One Night with Her Ex

FIFTEEN


‘Well, that was quite a game,’ said Dan, rubbing his neck and wincing as he rolled his shoulders. ‘I’m not sure I’m ever going to recover.’

Feeling a stab of guilt, Kit wiped the sweat off his forehead and then threw the towel round his neck. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, gloomily reflecting that if he’d known he was going to take his mood out on his squash partner he’d have cancelled this afternoon’s game. Probably should have cancelled it anyway because maintaining a friendship with a man who was soon to be Lily’s brother-in-law was hardly conducive to his intention to move on, however much he liked him.

‘Not a problem,’ said Dan easily. ‘I can take losing once in a while. You look like hell by the way.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Anything you want to talk about?’

‘Not particularly,’ said Kit, stuffing his racket into its case and then slinging his bag over his shoulder.

‘Right. Good.’ Dan picked up his own bag and together they walked from the court in the direction of the changing rooms. ‘So I heard that you and Lily had split up,’ he said conversationally and the pain that shot through Kit made his breath catch.


‘Yeah,’ he said casually, as if it didn’t rip his heart to shreds just to think about it.

‘Want to know how she is?’

Desperately. ‘I couldn’t care less.’

‘No. Right. Well, I guess that’s understandable seeing as how she dumped you.’

Kit flinched and ruthlessly obliterated the sudden memory of that night in the garden when he hadn’t been able to fix things.

‘But if you did,’ Dan continued, ‘I’d have to tell you that she’s a heartbroken wreck. Zoe’s words, not mine. I’d also have to tell you that she looks like death warmed up. But you don’t care, so I won’t.’

At the knowledge that Lily sounded as miserable as he was, Kit felt something inside him collapse. All that drivel about wiping her from his life and his heart, probably, because who had he been kidding? There was absolutely zero chance of that happening.

Grinding his teeth against his pathetically weak willpower when it came to Lily, Kit gave in to the need to talk to someone and maybe get a different take on the situation because he hadn’t exactly been doing brilliantly on his own. ‘Did you know she doesn’t think she can trust me?’ he said, dumping his things on a bench and sitting down in case his limbs gave out.

‘I had heard.’

‘Any thoughts as to what I can do about that?’

‘No idea. Can she trust you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you tried telling her?’ Dan asked, opening his locker and taking out a towel before stashing his bag and racket.

‘Many times and at length. It didn’t make any difference.’

‘Do you want her?’

‘More than I want my next breath,’ said Kit. ‘But five years ago I did something stupid. Something I’ve regretted ever since.’

‘I heard about that too.’

‘And it’s turned out to be too great an obstacle to overcome.’

‘So we all make mistakes,’ said Dan, now armed with a bottle of shower gel as well as a towel.

‘This was some mistake.’

‘Yeah, but it was a while ago, wasn’t it?’

‘Five years.’

‘And has Lily never made a mistake?’

Kit frowned as all the mistakes she’d made filtered into his head. ‘Plenty.’

‘So stop beating yourself up and do something about it. Marry her or something. Bind her to you so she can’t escape and prove it over and over again until she has no choice but to trust you. Bit drastic, I know, but what else are you going to do?’

As Dan strode off and shut himself in one shower cubicle Kit stashed his things in his locker, grabbed a towel and headed for another, his mind beginning to race.

Was Dan right? he wondered, turning on the tap and feeling hot needles of water pummelling his skin. Was he beating himself up unnecessarily about the mistake he’d made? Had he let Lily dictate the way things had gone out of some kind of sense of inadequacy? Had that been totally the wrong thing to do?

Maybe it had, because Lily wasn’t perfect, was she? For the last few weeks he’d been tearing himself apart with remorse and guilt over what he’d done, but what about Lily? Hadn’t she reverted to type when the going had got tough? She had. And while he’d made huge changes and sacrifices for them she’d hardly done a thing.

So maybe he wasn’t blame free in their break-up this time round, but neither was she. Just like before. They were equals. They always had been. Which meant that he was worthy of her, dammit. He did deserve her. They deserved each other.

He shouldn’t have let her get away with ending things between them, he thought, turning off the water and grabbing his towel. That had been a mistake. One he wouldn’t be making again because he loved her and she loved him and he was, well, he was wasting time.

* * *

Having abandoned Zoe in the pub after her sister had told her to go and then heading straight to the gym, Lily didn’t have a plan. She hadn’t had the time to formulate one. Nor had she had the mental space because her head was so full to the brim with the realisation of what a foolish idiot she’d been and her heart was pounding with so much love and hope and regret at the way she’d behaved that there wasn’t room for anything else.

