Flirting with Trouble

With a wistful look at the rapidly spreading coffee stain, Marnie scooped up her now-empty cup and still-broken heel and made her way to the door. She dropped the cup in the trash on her way out, then staggered as well as she could to Hildy’s office on the other side of the reception area. Phoebe smiled perkily at her as she went, as oblivious to Marnie’s plight as she was to anything that wasn’t, well, perky. Inhaling a deep, fortifying breath, Marnie turned the knob to Hildy’s door and stepped inside.

“Marnie, I—” Her boss stopped cold when she glanced up from the papers on her desk to look at Marnie full on. She assessed Marnie critically from the hair bomb to the stained suit to the broken heel and back again. “My God, what happened to you?”

Marnie sighed, knowing they’d be there all day if she started listing. So she only said, “It does, too, rain in Southern California.”

Hildy studied Marnie through narrowed gray eyes. She opened her mouth as if she intended to ask something else, evidently thought better of it, and gestured toward one of two leather chairs on the other side of her desk. “Have a seat.”

Marnie hobbled across the room and folded herself gratefully into the chair, trying not to notice that Hildy’s silver-streaked black hair was perfectly coiffed and her plum-colored suit flawless. Hildy was always perfectly coiffed and flawless. That was why she was the employer and Marnie was a coffee-stained employee. As she sat in the chair indicated, she toed off her broken shoe and began trying to work the heel back on.

“You need to drop every account you have right now,” Hildy told her, “and focus on a new assignment.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Marnie objected immediately, her broken heel forgotten. “I’m juggling more than a dozen clients right now, on three continents. I can’t just blow them all off. They’ll—”

“Someone else can handle them,” Hildy interrupted. “I need you for something big.”

“Oh, bigger than Prince Torquil?” Marnie asked indignantly, citing the assignment that Hildy had previously told her should take precedence over everything else.

“This is much worse than Prince Torquil,” Hildy said evenly.

“I don’t see how it could be,” Marnie replied. “I mean, the Tortugan officials won’t even let King Bardo and Queen Ingeborg bring Torquil a minibar or personal chef to the jail. From all accounts, it’s been ugly.”

Now Hildy made a face. “Torquil will survive. We’ll let Jerry Turner handle it. He has a winter home down there somewhere. It’ll be like a paid vacation for him.”

Marnie started to object again, but was halted by Hildy’s raised hand.

“Louisa Fairchild has shot someone,” her boss told her.

Marnie’s mouth fell open and the forgotten shoe heel tumbled completely from her hand. Though, honestly, she didn’t know why she should be surprised. Louisa Fairchild was one of Division’s most crotchety clients, even living half a world away in Australia. One of their newer clients, she’d zoomed straight to the top of their list of High Maintenance Accounts. Even Prince Torquil’s martini deprivation paled in comparison. But then, Louisa Fairchild’s level of difficulty was pretty legendary, extending beyond the Thoroughbred industry in which she was practically an icon. Marnie had heard tales of the grand dame when she was a child, riding dressage herself.

“What happened?” Marnie asked.

Hildy sighed and leaned back in her chair. “It’s going to be a mess. Although Louisa claims it was self-defense, there are a number of extenuating circumstances and enough he said–she said to make your brain explode. Still,” she added thoughtfully, “the man she shot…Sam somebody…it’s all in the file…was in Louisa’s house when it happened, purportedly uninvited. Unfortunately, no one can prove he wasn’t there by invitation.”

“There were no witnesses?” Marnie asked.

Hildy shook her head. “None.”

Marnie groaned. “Great. And the annual Fairchild Gala is how far off?”

Hildy’s smile was brittle. “Less than two weeks.”

Marnie nodded. Hildy was right. Prince Torquil’s snafu had nothing on a Louisa Fairchild shooting.

“You’re going to have a lot of damage control to do,” Hildy told her. “Louisa Fairchild is our first Australian client, and we’re working hard to make inroads into that country to broaden our base. And that gala she has is nationally recognized for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for kids with special needs. If you handle this correctly, the gala will still go off without a hitch. And if Louisa comes out of this looking like the wounded party I’m confident she is, it could be just the ticket we need to expand our clientele.”

Oh, hey, no pressure there, Marnie thought. She just wished she was as confident of Louisa’s innocence as Hildy was.

Then again, Louisa was an eighty-year-old woman. What kind of man went after an eighty-year-old woman, even a cantankerous one? Of course Louisa Fairchild was the victim in this. Of course she was.

