by Penny Jordan
Five minutes later, her dress exchanged for a tee shirt and a pair of jeans, and her French knickers carefully parcelled up to be rewashed and kept as a very personal souvenir, Lucy savoured the last delicious gulp of coffee whilst she scrolled down her e-mails.
No new requests for Prêt a Party’s services, she saw gloomily. The only commission she had pending was the sportswear manufacturer’s launch of a new football boot, which was to be held at a very trendy nightclub of the type favoured by TV celebs, models, premier league footballers and the like.
Everything was already in place for the launch, but while she drank her second coffee Lucy brought up the worksheets for it to check them over.
She had based the whole event on the manufacturer’s logo and colours, playing on a ‘team event’ theme, since they were launching a football boot. Cheerleaders dressed in a highly-sexed version of a football strip would provide the main entertainment by chanting the client’s name, a new cocktail was going to be served, and Lucy had decided that the food was going to be miniature portions of that favourite laddish treat—curry and chips in a plastic carton.
When her telephone suddenly rang she stared at it apprehensively. Marcus. It had to be! She picked up the receiver and flicked her tongue nervously over her dry lips.
‘May I speak to the Honourable Lucy Blayne, please?’
How was it possible for her heart to sink with relief? Lucy wondered, as she corrected her caller discreetly by responding, ‘Lucy Cardrew speaking.’
‘Oh, hi. It’s Andrew Walker here—your cousin Johnny...’
Andrew Walker. The miracle who might be going to save Prêt a Party and what was left of her trust fund.
‘Oh, yes—of course!’
‘Look, I know it’s short notice, but I’m going to be out of the country from tomorrow, so I wondered if there was any chance that you might be free for lunch today so that we could talk things over and set the ball rolling, so to speak.’
Lucy looked at her watch. It was gone twelve now.
‘I could make a late lunch at half one?’ she suggested.
‘Great. Is the Brasserie in Pont Street okay for you?’
‘Perfect,’ Lucy confirmed. Pont Street was virtually round the corner from her office, and the Brasserie was one of her favourite eateries.
‘Excellent. I’ll see you there at one-thirty, then.’
Replacing the receiver, Lucy looked down at her jeans. She would have to change them for something more suitable for a business lunch. The Armani suit, probably—referred to by her friends as ‘the armour’, because Lucy invariably wore it whenever she had a business meeting to attend. And always when she went to see Marcus to ask him to release more money from her trust fund.
CHAPTER FOUR
AT DEAD on one-thirty, fortified by two more cups of espresso and armoured with the Armani, Lucy fought her way past the untidy jumble of camera-toting, motorbike-riding paparazzi clustered boldly outside the Brasserie, waiting for its celeb diners to arrive and leave, and pushed open the door. She was immediately greeted with a welcoming smile from the receptionist, who recognised her.
‘I’m having lunch with a Mr Walker—Andrew Walker?’
‘Mr Walker is already here and waiting at the table,’ the maître d’ informed her.
‘Oh, Angelo, you’re back! How lovely. Did you have a wonderful time in Sydney with your son and grandchildren?’ Lucy asked warmly.
‘That boy—he is doing so well. He has his own restaurant now,’ Angelo informed her proudly as he escorted her past the other tables to one set discreetly out of earshot of the others.
The man seated there stood up as she approached, extending his hand. ‘Andrew Walker,’ he introduced himself, and Lucy shook it and sat down.
‘Hello Andrew—Lucy Cardrew.’
He was a middle-aged man of middle height with an unremarkable face. He was smartly if somewhat formally dressed, in a suit that—like those Marcus wore—had obviously come from a bespoke tailor. The shirt had all the hallmarks of its Jermyn Street origins, and his shoes were handmade too, but whereas Marcus always looked completely at home and at ease in the formality of his dark business suits and handmade shirts, Andrew Walker looked rather uncomfortable in his clothes, and they in turn looked new and somewhat alien to him.
As he signalled to the waiter he told Lucy, ‘Your cousin will have already mentioned to you that I may be interested in investing in your business?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy acknowledged, thanking the waiter for the menu he was handing her and shaking her head when Andrew asked her what wine she would like.
‘Just water for me,’ she told the waiter firmly.
Andrew didn’t resume talking about his plans until after they had been served with their food, and even then he kept his voice low and conspiratorial as he leaned across the table to tell her firmly, ‘I must stress that at this stage it is imperative that you don’t discuss my approach to you with anyone else.’
‘But my solicitor will have to know, surely?’ Lucy protested.
‘Ultimately, perhaps. Although I would prefer it if my own solicitor drew up all the necessary agreements first.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘I have discovered that the success of my existing business has resulted in other people becoming very keen to find out what my future financial moves will be. Any market can only sustain a certain amount of business. How much business do you have in hand at the moment?’
‘Very little,’ Lucy told him honestly. ‘I expect you know about the financial problems the business has had to face following my divorce?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ve got a big event coming up next month—the launch of a new football boot—’
‘And that kind of business is profitable?’