So when she pushed through the door of the gym and saw Kit striding purposefully across the lobby for a split second she didn’t know what to do. For a moment she just watched him, her heart swelling because he looked so gorgeous, so familiar, and she loved him so damn much.

He also looked like she felt. Drawn. Haggard. Unkempt. As though basic self-maintenance was simply too great a challenge to face these days. Which was something of a boost to her pretty shaky confidence because if he’d looked clean-shaven and crisp, as if he hadn’t been pining for her the way she had for him and was totally over her, she’d have been straight out of the door.

As it was, when he saw her he stopped dead, stared at her, his face totally unreadable, and she didn’t know whether he was glad to see her or surprised or appalled. All she knew was that her heart was thundering so loudly it was a miracle no one else seemed to be able to hear it and her body was straining to throw itself at him and she wasn’t going anywhere.

Literally. However hard it was she was staying right where she was because there’d be no throwing of anything anywhere until she’d said what she had to say, whatever that was.

‘Hello, Kit,’ she said, aiming for breezy nonchalance but, she suspected, failing.

His brows snapping together in a frown, Kit stalked over to her and stopped about a metre away. ‘You’re here,’ he said.

‘So it would seem,’ she said, a bit breathless as her lungs were having trouble functioning in his presence.

‘Why?’

‘I wanted to talk.’

‘Seems to be the fashion at the moment.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind,’ he muttered.

‘I thought we could go to your hotel. Maybe a meeting room or something.’ Not his apartment though. No. Way too many disturbing and distracting memories there.

‘Good idea,’ he said, taking her arm and wheeling her round. ‘You’d better come with me.’

He marched her out of the gym at such a rate that she had to jog to keep up. He held her tight as he led her into his hotel and across the lobby and she tried not to respond to the feel of him that she’d so badly missed. When he bypassed the ground-floor meeting rooms and took her to the lift she protested but her protest went unnoticed.

By the time they reached his apartment Lily was out of breath and her stomach was fluttering because Kit had a kind of energy about him, a sizzling sort of tension and a sense of purpose that she’d never seen before and it was doing crazy things to her heart.

He dropped his things on a chair, then thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and turned to face her. At the fire in his eyes and the intensity of his expression, Lily’s knees nearly gave way and a flicker of hope at the thought that she might not have screwed things up for good began to burn deep inside her.

Kit raked his gaze over her. ‘Dan was right,’ he said flatly. ‘You do look awful.’

‘So do you.’

‘Yes, well, I feel it.’

‘Me too.’

‘But I’m glad you’re here,’ he said, flashing her a quick, lethal smile.

Oh, thank goodness for that, she thought, letting out a breath of relief because he was acting so oddly she hadn’t been sure. ‘You are?’

Kit nodded. ‘Saves me a journey.’

‘Where were you going?’

‘To come and find you.’

Lily felt her heart turn over and that little flame of hope began to burn a little more fiercely. ‘Oh.’

‘So my carbon footprint thanks you.’

‘It’s welcome. But now can I tell you what I came to say?’ she said, feeling so encouraged by the fact that he hadn’t ignored her or turned her away that she was now practically exploding with the need to fix what she’d done.

‘In a moment,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’

‘I don’t want to sit down.’

‘Sit.’

She sat, even more bemused and now quite a bit more turned on by his dark, edgy demeanour. ‘Are you all right, Kit?’ she asked, leaning forwards and looking at him closely. ‘You seem, I don’t know, a bit weird.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Sure,’ she murmured, and then couldn’t quite remember what she’d been thinking because Kit was fixing her with a look that had her heart thumping and her mouth going dry and her head swimming.

‘OK, so here’s the thing, Lily,’ he said, and for some reason she shivered. ‘Despite what happened a fortnight ago, we are not over.’

As his words hit her poor, battered brain her heart tripped and then swelled to bursting. ‘You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that, because—’

But he held up his hand and cut her off. ‘Let me finish. I love you, Lily, but you are as far from perfect as I am.’

‘Oh, you’re so right,’ she said with heartfelt conviction. ‘I’m not perfect at all.’

‘And, yes, I made a mistake but it was years ago and I refuse to carry the guilt around any longer.’


‘Good, well, about that—’

‘You’ve made many more mistakes than I have.’

She nodded. ‘I know. I know.’ She’d made tons.

‘I thought I wasn’t worthy of you. But I am.’

