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CHAPTER ONE
TARA SASHAYED INTO the opulent function roo with the rest of the owned in their couture evening dresses, and their purpose noas to show theuests
As she passed the sunored it Like it or not—and she didn’t— calorie restriction to keep her body racehorse-slender Eating nor in her career and finallyto do And that drea closer and closer—escape to the chocolate-box, roses-round-the-door thatched cottage in deepest Dorset that had belonged to her grandparents and now, since their deaths, belonged to her
In her grandparents’ day it had been the only home she’d ever really had With her parents in the ar school at the age of eight, it had been her grandparents who had provided the home comforts and stability that her parents had not been in a position to provide Now, deter every penny she earned in undertaking the essential repairs and restoration that were required for such an old house—from a new thatched roof, to new drainsit all had to be done
And now it nearly was It only lacked a new kitchen and bathroom to replace the very ancient and decrepit units and sanitary ware and she could move in! All she needed was another ten thousand pounds to cover the cost
That hy she was taking on all theone now—squirrelling away every penny she could to get the cottage ready forin to
She could hardly wait for that day The glao, and noas only tiring and tedious Besides, she had increasingly co constantly on show, all too often attracting the attention of men she had learned were only interested in her because she was a model
She sheered her o, and she was long over hi and stupid and had believed that it was herself he’d cared for—when all along she’d simply been a trophy female to be wheeled out to impress his mates
It had taught her a lesson though and had made her wary She didn’t want to be any man’s trophy
Her wariness gave her a degree of edginess towardsher looks Sometimes she welcomed it She wasn’t one to put up with any hassle Maybe so of her parents’ eht They’d always taught her to stand up for herself, not to be cowed, overawed or over-impressed by anyone
She certainly wasn’t going to be overawed by the kind of people here tonight, knocking back cha up couture clothes as if they were as cheap as chips! Just because they were stinking rich it didn’t make theoing to look down on her as so clotheshorse!
Head held high, poker-faced, she kept on parading around, as she was being paid to do The evening would end soon, and then she could clear off and get home
Marc Derenz took a ht restlessly, er had just said to hihe would never show to Hans
A close friend of Marc’s late father, Hans had been at his side during that bleak period after Marc’s parents had been killed in a helicopter crash, when their only offspring had still been in his early twenties It had been Hans who’d guided hi his fore
Hans’s business experience, as the owner of acos Marc would ever forget He felt a bond of loyalty to the older man that was rare in his life, untra his parents
It was a loyalty that was causing hio Hans, then recently ed following his wife’s death froe by a woer And worse
Celine Neuberger, here tonight to add to her already plentiful collection of couture gowns, hadher wealthy but , now that she had him in her noose And she had ht the opposite about Marc
Marc’s ry on hi her, but that did not seem to deter her Had she been anyone other than Hans’s wife Marc would have had no hesitation in ruthlessly sending her packing It was a ruthlessness he’d had to learn early—first as heir to the Derenz billions, and then even more so after his parents’ deaths
Wo as close to those billions of his as possible Ideally, by beco Madame Marc Derenz
Oh, at soed, there would be a Madaht for him to marry and start a faround as himself
It was advice his father had given him: to do what he himself had done Marc’s ht And even for mere affaires, his father had warned him, it was best never to risk any liaison with anyone not froe It was safer that way
Mark knew the truth of it—only once had hehis father’s advice