Luke almost groaned, wishing Theo would get to the point, but he knew from experience that there was no way to hurry him. ‘So, how are you going to get it back, then?’ he enquired.
‘I’m not. You are,’ Theo declared with a broad grin. ‘I met Sutherland’s daughter at the board meeting. She’s a delightful woman who knows nothing at all about the family business—though she does run her own. We had an interesting conversation, and I discovered she was attending the meeting only because her father had told her to. She inherited everything from her aunt—shares in the company and, more importantly, the property on Zante.’
‘Thank heaven for that.’ Luke rose and crossed to the drinks trolley, poured a slug of whisky into a glass and added a generous splash of iced water. ‘So the daughter is selling it and you want me to pay for it, right? No problem…’ Lifting the glass to his mouth, he took a refreshing drink, watching the old man with tender eyes.
‘No, I’d just got around to asking her if she would sell the villa, and she’d just told me she didn’t think she could, when the meeting was called to order. I don’t need your money, but I do need you to go to the dinner party tonight in my place. Use some of that skill you have at charming the ladies on the daughter. Show her a good time—wine and dine her for the rest of the week and soften her up a bit. Then, when I attend her birthday party on Saturday night, I can appeal to her finer feelings and explain to her that it is an old man’s wish to own the home of his ancestors and pass it on to his grandson. When I ask her again to sell me the property, she will be ready to say yes to anything she thinks you want.’
‘You want me to seduce her, you mean?’ Luke met Theo’s intent gaze and lifted one eyebrow in mocking cynicism. ‘You do surprise me, considering you have spent years complaining about my womanising ways. Shame on you, Theo!’
‘You don’t need go that far—not that it would be any hardship, I’m sure, for she is a very lovely lady.’ Theo grinned. ‘If I was forty years younger, I’d be there myself.’
Luke laughed. ‘You’re incorrigible, old man, but okay. You arrange with Sutherland for me to dine in your place tonight, and I will do my level best to charm the woman. In the meantime, I need to shower and dress.’ Draining his drink, he added, ‘What is the woman’s name?’
Theo was already reaching for the telephone to call Sutherland. ‘J something…Jem…or Jan, I think,’ his grandfather said, dialling a number.
Rolling his shoulders to relieve the ache in his back from long hours of travel and tension, Luke headed for his bedroom wondering just what he had let himself in for, hoping this Jan woman would turn out to be halfway presentable.
It was after midnight when Luke finally returned to his apartment.. tired, but with a self-satisfied smile on his darkly handsome face.
‘So what happened? Did you meet her? Did you like her? And, more importantly, did she like you?’ Theo demanded as soon as he walked in the door.
‘Yes to all three.’ Luke grinned. ‘But you shouldn’t have waited up.’
‘Never mind that…just tell me what happened.’
Luke collapsed on the sofa and loosened his tie and shirt collar. ‘I met Sutherland and he introduced me to his daughter Jan, and by an amazing coincidence I knew her.’
‘You knew her? Are you sure?’
‘Believe me, old man, I know her. I met her in New York years ago. She was working as a model then, and I dated her a few times. So you have absolutely nothing to worry about; the deal is virtually in the bag, I promise you. Jan was delighted to see me, and was all over me like a rash. I’m taking her out to dinner tomorrow night, and by the party on Saturday she will be desperate to gobble me whole.’ Rising to his feet, Luke added, ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed—and I suggest you do the same.’
‘Phone, Jemma—it’s your stepmother,’ Liz yelled.
Busy in the workshop, planting a hanging basket with summer annuals, Jemma didn’t appreciate the interruption. Sighing, she put down her tools, pulled off her protective gloves and picked up the extension on the workbench.
‘Yes, Leanne?’ Jemma only half listened to her stepmother for the next few minutes. Her own mother had died when she was twelve, after a long illness, and her father had married his secretary six months later—a single mother with a sixteen-year-old daughter, Janine, who had already left school and started a career as a model.
At the time Jemma had been attending boarding school, so the two girls had not been very close—more friends than family—but her father had officially adopted Janine, so they all shared the same surname.
‘You do understand, Jemma?’
‘Yes, perfectly.’ Jemma finally got a chance to speak. ‘I’ve ordered all the flowers you requested, and I’ll be there early on Saturday to decorate the house for Jan’s birthday party.’ Jemma put the phone down and glanced at Liz. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind managing with just young Patty on Saturday afternoon? We could close the shop and you could come with me?’
‘No, thanks,’ Liz replied. ‘You know I can only take the beautiful Janine in very small doses. What birthday is it this time—her twenty-eighth for the fourth year running?’
‘Don’t be catty! But you’re right—although I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Hey, apparently Jan met an old boyfriend at the dinner party last night.’
‘The same dinner party you ducked out of, pleading a headache yet again?’ Liz mocked.
‘Yes—well, apparently he is still a bachelor and incredibly wealthy. Jan wants to hook him, so there’s to be absolutely no mention of her real age.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Liz chuckled, a wicked glint in her dark eyes.
‘Naughty!’ Jemma smiled.
‘I only wish you would be naughty once in a while.’ Liz sighed. ‘It’s time you got out and enjoyed yourself again.’
‘Well, I am going to the party on Saturday,’ Jemma said, walking across to the centre counter and taking the order book from Liz’s hand. ‘And it’s time you went for lunch. Patty’s due back any minute, and Ray won’t be long.’ Patty was a trainee and Ray was a qualified florist, but he spent most of his time as their delivery driver.
‘Okay, I’m going. But I mean it, Jemma. Alan has been dead two years now, and, much as you loved him, it is time you started dating again—or at least considered the possibility, instead of freezing out every handsome man who so much as smiles at you. Haven’t you heard? Apart from being no fun, total celibacy is bad for one’s health.’
To Jemma’s undying shame, she had not been totally celibate in the last two years—she had made one enormous mistake, which she had vowed never to repeat, but she didn’t have the nerve to tell her best friend the truth. Instead Jemma threw a damp florist’s sponge at her. ‘Go to lunch!’
She watched a laughing Liz duck out of the door and sighed, flicking through the order book without actually reading it. She had already met and married her soul mate, and then she had lost him.
It had all started when Jemma had begun to spend most of her free time with Aunt Mary, after the death of her mother. Her father had sold the family home with its large garden and bought an impressive townhouse for his new wife. But Jemma loved gardening, and her aunt had allowed her a free hand in her garden. As a lecturer at Imperial College London, her Aunt Mary and her work as a botanist had fascinated Jemma, but her aunt’s young research assistant, Alan Barnes, had fascinated her more. She’d developed an enormous crush on him, and he had become her best friend and confidante.
Later, when she’d left school at eighteen, she’d known she didn’t