For a moment she reeled. How could he ever have thought that? Had she made him think that? ‘You are,’ she said with a stab of shame.

‘We need each other, Lily,’ he said, his eyes dark and intense and focused wholly on her. ‘We love each other and we deserve each other.’

‘We do.’

‘So here’s how this is going to go. We’re going to get married, you and I, after which I plan to devote the rest of my life to proving to you how much you can trust me. We’re going to communicate. Talk. Be a proper partnership. We’re also going to adopt a brood of children and be extremely happy.’ He arched an eyebrow as if challenging her to object. ‘So what do you think about that?’

But why would she object when it was everything she wanted? Filled with so much relief, happiness and love she couldn’t speak, instead Lily just walked over to him, put her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him and kissed him.

And damn it felt good because it had been such a long, miserable time since she’d been in his arms, but now she was because he was hauling his hands out of his pockets and putting them on her back, pulling her tight to him and kissing her back equally fiercely.

Free from all the insecurities that had plagued her these last few weeks, all the doubt and confusion that had so troubled her, and filling with the absolute certainty that she and Kit were going to be all right, she kissed him long and hard and with everything she felt. And when they broke for breath, his breathing was as ragged as hers, his heart was thundering as hard and fast as hers and his eyes were blazing as fiercely as she could imagine hers were.

‘I’m taking it that you’re not averse to the idea,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I couldn’t be more for it,’ she said with a giddy kind of smile. ‘Although that bit about devoting the rest of your life to proving to me how much I can trust you? You don’t need to do that.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t? Why not? I was looking forward to it.’

‘I don’t know how I could ever have thought I couldn’t trust you, Kit. I’d trust you with my life. I’m so sorry for doubting it.’

‘You trust me?’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘Since when?’

‘Since about an hour ago.’

‘What happened an hour ago?’

‘I came to realise that trust is a choice, and I guess before I chose not to trust you. I don’t exactly know why. Because I was scared maybe? Because it was all going too fast and I panicked? Because I could feel myself retreating and I couldn’t stop it?’

‘And now?’

‘Now I want to trust you and I do. With everything I am and everything I have, because when have you given me reason to doubt it? You haven’t. Not once. And you won’t. I know that.’ She shook her head in despair. ‘I was such a fool. I went back on our deal to communicate and shut you out again. But I promise that that won’t happen again because I’m done with denial. It’s the coward’s way out and I don’t want to be a coward any more. I’m sorry if I made you think you don’t deserve me because if anything I don’t deserve you. And I’m sorry for breaking up with you. It was just about the worst thing I could have done. This last fortnight has been horrible. The worst of my life.’

‘Mine too,’ said Kit, his voice rough. ‘I thought I’d lost you for good.’

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I was the one doing the losing.’

He tilted his head and looked down at her, his eyes filled with warmth and love and the promise of a future. ‘I’m pretty sure it was me, but do you really want to argue about this?’

‘Not really.’

He gave her a soft smile and his eyes took on a gleam. ‘Because you know there are far better things we could be doing,’ he said, his hands slowly sweeping up her back to her shoulders and making her shudder with longing.

‘Like what?’

‘Like you agreeing to marry me. Will you?’

Lily felt the backs of her eyes begin to prickle because how many people got a second chance? How many people were that lucky? ‘Yes,’ she said, blinking a bit. ‘Because I want to, obviously, not because you scared me into it with all that “this is how it’s going to go” thing.’

Kit’s smile deepened and what with the way he was now stroking the skin of her shoulders her stomach practically dissolved. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he murmured. ‘But I wasn’t taking any chances.’

‘Don’t be,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It was very assertive. Very dynamic. Very alpha male.’

‘I’m delighted you think so.’

‘And attractive.’

He slid his hands beneath the spaghetti straps of her vest top and slowly inched them down. ‘How attractive exactly?’ he asked softly.

‘Extremely,’ she said, beginning to tremble.

‘So about these other things we could be doing...’

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from FLIRTING WITH THE FORBIDDEN by Joss Wood.





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ONE


Noah Fraser dodged past a couple kissing and ran his hand across his prickly jaw. His eyes flicked over the waiting crowds, mentally processing faces against his internal data bank, and nobody blipped on his radar until he saw a tall, thin man with his hands in the pockets of his expensive trousers.

He frowned and wondered what was so important that Chris had to meet him here.

Twenty hours ago he’d boarded a plane at the Ministro Pistarini International Airport just south of Buenos Aires, after a week spent doing a full-spectrum security analysis for a museum. He’d identified threats and risks and then provided them with solutions to plug the holes. It was a part of the business they were trying to grow and it was lucrative.

