His Delicious Revenge: The Price of Retribution / Count Valieri's Prisoner / The Highest Stakes of All

And she gave a sudden shiver.

She’d been in New York when Aunt Hazel’s call had come, she recalled later that night, when sleep remained curiously elusive.

‘Tarn—Tarn—are you there—or is it just that nasty machine?’

She’d known at once from the agitated tone that it meant trouble. In any case, her foster mother rarely rang just for a catch-up chat. And lately there’d been hardly any calls at all, Aunt Hazel, she’d supposed, being totally preoccupied by preparations for Evie’s forthcoming and presumably triumphant marriage.

She said briskly, ‘Yes, I’m here. What’s the matter?’

‘It’s Evie. Oh, God, Tarn.’ The words were tumbling over each other. ‘My poor baby. She’s taken an overdose of sleeping pills—tried to kill herself.’

Tarn heard her with horrified dismay. Evie might be something of a flake at times, but attempted suicide? That was unbelievable. Awful beyond words.

‘Tarn—did you hear what I said?’

‘I heard,’ Tarn said slowly. ‘But why should she do such a thing? In her letters, she always seemed so happy.’

‘Well, she’s not happy now, not any more.’ Aunt Hazel was crying with loud, breathy sobs. ‘Perhaps never again. Because he’s finished with her—that man—that brute she was going to marry. The engagement’s off and she’s had a complete nervous collapse as a result. She’s been rushed into some kind of rest home, and they won’t allow visitors. Not even me.

‘Tarn, I’m going frantic. You’ve got to come home. I can’t be alone at a time like this. I may go to pieces myself. You have to find out what’s going on at this place—The Refuge. They might talk to you. You’re so good at this kind of thing.’

Except, Tarn thought grimly, that would-be suicides and mental breakdowns were well outside her experience zone.

She said gently, ‘Don’t worry, Aunt Hazel. I’ll get the first available flight. But you shouldn’t be on your own. Would Mrs Campbell stay with you till I get there?’

‘Oh, no,’ the older woman said quickly. ‘You see I’d have to explain—and I can’t. No-one else knew about the wedding, apart from us. It was all going to be a totally hush-hush affair. And if Mrs Campbell ever found out, she’d tell everyone that my poor girl’s been jilted, and I couldn’t bear that.’

‘Hush-hush?’ Tarn repeated astonished. ‘But why?’

‘Because that’s the way they both wanted it. No fuss.’ Mrs Griffiths was crying again. ‘Who could have thought it would end like this?’

Who indeed? Tarn thought grimly as she eventually replaced the receiver. And why on earth would the head of publishing conglomerate the Brandon Organisation want his forthcoming marriage to be a secret? Unless, of course, there was never going to be any marriage—and that was another secret that, this time, he’d carefully kept to himself.

Because St Margaret’s Westminster and an all-day party at the Savoy or some other glamorous venue, accompanied by all the razzmatazz at his disposal seemed more the style for a billionaire tycoon.

Not that many of them crossed her path very often, she reminded herself wryly.

She still found it almost impossible to credit what had happened. It was true that her foster mother had always been an emotional woman, and prone to exaggeration yet this time there seemed every excuse for her reaction.

She wandered restlessly round her loft apartment, as she considered what to do.

A flight to Heathrow for the following day was, of course, her main priority. But she had also to deal with the problem of Howard, who would not be pleased to hear that she wouldn’t be accompanying him to the Florida Keys to stay with some friends he had there.

Tarn herself had mixed feelings about the cancellation of the trip. She and Howard had been dating for a while now, but she’d been careful to keep their relationship as casual and platonic as all the others she’d embarked on in the past. Not that there’d been that many.

However, she recognised that this state of affairs could probably not be maintained indefinitely. This invitation was clearly intended to move things to a more intimate level, and she’d accepted, mainly because she could think of no good reason to refuse.

Howard Brenton worked as management editor with Van Hilden International, the company which published the celebrity ‘biographies’ which Tarn now so successfully ghosted under her company name ‘Chameleon’. Which was how they’d met.

