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 have the academic brain to follow in her aunt’s footsteps. But what she did have was an artistic flair with plants, and she had enrolled on a two-year course in floristry at a local college—which was where she’d met Liz. Jemma’s relationship with Alan had grown into a deep, abiding love, and it had been with his encouragement that Jemma and Liz had opened their shop together. Life had been great, and it had only got better when, at the age of twenty-two, Jemma had married Alan Barnes in a fairytale wedding.
Tragically, they had only been married for a brief four years when Alan had been killed in a gliding accident—a sport both he and Jemma had enjoyed. She still felt guilty that she had not been with him on the fatal day; instead she had stayed in London to complete a large order to decorate the old Assembly Rooms for a charity gala that evening.
Thinking about Alan now still squeezed her heart with sadness, but, thanks to Liz’s unfailing support over the past two years, she had at least got over crying at the thought of him and could now face the world, as content as she would ever be.
The wind chimes over the door rang, and Jemma glanced up as a customer walked in. She banished her memories to the back of her mind and smiled. ‘Can I help you?’
Luke glanced down at the elegant blonde who had attached herself to his arm the moment the maid had shown him and Theo into the drawing room of the large Georgian mansion in Connaught Square that was the Sutherland home. ‘Happy birthday, Jan.’ He had given her a present last night: nothing too personal—a Prada handbag. ‘And my grandfather I think you know—’
She didn’t let him finish. ‘Oh, yes, I know. How terrible…’ She flashed a smile in Theo’s direction. ‘I was so sorry to hear you’d hurt your ankle. But I can’t deny I was delighted Luke came to dinner in your place.’ Then, turning her eyes up to Luke, she gushed, ‘It was fate we met again. Isn’t that right, darling?’ And she tilted her head back for his kiss.
‘Probably,’ Luke murmured, smiling down at his companion. Jan was a sophisticated lady who knew the score; he had met her type a thousand times and it was no hardship to dip his head and brush his lips briefly against her scarlet mouth. Though it did surprise him that Theo found her attractive; he wouldn’t have thought a six-foot-tall, rake-thin model would be his grandfather’s type at all.
The noise hit Jemma first as she descended the staircase. She cast a professional eye over the flower display on the hall table and, satisfied, reluctantly turned towards the source of the noise. She had very rarely attended large parties since Alan’s death, but this was one she could not avoid.
Straightening her shoulders, she walked into the crowded drawing room and glanced around, her gaze alighting on the birthday girl. Jan was gazing up at a man who had his back to Jemma. Her perfectly made-up face was lifted to his, anticipating a kiss, and he duly obliged. Well over six foot tall, with broad shoulders and black hair, he looked impressive even from the back—and he was a perfect foil for Jan’s model height and sleek blonde hair.
They made a striking couple, Jemma thought idly, and let her gaze drift away—only to suddenly focus on an old man standing on his own and watching the embracing couple. He was leaning heavily on a silver-topped cane and had an expression of total bewilderment on his weathered face—a face she instantly recognised. He looked as out of place as Jemma felt, and swiftly she moved towards him.
‘Mr Devetzi.’ She smiled at her saviour from the board meeting. ‘It’s lovely to see you again.’ She offered her hand and he gratefully grasped it.
‘It is my privilege,’ he replied, and with old-world courtesy raised her hand and kissed it. ‘Please call me Theo.’
‘Theo it is, you old charmer.’ Jemma laughed.
Luke felt Theo tug frantically on the sleeve of his jacket at exactly the same moment as he recognised the soft feminine voice. He turned slowly and saw the woman holding his grandfather’s hand and smiling into his eyes, flirting with him… He tensed, every muscle in his body locking in shock and outrage. He knew her in the most intimate way possible; she had haunted his dreams for the past year, and he despised her for her lack of morals even as his body still ached for her. But, before he could formulate a suitably cutting greeting, Jan’s grip on his other arm tightened and she spoke to the woman.
‘Jemma, darling, meet Luke—the wonderful man I was telling you about.’
Luke heard Jan’s voice, but only registered the name. Jemma. So what had happened to Mimie? he thought cynically. Obviously it was a pseudonym she used when cheating on her husband! But, however unfaithful she was, it didn’t alter the fact that she looked even more incredible than he remembered.
The first and only time he had seen her until this party had been a year ago, when he and a group of his friends had taken a cruise around the Greek islands in his yacht for a couple
