The Dare Collection: March 2018. Nicola Marsh

       CHAPTER ONE

      Abby

      D-DAY SHOULD’VE BEEN the happiest day of my life.

      I’d envisaged a fabulous eight hours at Le Miel, creating the French pastries I’d grown to adore over the last year, followed by an intimate evening with a bottle of Shiraz and Channing Tatum.

      What better way to celebrate a divorce than with a rich red to tantalise my palate and a hot guy strutting across my TV screen?

      But my dreams of drooling into my wineglass over Channing turned to crap about an hour into the working day, when Remy King, the best boss in Australia, took a tumble off a ladder and ended up here, in Sydney Private Hospital.

      ‘You don’t need to stay,’ he said, his blue eyes filled with pain despite being dosed up on enough painkillers to fell an elephant. ‘Go back to the shop.’

      ‘Makayla has it covered.’ I perched delicately on the edge of his bed and reached for his hand. ‘Besides, I finished making the croissants, beignets, éclairs and macarons before you decided to do your lousy circus impression, so there’s not much left for her to do but serve.’

      He managed a wan smile and winced. ‘It was the ladder’s fault.’

      ‘Yeah, it just happened to move sideways on that patch of flour on the floor all by itself.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘If you weren’t such a great boss and friend, I’d give you an ass-kicking for being so stupid.’

      ‘And if you weren’t the best apprentice I’ve ever had, I’d sack you on the spot for being so bold.’

      I squeezed his hand, thanking God every day that this man had given me a chance when I needed it most.

      Apparently leaving my cold, calculating husband after only nine months of marriage ‘wasn’t the done thing’ in the Prendigast family.

      Not that my parents had cared why I’d done it. All they’d worried about was their precious reputation as one of the wealthiest families in Sydney, so they had cut me off financially and emotionally to teach me a lesson.

      They’d expected me to come running back to their harbourside mansion in the first week.

      I hadn’t been back in a year.

      Yet for all their faults, I missed my folks. My friends too. But I’d left Abigail Prendigast, the perfect daughter in a perfect world who did exactly as she was told, behind that fateful day I’d walked out on my old life and into my new.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Remy’s eyes narrowed, studying me. ‘If it’s the patisserie, don’t worry, you don’t have to handle the place on your own. I’ve already contacted Tanner, and he’ll be happy to help run the place while I’m recuperating.’

      I stiffened. While I’d never met Remy’s younger brother, I’d heard enough to form an impression. And it wasn’t good.

      The guy sounded like a flake. A rich flake, who ran nightclubs and bars along the eastern seaboard, made a squillion from them, but spent most of his time flitting overseas squandering his fortune on women.

      Yet for some reason Remy seemed to adore him. I’d heard genuine emotion in his voice every time Tanner called from one of his far-flung destinations. Guess I had to give the guy credit for keeping in touch with his brother despite his playboy lifestyle.

      I’d seen him once too, while Remy had been chatting to him on a teleconference call. It had been a fleeting glimpse of dark hair, dark eyes and stubble-covered jaw. Handsome if you liked that kind of thing. Me? I preferred uncomplicated, the opposite of Bardley, my ex, and the glower I’d seen on Tanner was enough to tell me he had complication all over him.

      ‘Isn’t Tanner overseas?’ I asked, sounding way calmer than I felt. I didn’t need some stranger who wouldn’t know a praline from a peach melba looking over my shoulder. I was confident in my work at Le Miel and

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