expression lost some of its sparkle when she looked at the divorce party order printout again. ‘I hope we’re not going to only do divorce parties and funerals now...’
A clench of panic gripped Holly’s gut like a bad case of giardia. During the last week, three of her biggest clients had cancelled their wedding bookings without explanation. It had never happened before and she was trying not to worry. Yet. But she had a mortgage and expensive renovations on her new house to pay for. Staff to pay. Hell to pay if she failed. ‘It’ll be fine. All businesses go through downturns. Things will pick up now that it’s spring. Not that you’d notice by the weather.’
Jane chewed her lower lip, her finger absently flicking the corner of the paper. ‘It’s just with my nephew’s autism therapy costing so much I couldn’t bear to cut back my hours, or worse, to lose this job.’
Holly would rather live on the street than see Jane short of money to fund her young nephew’s therapy. She took Jane’s hand. ‘You are not going to lose your job. I can’t run this place without you.’ She let her assistant’s hand go to pick up her secateurs. ‘Anyway, I hear divorce parties are big business these days.’
‘But weddings are your speciality,’ Jane said. ‘You love everything to do with weddings. Everyone knows that. Do you think it’s because you’re so anti-men?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘You’ve not exactly made it a secret you think all men are bastards,’ Jane said. ‘A few of those social media posts of yours have been a little negative and you haven’t had a date in what...two and a half years? What if that’s putting off potential clients?’
Holly snipped another stem off a rose. ‘I hardly see what my opinion of men has to do with running a successful floristry business. I don’t need a man in my life. I’m fine. F-I-N-E. Fine.’
‘If you don’t get more wedding work, you’re finished.’ Jane’s tone was grim. Funereal grim. ‘There are other wedding florists in London, you know. Competition is tough. What you need is an image makeover. Or a man. Or both.’
Holly put her secateurs down. ‘What is this obsession with finding me a partner? Why does everyone think a woman is lacking something if she hasn’t got a man in her life?’
The computer pinged to say another order had come in. Jane moved across to read the screen and sighed. ‘There goes another one. The Mackie wedding in June. Cancelled.’
Holly came over and peered at the email, her stomach feeling like she’d ingested thorns. Hundreds and hundreds of prickly thorns. Like the other three cancellations, there was no explanation. Was it her fault? Had she been too vocal about her anti-men phase? She straightened from the computer. ‘Okay. So maybe I’ll shut up on social media about how much I hate two-timing men.’
Jane drummed her fingers on the bench like she was accompanying the cogs of her brain turning over. ‘Hey, I have an idea. Get someone to take a photo of you at the divorce party standing next to Zack Knight. Get Kendra to do it. She’s got gazillions of followers. A photo of you two flirting with each other would be sure to go viral. Then your problem’s solved.’
‘Brilliant suggestion, Jane, but as far as I’m concerned flirting is as bad as the other F-word. Anyway, I hung up my flirting boots a long time ago.’ Holly picked up the secateurs and wished she had both of her exes handy so she could prune off their most prized parts of their anatomy. ‘I don’t even know how to do it any more.’
And even if I did, I wouldn’t do it.
The divorce party was being held at a swanky hotel in the heart of London. The champagne was flowing like a fountain on fast-forward, but the lively chatter and party atmosphere did nothing to improve Holly’s mood. The tiny teeth of panic were nipping at her stomach lining like aphids on rose petals. What if she couldn’t meet her financial commitments? What if her business folded?
What if she failed? That was another F-word she hated. Failure.
Holly was tucking into her second slice of black forest cheesecake when Zack Knight arrived. She knew it was Zack because of the way the mostly female guests gave a collective gasp of awe when he entered the room. Holly would have gasped too if it hadn’t been for the mouthful of cheesecake she’d just spooned in. She could never resist cheesecake. It was her weakness. Well, one of them anyway. She had seen photos of Zack in the gossip pages but had never met him in the flesh. The photos hadn’t done him justice. Not one bit of justice. Had she ever seen a more gorgeous-looking man?
He was head and shoulders over everyone in the room, which was saying something because even though most of the women were wearing skyscraper heels, he still towered over them like a thoroughbred stallion surrounded by circus ponies. His jet-black hair was styled in one of those casual, just-got-out-of-bed-after-wild-sex styles that gave him a rakish air. He was clean-shaven but the rich dark pinpricks of stubble had a sexy urgency about them that suggested there was no lack of supply of potent male hormones pulsing through his blood. His skin had an olive tone that glowed with a light tan, which highlighted the healthy vital energy that surrounded him like an aura.
Holly could feel the energy he radiated all the way across the room. It was like his body was sending out a radio signal and hers was sending a response. Peep. Peep. Peep. Her skin lifted in a shower of goose bumps, even the backs of her knees tingled and something lying asleep deep and low in her belly woke and stretched its limbs like a languorous cat.
Zack’s mouth looked as if it was no stranger to smiling. Not just any old smiling. The sort of smiling that could melt the strongest of feminine willpower like a blowtorch through a block of ice.
His gaze swept the room and suddenly honed in on Holly’s. His dark brows rose ever so slightly in a do-I-know-you? fashion that made the sleepy cat in her belly start to purr. She could feel the vibrations inside her body. Deep inside her body, sending hot little flickers of awareness between her thighs. His gaze went to her mouth and then did an assessing sweep of her figure, and another frisson passed over her flesh as if he had reached across the room and touched her.
Holly couldn’t understand why her heart was flip-flopping like a frantic fish. Her breathing was shallow and hurried as if she’d run up a flight of stairs. Two flights. Possibly more. Her body felt like it was being heated up from the inside, making her skin hot and tight and so sensitive she became aware of every fibre of her clothing against her body.
She couldn’t remember meeting a more attractive-looking man. She might be over men, but even a confirmed celibate like her wasn’t completely immune from such an amazing vision of manhood. His body was toned from regular exercise or good genes or both. Or maybe it was from marathon sex sessions with his numerous lovers. Holly could see why women found him irresistible. She was half a room away and could feel his magnetic pull like she was a puny little florist pin and he an industrial-strength magnet.
His gaze came back to hers and his lips curved upwards in a confident smile that did strange things to her pulse and other parts of her anatomy. He crossed the floor towards her. He had a purposeful I-never-fail-to-meet-my-goals gait that more or less confirmed what she knew of him. He was a lethal opponent in a court of law. The word on the street: you engaged Zack Knight’s services—expensive as they were—before your ex-partner did. He worked overtime for his clients and, while they paid for it, he always delivered. Always. He acted on some of the dirtiest celebrity divorces in the country and always made sure his clients left court with a fist pump of victory.
Holly