Because he was a frugal Scot, he still felt guilty that he’d upgraded his seat to business class, but he just hadn’t been able to face the thought of wedging his six-foot-three frame into a minuscule economy class seat to spend thirteen hours in cramped misery. As Chris kept reminding him, business class also allowed him to review his files in privacy, to catch a couple of twenty-minute power naps, to drink good whisky. He’d worked hard for a long time, he told himself, and he—the business—could afford it.

Noah rolled his shoulders as he made his way through Customs, looking forward to a decent shower, a beer and to sleeping for a week.

Of course sleeping for a week was a pipedream; he was working all hours of the day to build his company, and sleep was a luxury he just couldn’t afford. Self-sufficiency and financial independence were a lot higher up on Noah’s list of priorities than sleep.

Who knew why he was being met by Chris, his oldest friend, partner and second-in-command at Auterlochie Consulting? Something must be up. He swallowed as dread settled over him. The last time Chris had met him at the airport it had been because Kade, one of their best employees, had committed suicide. God, he didn’t want to deal with something like that again...

‘No one has died,’ Chris said quickly and Noah wasn’t surprised that he’d read his mind.

They’d learnt to read each other’s faces—sometimes their thoughts—in dusty, unfriendly situations and it was a trait they’d never lost.

Noah did a minor eye-roll as Chris shook his hand and pulled him into that one-armed hug he did so well. Only Chris could get away with that kind of PDA; when you’d saved a guy’s life you had to overlook his occasional sappiness.

Noah adjusted the rucksack on his shoulder as they made their way across the terminal. ‘What’s up?’

Chris jammed his hands in his pockets and gestured towards the nearest coffee shop. ‘I’ll explain. You look like hell.’

Noah grinned wryly. ‘Nice to see you too.’

Ten minutes later Noah was slumped into a plastic seat at one of the many generic restaurants scattered throughout the hall. He sent his friend a sour look and took another sip of his strong black coffee. By his estimation he’d been awake for more than thirty hours and he was feeling punchy.

‘How did the assessment go?’ Chris asked.

‘Brilliant. They took all my suggestions on board and paid the account via bank transfer before I left the office. The money should be through already.’

‘It is. I checked. It’s easy money, Noah.’

‘And we can do it with our eyes closed. If we start getting a reputation for providing solid advice at a good price, I think we could double our turnover—and soon too.’


‘We’ve already exceeded our initial projections for the business. In fact, we’re doing really well.’

‘We can do better. I want to build us into being the premier provider of VIP protection and risk assessment in the UK.’

‘Not the world?’ Chris quipped, gently mocking his ambition as he always did.

Chris was less driven than he was, and had his feet firmly placed on the ground. It wasn’t a bad thing. Noah had enough ambition for both of them. They were great partners. Chris was better with people: he had an easy way about him that drew people in. Their clients and staff talked to Chris; he was their best friend, the elder brother, a mate. Chris was the touchy-feely half of their partnership.

Noah was tough, decisive and goal-orientated; the partner who kicked butt. He called it being disciplined, reasonable, responsible and dedicated in everything he did. Chris called it being a control freak perfectionist. And emotionally stunted. Yeah, yeah...

Well, that was what happened when you grew up far too fast... Noah ran a hand over his face as if to wipe away the memories of his childhood, of picking up the pieces when his mother died, the wrench of losing his brothers. He pulled in a breath and along with it control.

He was in control, he reminded himself. It was a long time ago that he was sixteen and had felt the earth shaking under his feet.

He saw Chris’s insightful look and summoned up a smile. ‘I’ve scheduled world domination for next year,’ he quipped. ‘What was the response when you told our employees that we wanted them to do a mandatory session with a psychologist every six months?’

‘They grumbled, but they understood. Kade’s death has rocked them all. You do know that we’ll have to do it too.’

Noah blanched. ‘Hell, no.’

‘Hell, yes. Kade was our responsibility and we didn’t pick up the signs. What if we’re working too hard, trying to keep too many balls in the air, and we miss the signs in someone else? We have to be as mentally healthy as—more mentally healthy than—any of our employees, Noah. That’s non-negotiable.’

Since Chris was the healthiest, most balanced person he knew, Noah didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that Chris was talking about him. Chris thought he was too stressed—working like a demon, juggling far too many balls. He knew that Chris was worried about him burning out, but he also knew that that he was nowhere near the edge...

Working hard never killed anyone—and besides, he’d been to the edge before and he knew what it looked like. He was still miles away.

