Modern Romance May 2016 Books 5-8. Дженнифер Хейворд

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I AM NOT serving that man on table nine,’ Kat Winwood said to her co-worker Meg on her way through to the café kitchen. Aspiring actor she might be, but being polite to that Savile Row–suited, silver-tongued smart ass was way outside Kat’s repertoire. She couldn’t afford to lose this job—not unless she got the dream part in the London stage play. The role that would launch her career so she would never have to wait on another table or do another crappy—no pun intended—toilet-paper advertisement.

      Meg glanced at the man before looking back at Kat. ‘Isn’t that Flynn Carlyon? The hotshot celebrity lawyer to those famous theatre actors Richard and Elisabetta Ravensdale?’

      ‘Yes.’ Kat gritted her teeth and unloaded the tray, stabbing the knives into the dishwasher basket as if it were Flynn Carlyon’s eye sockets. How had he tracked her down? Again?

      Kat didn’t want her co-workers or her new boss to know she was Richard Ravensdale’s scandalous secret. The secret child of his two-night-stand hotel barmaid.

      His love child.

      Ack. Thinking about the tacky words was bad enough. Seeing them splashed all over every London tabloid for the last three months had been nothing short of excruciating. Toenails-torn-off-with-pliers excruciating. What had love had to do with her conception? She was the product of lust. The dirty little secret Richard had paid to be removed. Obliterated.

      So far no one at work had recognised her. So far. She had styled her hair differently so she didn’t look like the photos that had been circulated. She had even modified her name so the press would leave her alone. For the last couple of months Flynn had been doing his level best as Richard’s lawyer to get her to play happy families, but she wasn’t going to fling her arms around her biological father and say ‘I’m so glad I found you’ any time soon. Not in this millennium. Or the next. If Flynn thought he could wave big, fat cheques in front of her nose, or wear her down by turning up at her workplaces, then he had better think again.

      Meg was looking at Kat with eyes as wide as the plates on the counter. ‘Do you know him? Personally, I mean?’

      ‘I know enough about him to know he drinks a double-shot espresso with a glass of water—no ice—on the side,’ Kat said.

      Meg’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You sure you don’t want to...?’

      ‘No.’ Kat slammed the dishwasher shut. ‘Absolutely not. You take him.’

      Meg walked somewhat timidly towards Flynn’s table where he was sitting alone with one of the daily broadsheets spread out in front of him. They exchanged a few words and Meg came back with brightly flushed cheeks and a wincing don’t-shoot-me-I’m-the-messenger look. ‘He said, if you don’t serve him in the next two minutes he’s going to speak to the manager.’

      Kat glanced at her boss, Joe, who was behind the hissing, steaming and spluttering coffee machine working his way through a list of early morning orders. If this job went kaput, she wondered how long she could couch surf in order to get enough money together to get a place of her own. At least she had the house-sitting job in Notting Hill starting this evening. The money was good, but it was only for the next four weeks. Come the first of February, she would be homeless, unless she could find another dirt-cheap bedsit. Preferably without fleas. Or bedbugs.

      Any wildlife.

      Kat sucked in a steadying breath, aligned her shoulders and walked to table nine with her best be-polite-to-the-annoying-customer smile stitched in place. ‘How may I help you?’

      Flynn’s molasses-black gaze surveyed her tightly set features and lowered to the name badge pinned above her right breast. ‘Kathy is it, now?’ His smile was slow. Slow and deliberate. Amusement laced with mockery and a garnish of ‘got you.’

      Kat tried to ignore the faint prickle in her breast where his gaze had rested. ‘Would you like the usual, sir?’

      His eyes gleamed. ‘In a cup, preferably. It doesn’t taste quite the same when it’s poured in my lap.’

      He was baiting her. Goading her. She. Would. Not. Bite. ‘Would you like anything with your coffee?’ she asked. ‘Croissant? Muffin? Sour dough toast? Eggs? Bacon? No, perhaps not bacon. We can’t have you being a cannibal, can we?’

      Damn it.

      She’d bitten.

      The corner of his mouth tilted in a smug smile, making him look like he thought he’d won that round. ‘What time do you finish work?’

      Kat gave him a brace-yourself-for-round-two look. ‘I’m here to serve you coffee or a meal or a snack. I’m not here to give you details about my private life.’

      Flynn glanced towards the coffee machine. ‘Does your boss know your true identity?’

      ‘No, and I’d like to keep it that way.’ Kat gripped her pen to stop herself from holding it to his throat to make him promise not to tell. ‘Now, if you’ll just give me your order...’

      ‘Richard’s agent has organised a Sixty Years in Showbiz celebration for him later this month,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a This Is Your Life format. I want you there.’

      His tone suggested he was used to getting what he wanted. Every. Single. Time.

      But Kat hadn’t

Скачать книгу