‘Corporate business is hugely profitable compared with private business,’ Lucy explained. ‘When I’m asked to organise an event where the client wants access to my address book, in order to ensure that they have enough A-list celebs at the event to assure them of maximum press coverage, I can charge more than when I am organising a private event, where the guest list is supplied by the person giving the event. Obviously any kind of launch is an event when the attendance of the right kind of high-profile celebrities is a must. For this event, for instance, the client is guaranteeing the attendance of the premier league football star who is the face of their brand, and I have sent invitations to everyone in my address book who is guaranteed to bring the press to the event.’
“‘Everyone” being...?’
Lucy gave a small shrug. ‘Certain top-rank models and soap stars—the top names, not the B- and C-list—a smattering of It Girl-types and rock star offspring, plus some of the more sociable dot-com millionaires. People who are glamorous and newsworthy, and who will add lustre to the event.’
‘I see... So I take it that much of Prêt a Party’s market value lies in its address book?’
‘In some ways,’ Lucy agreed.
‘When it comes to organising food and drink, venues, flowers, that kind of thing, who is responsible for choosing who will supply those?’
‘Prêt a Party,’ Lucy told him promptly. ‘I’m very strict about who I do and don’t use. Prêt a Party’s reputation has been built on the quality of everything we provide—and that includes the ancillary services we use, whether they are marquees or food.’
‘Mmm. Have you ever thought about selling the Prêt a Party concept as a franchise?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that is one of the areas I am very interested in us looking into as business partners. It will be expensive to start with, of course, until the franchisee revenue starts to come in. But what I have in mind is to use the contacts I have already made via my turnkey business to build up our own ancillary service agencies—so that we can supply our franchise
es with everything they need and the Prêt a Party guarantee of quality. We buy our own marquees and we provide the men to erect them. We supply the waiters, the glasses and the drinks. We provide the florists and the musicians and the cleaning staff—in fact, we supply everything and anything else our franchisees and their clients may need.’
Lucy stared at him, her food forgotten. ‘That’s brilliant,’ she told him, her eyes shining. ‘But it will cost a fortune...’
‘Indeed it will. But I think the eventual return will make it a worthwhile investment.’
Lucy didn’t know what to say. The most she had been hoping for had been an injection of capital to refloat the business so that she could build it up again, but what Andrew Walker was talking about so matter-of-factly was the creation of a whole business empire.
‘As I’ve already said, I would like your assurance that what we are discussing is kept strictly between the two of us at this stage.’
Lucy nodded her head.
‘I’d like to get things moving as quickly as possible, but obviously you’re going to need time to think over my proposal. How would you feel about us meeting up again when I get back from this trip?’
‘That...that sounds fine,’ Lucy managed to tell him, as she fought to sound businesslike and professional rather than giddy with the delight and relief she was actually feeling.
‘Here’s my card,’ Andrew Walker told her. ‘I have just bought a new property in Holland Park. It’s in the course of being renovated at the moment, but once the renovations are finished I intend to throw a large party there for my friends and my business contacts. If all goes as I hope it will, that event will be organised by Prêt a Party, and will be a means of introducing our new joint venture to everyone.’
‘Brilliant,’ Lucy repeated, and meant it.
* * *
It was three o’clock before Lucy got back to her office, her head buzzing with excited thoughts and plans. She could scarcely believe her good luck, and all because Andrew had happened to see that spread about Prêt a Party in A-List Life.
The only down side to this wonderful piece of good luck was that she wasn’t going to be able to say anything about it to Marcus. Or at least not just yet. It would be such a relief to know that she didn’t have to plead with him to change his mind and allow her to use what was left of her trust fund to clear Prêt a Party’s overdraft and give her some much-needed working capital. She looked at the telephone. There was no message from Marcus, despite the fact that he had said he would be in touch with her. Had he changed his mind? Had he been thinking about last night and decided that he simply never wanted to see her again, just in case she tried to repeat her behaviour?
And if he did ring what was he likely to say?
She needed an espresso, Lucy decided.
* * *
Marcus frowned as he studied the view from his office window. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather and all those who had gone before them had occupied this office in their turn, and Marcus had known from the moment he had been old enough to know such things that one day he would have to take over responsibility for the bank and its clients. His father’s death when Marcus had been only six years old had meant that Marcus had been brought up by his mother and grandfather, who’d made sure that Marcus was aware of how important the bank was, and the fact that he was expected to dedicate his life to it. At twenty-one, fresh from university, Marcus had resented that responsibility, and the way that life had forced it on him, even while he had felt honour-bound to accept it. His grandfather at nearly eighty had needed to be allowed to retire, and he had a duty to take over from him.
And so he had put aside his dreams of travelling the world and focused instead on doing what he had to do.
