even stronger encouragement from her mother to apply for a degree course in biochemistry or animal physiology or even agriculture, she had opted for veterinary nursing. The money was poor, the hours long and, since there was no equivalent to the nursing service within human hospitals, there was no formal career structure and promotion prospects were limited. And she loved every minute. Or she had done until two weeks ago.
‘Whew.’ She breathed out a sigh as she dived off Oxford Street into the side street in which the coffee bar was situated, standing by some iron railings as she smoothed her hair back from her hot face, pulled down her top and wished she didn’t feel so sticky. After energetically fanning herself with a leaflet for vitamin pills she’d found in her handbag, she conceded it just made her more over-heated. She glanced at her watch. It wasn’t the expensive little silver beauty Jeff had given her for Christmas, because that was now the pride and joy of her local charity shop, along with every other gift which had come from him in the two years since she had known him; the ring she had flung back in his lying, cheating face. No, this watch was a sturdy plastic thing from a market stall. Which summed up her entire life at present really.
The rich smell of coffee was overpowering as she stepped through the open doors of the coffee bar, her glance moving swiftly over the assembled clientele. She saw Sue and Jackie in the same moment that both women raised their hands to her, but what made her pause for a second was the fact that they were not alone. A man was sitting lazily beside Jackie, one knee crossed over the other and with both arms stretched out along the back of the booth in which the three were situated. And what a man. Raven-black hair, tanned skin, chiselled features—even from six or seven metres away he was drop dead gorgeous. Not that she was really noticing such things at the present time, of course, not with her life in tatters, she assured herself as she made her way over to them.
‘You’re twenty minutes late.’
This was from Sue, who was such a stickler for punctuality she had made sure none of them ever got a detention for being late at school.
‘Sorry.’ Maisie smiled brightly. ‘Missed my tube stop.’
‘That’s fine, no problem.’
As Jackie spoke Maisie saw her flash Sue a glance which said all too clearly, Don’t have a go at her; remember what’s happened. Poor Maisie.
Maisie kept the smile in place with gritted teeth. ‘I’ll just go and grab a coffee, won’t be a tick.’
‘Please, let me. What will you have?’
Drop dead gorgeous had risen to his feet at her approach, and now Jackie said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I should have introduced you. Maisie, this is my uncle, Blaine Morosini. Blaine, my other best friend, Maisie.’
Uncle? But he was nowhere near old enough to be Jackie’s uncle, was he? And then, as Maisie stared into a pair of greeny-blue eyes heavily fringed by black lashes, she found her thoughts moving in a different direction. She didn’t consider herself particularly small at five-foot-six, but she was having to look up a considerable way. Blaine Morosini must be at least six-foot-three or-four, and big with it. Well, not big exactly, she amended, answering his formal, ‘How do you do?’ with a smile and a nod. There didn’t seem to be the tiniest bit of fat on the lean broad frame from what she could see. But certainly he was more muscled and honed than most men. Or perhaps it was just that he gave an overall impression which was a bit overwhelming.
She blinked, finding it surprisingly hard to break the hold the beautiful eyes had on her.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Maisie.’
Jackie was smiling as Maisie’s gaze swung to her friend’s face. Maisie almost blurted out, If you do, don’t say it out loud, before she stopped herself.
‘You’re thinking, how can Blaine possibly be my uncle when he’s only a couple of years older than us, aren’t you?’
Maisie breathed a silent sigh of relief. ‘Something like that.’
‘I’m Jackie’s half-uncle, to be strictly accurate.’
Again she was forced to look at him and now the overall width of strong male shoulders registered deep in her body with a definite jolt. That and the smoky rich voice with its curl of an Italian accent.
‘And the relationship is quite simple. My brother, Jackie’s father, was conceived by our father’s first marriage. My father married again many years later and I am the result of this union.’
‘I see.’ She nodded in what she hoped was a brisk, it’s-none-of-my-business fashion. She knew Jackie’s father had come over from Italy as a young man because he had quarrelled bitterly with his father. Jackie and her siblings had never met the Italian side of their family; in fact her friend had told her their mother had warned them never to ask questions or speak of their father’s homeland. Obviously something had happened recently to change this.
Jackie probably guessed what she was thinking again because now she said quietly, ‘My grandfather is very ill but I’ll explain later. Come and sit down while Blaine gets you a coffee. What would you like? Your usual?’
Her usual was a large latte, often accompanied by the out-of-this-world coffee cheesecake the coffee bar was famous for. Maisie swallowed. After the pizza and toffee doughnuts she had lain in bed feeling like a beached whale, and had gone to sleep promising herself tomorrow would be the start of a stringent diet. No more comforting herself with the fact she had always been rounded and that some men preferred curvy women; that was what Jeff had said and he had disappeared into the blue with a beanpole. ‘A black coffee, please.’
‘A black coffee?’ Sue, never the most tactful of creatures, fairly screeched in amazement. ‘You hate black coffee.’
‘I’ve developed a taste for it recently.’ A few hours ago, as it happened. And then, before Sue could say anything else, Maisie added firmly, ‘And nothing to eat, thank you. I’ve just had breakfast. I got up late.’
‘Black coffee it is then.’
Blaine’s voice was matter-of-fact, but Maisie had the nasty notion that he knew her mouth was watering for the cheesecake. And that told her Jackie had informed him of her recent broken engagement and he had put two and two together and made four. But of course she could be being paranoid here. It was something which was happening fairly frequently recently.
She sat down as Blaine walked away and immediately Sue whispered, ‘What do you think of Jackie’s uncle, then? A real Italian dreamboat, or what?’
Maisie smiled. She hadn’t been looking forward to seeing Sue and Jackie; she hadn’t been looking forward to anything, and it felt like she never would again, but now she was glad she had made the effort to come. Sitting here like this, she almost felt normal again instead of the fattest, ugliest, most unfanciable female in the whole of London. ‘He’s very good-looking,’ she agreed quietly.
‘Very good-looking? That’s like saying the Taj Mahal is a little bit famous. If anyone’s got the X-factor, he has. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in here and saw him sitting with Jackie. For a minute I thought it was a new boyfriend and I was going to scratch her eyes out. Why you didn’t tell me he was coming so I could have made more of an effort, I don’t know,’ she added in an aside to Jackie. ‘I’d have worn something new.’
‘Sue, you always look immaculate, besides which this isn’t about you,’ Jackie said shortly. ‘You know the history and all the trouble in the family
