people crushed in around theed to include those around them The next few minutes went by with the easy camaraderie that came from people orked in close proxiear with the help of the free-floine The crush tightened then eased and tightened again as people began to circulate

‘When are they going to start herding us upstairs to eat?’ Ella sighed a while later ‘I’’

‘I think wefor the new boss to arrive,’ Cassie said, squeezing a sip of wine frolass

‘Well, if it gets any more crowded in here we’ll be like sardines in a can,’ her friend co sardines with the guy that’s just walked in here with our MD and a clutch of scary bigwig types…’

Turning her head to look in the direction that Ella was looking, Cassie just wasn’t prepared for what came next Shock struck her blindside For the next few horrible seconds she felt as if she were falling off the edge of a cliff! Her legs went hollow beneath her then started to fill up again fro wild rush of hot static as instant recognition screa years, yet each lean, hard, vital inch of hied her heart to a shuddering stop

And who could ht helplessly as her heart lurched into action again with a blunt, haood head and shoulders above the others clustered around him, even with his dark head tilted down a little so he could hear what their short and portly MD was saying over the noisy buzz of conversation filling up the bar Yet Cassie knew the top of that head; she knew it so intio that she’d run her fingers through the thick layers of vibrant black silk Her fingers even twitched tautly around her wineglass in stinging recognition, al to the white marble floor beneath her strappy black mules

‘Methinks we are getting our first eyeful of our new boss,’ Ella e to the buzz in here…’

It took Cassie several seconds to absorb that piece of inforoing on inside herself

‘No,’ she ed with a shivery cold whisper, ‘that isn’t him’

‘Are you sure…?’ Ella took a moment to reassess the man in question, while all Cassie could do was to stand there, locked in her own private forot to be hieous piece of o by any other na Alessandro Marchese’