Hildy slid a manila file folder across the desk, which Marnie was confident would have all the information she needed for the case, and quickly began covering the basics. As her boss spoke, Marnie began to flip idly through the pages in the folder, realizing there was too much information to absorb casually. But, hey, that was okay—she’d have plenty of time to study it in depth on the trans-Pacific flight she would doubtless be taking within hours.

As if reading her mind—again—Hildy concluded, “Go home and pack a bag, Marnie. You’re on a three o’clock flight to Sydney.”

This was the part of the job Marnie hated most. The sudden switching of gears, the travel for which she had no time to prepare. It wasn’t unusual in public relations to experience both. Especially for a company like Division International, whose client list was overwhelmingly wealthy, pampered and used to getting their way. Of course, there had been a time in Marnie’s life when she herself had been wealthy, pampered and used to getting her way, but those days had come to an end seven years ago, when her father had lost everything—including the trust fund she’d assumed would always be there.

Marnie was about to flip the folder closed when she noticed the name at the bottom of the first page. The name of the man Louisa Fairchild had shot. The man who was, at that very moment, lying in a Sydney hospital undergoing surgery.

Sam Whittleson.

No, Marnie thought, physically shaking her head, as if that might negate what she was seeing. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Not Sam Whittleson. Not any Whittleson. Not ever again.

Most especially not Daniel Whittleson. Daniel Whittleson, the only man with whom Marnie had ever come close to falling in love. Daniel Whittleson, who’d come into her life out of nowhere eight years ago and made her rethink everything she’d wanted out of life. Daniel Whittleson, who had been charming and funny and decent and sweet—or so she’d thought—and who had shown her how very good it could be between two people…before dumping her with a Dear Jane letter in which he’d made it clear she was less important to him than the horses that could make him mountains of money. Daniel Whittleson, who had made her feel cherished and loved and important…before breaking her heart in two.

Daniel Whittleson, whose father, Sam, trained horses in Australia.

Chapter Two

“Mr. Whittleson?”

Daniel glanced up from where he sat beside his father’s hospital bed. The nurse had spoken his name barely loud enough to hear it. Dressed in the traditional white uniform so many nurses in the States had abandoned in favor of brightly colored scrubs, she looked to be in her fifties and had the sort of soft, pleasant features a person liked to see in someone whose job was taking care of others.

In the same hushed tone, he said, “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor.”

“Don’t you mean my father has a visitor?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. The woman asked if a Daniel Whittleson was here. That’s you, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

But why would anyone be visiting him? he wondered as he rose to follow the nurse out. He didn’t know anyone in Hunter Valley besides his father and Sam’s handful of friends, all of whom had already called or stopped by to check on him. And he was certain there were no women in his father’s life.

“Did she give you a name?” Daniel asked.

“No, she didn’t,” the nurse told him. She stopped in the middle of the hallway and gestured toward the end. “But she’s waiting for you in the waiting room down there.”

“Thanks,” Daniel said with some distraction as he strode in that direction.

At first, he didn’t recognize the sole occupant of the room. She was standing in profile, looking out the windows, staring at the lights of the dark and half-empty parking lot beyond. She was clearly deep in thought and unaware of his arrival, something that only intensified his confusion. He was about to speak when it finally hit him—like a two-by-four to the back of the head—who she was. It was as if thinking about her yesterday had made her suddenly appear today. Except she was supposed to be an ocean—and a lifetime—removed from here.

Marnie Roberts. Good God. What the hell was she doing here?

She had changed in the almost decade since their parting. A lot. Her hair was shorter, and dressed in tailored brown trousers and a shirt the burnt sienna of autumn leaves, she looked less like the vivid, bubbly party girl he remembered and more like a sophisticated career woman. But she’d softened the attire with a necklace and bracelet made of ribbons and beads, a bit of whimsy amid the elegance, and much more in keeping with the girlish flirt fresh out of college that he’d met in San Diego.

The minute she’d breezed into the ballroom of the Coronado Hotel as he was making his way out, Daniel had been smitten. Laughing and walk-dancing in time to the music, she’d been as effervescent as the dewy flute of champagne she’d been holding. He’d watched her as she plucked a chocolate-covered strawberry from a passing waiter and lifted it to her mouth, skimming the treat along her lower lip before taking a delicate bite. As if sensing his scrutiny, she’d glanced up just as she was sinking her teeth into the berry a second time, and her enormous eyes had widened in surprise before sparkling with laughter.

Once she’d realized she had an audience, she’d finished the fruit with an erotic flair. Her eyes never leaving his, she’d flicked the tip of her tongue against the luscious half-eaten berry before dragging it along her lip again, then sucked it softly into her mouth. Daniel had never been more aroused in his life as he watched her, and he hadn’t even known her name.