with Leo Hamilton.
But now as she pulled on the handbrake, staring blindly out through her windscreen at the lines of cars and trucks all firmly stalled in the heavy traffic, there seemed little she could do to combat the wild, nervous fluttering in her stomach.
Relax! Keep calm...there’s no need to panic. Quite apart from anything else, there’s a good chance that Leo probably won’t even recognise you, she told herself firmly. ‘And let’s hope he doesn’t!’ she added out loud, with an attempt at grim humour, almost shuddering as she recalled the deeply unhappy young girl who had suddenly found herself dumped in a strange household in Italy all those years ago.
Most teenage girls looked a mess at one time or another—but she’d really gone to town, with that ‘heavy Gothic’ style!
It was difficult to remember now exactly what had prompted her to dye her hair jet-black. Or why she’d ever thought that smothering her face in chalky-white foundation and applying both sooty-black mascara and dark crimson lipstick with a heavy hand could be a good idea. Could it have been some sort of protest? An infantile act of rebellion against an unkind world? If so, it had, most unfortunately, proved to be a fatal mistake.
After one appalled glance at the strange-looking sixteen-year-old girl who’d suddenly arrived at her holiday home in Tuscany, Leo’s mother, Eleanor Lucas, had swiftly taken matters in hand. However, by the time she’d forcefully bullied Alex into looking more like the girl’s normal self, it had proved to be far, far too late. Because, barely moments after setting eyes on him, Alex had fallen desperately in love with her tall, dark and handsome twenty-three-year-old stepbrother. While he, for his part, had clearly only thought of her as some ghastly teenaged version of one of the Munsters.
Over the years, Alex had done her level best to forget that long, baking-hot and totally dreadful summer holiday, where one disaster had been swiftly followed by another, like a Greek tragedy. But now, with the prospect of meeting once more the man who had so blighted her young life, she could feel her skin almost crawling with embarrassment and humiliation.
Cool it! she told herself firmly as the stalled traffic began slowly moving, at last. Just about everyone makes a complete idiot of themselves at least once in their lives. So, why should you be the exception? Besides, what happened in the past doesn’t matter. It’s the here and now that’s important. And, if you don’t want to find yourself out of a job, you’ve got to get this story—come hell or high water!
Unfortunately, trying to psych herself up for the forthcoming confrontation with Leo wasn’t proving too successful. Mainly because it didn’t need a very high IQ to realise that, after the horrendous scene in Mike’s office, her job was now squarely on the line. A fact which her editor had made crystal clear.
‘I’m going out on a limb for you, Alex. So you’d better deliver the goods,’ he’d warned.
Ignoring Imogen’s furious anger at being overruled, Mike had continued grimly, ‘These articles of yours had better be damn good. If I find that you’ve been spinning a yarn—or trying to pull the wool over my eyes in any way—I can guarantee that you’ll never work for me again. Or any other newspaper, for that matter. Got the message?’
Alex had nodded nervously, the noise of Imogen’s rage and fury ringing in her ears as she’d hurried away from his office.
Well, at least she hadn’t been lying about her relationship with Leo Hamilton, Alex had comforted herself, trying to ignore her guilty conscience as she’d reached the sanctuary of her desk.
Oh, yeah? Just who do you think you’re kidding? The ghostly voice in her head had demanded with a scornful laugh. You may not have told a one hundred per cent lie. But you were definitely being economical with the truth—right? Because Leo is only a sort of stepbrother—or should it be stepbrother by marriage? And you haven’t set eyes on the rotten man, or the rest of his horrid family, for almost eight years.
‘OK...OK,’ she’d muttered under her breath, resolutely banishing her conscience to the far, dark recesses of her mind as she’d tried to concentrate on the Herculean task before her.
First and foremost Alex had realised that she needed a lot of background information—almost as important to a journalist as water in the Sahara Desert. After all, she knew absolutely nothing about Fiona Bliss, and had virtually no knowledge of what her stepbrother had been up to during the past eight years.
However, just over an hour later, she’d been feeling quite pleased with herself. The Chronicle’s library had produced a pile of news cuttings on Leo and his family, while a quick phone call to her old school friend Sophie would hopefully provide a whole host of material about his new fiancée, Fiona Bliss.
Unfortunately, Sophie—who rented the basement flat of Alex’s house, and worked on a glamorous monthly magazine mostly devoted to fashion and the lives of those prominent in society—had proved an unexpectedly hard nut to crack. It was only after promising to lend the other girl her best long gown for a deathly smart St Valentine’s Ball—and her favourite pair of high-heeled gold sandals and matching bag—that Sophie had reluctantly agreed to raid the files in her office.
‘Great!’ Alex had grinned down the phone. ‘So, how about meeting me for a late lunch in the pub around the corner from your office, and you can give me the details then. OK?’
‘No, it’s not OK,’ her friend had protested. ‘I’ll need a lot more time than just a few hours. Who do you think I am? Mata Hari?’
Alex had gritted her teeth in frustration. ‘Look...do you want to be the belle of the ball, and make that ex-boyfriend of yours as jealous as hell, or what?’ she demanded. ‘Of course, if you’re happy to wear your tatty old black dress, and don’t mind looking like something the cat dragged in...’
‘Oh, all right!’ Sophie had ground out, before slamming down her phone.
So far, so good. But with so little time in which to both complete her interviews and write the article, Alex knew that time was of the essence. Which was why, striving to keep calm and banish her rising panic, she’d swallowed her pride and begged James Boswell for his help.
Clearly aggrieved that he hadn’t known of her relationship to Leo Hamilton, the paper’s social editor still didn’t think she had much of a chance of gaining the glamorous banker’s cooperation.
‘Especially now that the guy has the modern equivalent of a shotgun wedding in front of him,’ James had added with a sour grin.
‘You don’t mean...?’
‘No, of course I don’t think his girlfriend is pregnant,’ he’d retorted curtly. ‘But your stepbrother is going to find it almost impossible to extricate himself from the clutches of Fiona’s mother, Ethel Bliss. Believe me, that’s one really tough, hard woman—who’s ruthlessly ambitious for her only child. Don’t forget, it was Ethel who tipped me off about the “engagement”. So, even if Leo wanted to extricate himself from the situation—and I’ve no reason to think that he does—I’ll lay any money that he’s going to find himself standing at the altar, firmly anchored to a heavy ball and chain!’
James had also let fall the information that her stepbrother lived in a large, glamorous penthouse apartment in Knightsbridge, overlooking Hyde Park.
‘With a tough doorman, and more intruder alarms than the Bank of England, none of my contacts has been able to put a foot over the threshold. I still don’t think Leo will agree to help with your article,’ he’d added, with