He was nearly six years older than Lucy, and the first time she had walked into his office his feelings towards her had been a mixture of irritation and impatience. Irritation because he’d had enough on his plate without having to act as her trustee, and impatience because he had seen in her eyes the dazed look of a young woman about to develop a huge and unwanted crush on him.
Marcus did not consider himself to be vain. But he had had enough relationships to know what the look Lucy had given him meant. He might have had no choice other than to do what was expected of him and take over the bank, but he had grimly and determinedly held on to what independence he did have. Marriage, so far as he was concerned, was a necessary evil he wanted to put off for as long as he could. One day, yes, he would marry, and provide the bank with its future administrator, but not yet. And he certainly had no intention of ever allowing himself to fall in love.
His mouth hardened. Marcus had seen at first hand the destruction ‘falling in love’ could cause. His own father had fallen in love when Marcus was six, and he had left his wife—Marcus’s mother—abandoning her and his two children because of that ‘love’. He had destroyed their family and left Marcus feeling betrayed and bereft. And, since he had not been able to hate the father he had loved so much, his six-year-old mind had turned its hatred on the emotion that had caused him to leave instead.
Three weeks after he had left them Marcus’s father had been killed in an accident—along with his lover. Marcus had mourned him and promised himself that he would never make the same mistake as his father. He would never, ever allow himself to fall in love. Because of that he had made sure that the women he dated, the women he slept with, were sophisticated, slightly older than he was himself, often post-divorce and pre-second marriage. Women who enjoyed sex and were socially aware, women who understood the rules of the game as he chose to play it—women, in short, who were the complete opposite of Lucy.
Over the years the initial irritation and impatience he had felt towards Lucy had fused together to become a gut reaction which was activated every time he saw her, and it had been intensified to the point where it had been laced with incredulous disbelief and anger when she had married Nick Blayne.
She was supposed to be an intelligent young woman. She must have been able to see what Nick Blayne was. But she had obviously been too blinded by ‘love’ to care. Love and lust, if the newspaper photographs he had seen of her cavorting half naked with Blayne on the Caribbean island where she had first met him were anything to go by.
Irritation, impatience, anger—and, if he was honest with himself, perhaps a touch of guilt?
Guilt? What the hell did he have to feel guilty about? He hadn’t been responsible for her marrying Blayne, or the catastrophic events that had followed. He had done everything within his power to stop Lucy destroying her own financial security and allowing her now ex-husband to plunder the trust fund, but she had refused to listen to him.
But, ridiculously, he did feel guilty. And for some reason that made him feel even more intensely irritated and angry with Lucy.
He was, he reminded himself grimly, her trustee, and he was now ruthlessly determined to protect what was left of her inheritance—from Lucy herself, if that should prove necessary.
He was well aware that her original blushing, bashful self-consciousness and virginal sexual curiosity about him had turned to resentment edged with apprehension. He had made it clear to her that he was not going to be persuaded into allowing her to remove what was left of her trust fund to put into her ailing business, no matter how much pressure she put on him to do so.
Prêt a Party was suffering the natural death throes of a business ruined by greed and mismanagement. The only thing that could save it now was a massive injection of capital and a very firm hand grasping its control. That had translated in Marcus’s mind into his massive capital injection and his firm hand, but whilst he could quite easily spare the money, he could not spare the time to salvage the wreckage of Lucy’s once profitable business.
He had stood by and watched—first assessingly, then reluctantly and then grudgingly admiringly—as she built up Prê
t a Party into a very nice little business, even if she had continued to irritate him with her almost aggressive post-crush antagonism towards him and her refusal to listen to his advice.
But all that had been before last night! Taking Lucy to bed had been the last thing on his mind when he had removed her from the party.
But he had done so. And now...
Marcus frowned heavily. He was almost thirty-five years old—an age by which all his male ancestors had already been married and had fathered the male heir who would ultimately take over the family bank. Since he had never been in love, it was hard for Marcus to envisage what being ‘in love’ might feel like. His observations of love in others inclined him to the view that he was better off not knowing. He had deliberately chosen relationships which allowed him to avoid marriage, but at the same time he had known that ultimately he must marry. And over this last year he had become increasingly aware of his duty to the bank and to the past. He needed a wife and he needed an heir.
Finding a wife would not be a problem, but finding the right kind of wife—who would adapt to his way of life and understand the duties and responsibilities it carried—could be one. Especially when the kind of marriage he wanted was one based on practicality rather than emotion. Especially when one considered his wish to father an heir.
It was time for him to find himself a woman. A woman with whom he was both socially and sexually compatible. A woman, perhaps, like Lucy.
Lucy? Had he gone mad? She exasperated him as no other woman could, and her marriage to Nick Blayne had only increased his impatient anger towards her.
But last night she had enticed and aroused him as no other woman had.
The truth was that Lucy needed protecting from herself. He would certainly be a far safer and more suitable husband for her than another Nick Blayne. A marriage between them would benefit them both. He needed a wife, and Lucy certainly needed a husband—if only to prevent her from repeating the mistake she had made in marrying Blayne.