He was attractive, amusing and available (three starred A’s on the Manhattan scene). Tarn liked him, but wasn’t sure if love would ever be on the cards. But, she’d eventually decided, perhaps it deserved to be given at least a fighting chance.

After all, what was she waiting for? she’d asked herself with faint cynicism. Prince Charming to gallop up on a white horse, like Evie, who’d been sending her letter after letter rhapsodising over the manifold perfections of Caz Brandon, the man she was going to marry?

But now it seemed that her own warier approach was the right one because Evie’s idol had proved to have feet of clay.

She shook her head in angry bewilderment. How could it all have gone so wrong? And, apparently, so fast? Evie’s last screed, cataloguing in some detail her future husband’s numerous acts of generosity and tenderness had arrived just over a week ago, indicating that her path in life would be strewn with roses. Tarn would have sworn there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind.

Yet there must have been something, she thought. Some small clue, some hint she could trace that would signal all wasn’t well. And if there was, then she would find it.

She booked her flight, left a message on Howard’s voicemail, suggesting they meet for a drink in their favourite bar as soon as he finished work, then went across to her desk.

She opened a drawer and extracted Evie’s letters, collected into a bundle, and secured by a rubber band.

There were a lot of them, each envelope containing page after page of ecstatic outpourings from Evie’s first meeting with Caz Brandon in a classic secretary/boss situation down to what had probably been the last, she thought biting her lip, and she wasn’t altogether sure why she’d kept them.

Unless she’d believed they were some kind of proof that fairy tales can come true. If so, how wrong was it possible to be?

Evie, she thought, had always been a great one for writing things down. As well as the mass bombardment of letters, she’d kept a diary since she was a small child, and later produced reams of poetry to celebrate the girlhood crush of the moment.

She made herself a beaker of tea, settled into her favourite cream leather recliner and began to read.

‘I’ve got the most fantastic job working for the most fantastic man,’ Evie had written in her swift, untidy scrawl, the words leaping off the page. ‘His regular secretary is away on maternity leave, so, hopefully, I’m in for the duration. And after that—who knows?’

Ironically, Tarn could remember feeling relieved that Evie had finally found work that suited her, and also thinking with amusement that all it had taken was a good-looking boss.

Evie’s next letter was a fairly bread and butter affair, but the one after that bubbled with excitement. The boss from heaven had asked her to work through her lunch hour, and had ordered a platter of sandwiches which he’d shared with her.

Well, what was he supposed to do—eat them in front of her? Tarn muttered under her breath.

‘He was asking me all sorts of questions about myself—my interests—my ambitions.’ Evie had gone on. ‘He’s just so easy to talk to. And he smiles with his eyes.’

I just bet he does, thought Tarn. She recalled smiling herself over Evie’s raptures the first time around. But how could she ever have found them amusing?

Curiosity had led her to look at Caz Brandon on the Internet, and she had to admit he was everything Evie had said and possibly more. But why couldn’t I see what he really was? she asked herself as she read on. A cynical womaniser playing with a vulnerable girl’s emotions.

Over the next week, Evie’s hero stopped being Mr Brandon and became Caz instead.

‘Caz took me for a drink after work at this fabulous wine bar,’ Evie confided in her next effusion. ‘It was simply heaving with celebrities and media people and I was introduced to them all. I didn’t know whether I was on my head or my heels.’

After that, the invitation to dinner seemed almost inevitable. Evie gave a description of the restaurant in total detail—the décor, the service, every course they’d eaten and the wine he’d chosen.

Like a child in a toyshop, Tarn thought, sighing.

And the toys kept on coming. There were more dinners for two, plus theatre visits, concerts and even film premieres.

Then, eventually, there was the weekend at a romantic inn in the depths of the countryside.

‘Of course I can’t go on working for him,’ Evie had written. ‘Caz has this strict rule about not mixing business with pleasure, and he says I’m all pleasure. So I’m being transferred to another department.