Chris slapped the folder he’d been holding onto the table and pushed it towards him. Flipping open the cover, Noah looked down into the laughing face of a green-eyed blonde. She was standing between her famous mother and father, her brother behind them. The most successful family on planet earth, he thought. Rich, successful, close. A unit.

He felt a pang of jealousy and told himself that despite the fact that he had not been part of his brothers’ lives for most of their formative years he was now, and they weren’t doing so badly.

Noah concentrated on the photo below him. Morgan...she’d grown up. She was wearing a tight, slinky cream dress that stopped inches below her butt and revealed her giraffe-long legs. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a smooth ponytail and her naturally made-up face was alight with joy. She looked fantastic. Happy, charismatic.

Hot.

Doing a stint as her bodyguard had nearly killed him. Apart from that one incident he’d never before or since needed the same amount of control and determination as he’d summoned the night he’d walked away from the gloriously naked Morgan Claire Morrisey Moreau.

Noah flipped through the papers in the file. ‘Floor plans of the Forrester-Grantham hotel in New York. Photos of the Moreau jewellery collection... I thought the Moreaus were Amanda’s clients—have always been CFT’s clients?’

Amanda. Their ex-boss and his ex-lover. As petite and as dangerous as a black widow spider, she looked like every other ball-breaker businesswoman in the city.

Except that Amanda actually broke balls. She’d certainly tried to go for his when she’d found out that he was leaving the CFT Corporation to start a company that was in direct competition with hers.

That hadn’t been a day full of fun and giggles.

‘Well, as you know, James Moreau and I went to school together,’ Chris said.

Noah shrugged off his tiredness to connect the dots. James Moreau: CEO of Moreau International, brother to Morgan and son to Hannah ‘Queen of Diamonds’ Moreau and Jedd Moreau, one of the world’s best known geologists.

Moreau International owned diamond and gemstone mines, dealt in the trading of said gems—especially diamonds—and had exclusive jewellery stores in all the major cities around the world. Hannah, as the face of the company, had always been a target, and CFT routinely provided her and Jedd with additional bodyguards when they needed more protection than their long-term driver/guards. That protection was only extended to James and Morgan and other high-ranking executives within MI when MI’s security division or CFT received a particular threat, or were monitoring a situation where extra protection was needed.

Eight years ago, just after he’d left the SAS, Noah had been unlucky enough to end up guarding the nineteen-year-old Morgan for a week because a well-funded but stupid militant environmental group had been protesting MI’s involvement with mines in a nature reserve in Uganda. Huge threats had been issued until it had been pointed out that it was an oil company mining for natural gas and not MI looking for gems.

Morgan had never been in any real danger, but no one had been prepared to take the chance. As the rookie, he’d got the so-called ‘creampuff’ assignment to guard the teenager. He’d never told anyone that it had probably been one of the best weeks of his life. Sure, he’d vacillated between wanting to wring her neck and fantasising about her, which had been off-the-scale inappropriate since she’d been his principal and he’d been six years older than her—and a million years in experience. But he’d laughed—internally—been relaxed in her company and had enjoyed her scalpel-sharp mind.

Noah felt heat creep up his neck and he stared at the fingers that gripped his coffee cup. He’d lost his mind that night...well, almost. He’d nearly risked everything he had—his sole source of income at that time—to make love to her. The consequences of his actions still made his blood run cold. If CFT had found out he would have been canned and would never have been able to get another job in security again. And security was what he did—what he’d trained for—the only skill he’d had at that time.

He’d left the army, his first and only love, to find a better-paying job so that he could put his two younger brothers through college. CFT had offered him a fantastic salary which he’d nearly thrown away to sleep with Morgan Moreau.

Who’d just wanted him to break her duck!

Chris’s voice pulled him back to the here and now. ‘I’ve been working on James to send some business our way, told him we’ve expanded into security analysis, and he’s thrown us a bone.’

‘Oh, yay,’ Noah deadpanned.

‘If we pull it off it gives us an in at Moreau and we want them as clients.’ Chris reminded him. ‘World domination, remember? Moreau’s is a good place to start.’

‘I know, I know... Okay, what is it?’ He tapped Morgan’s picture. ‘Does she need a bodyguard again? Who has her family upset this time?’

‘She doesn’t need protection.’

‘Good.’ Noah lifted an eyebrow at Chris. ‘What’s the job?’

‘Every five years the Moreaus host a grand ball for charity, and they combine the ball with an exhibition of the family collection of jewels—which is practically priceless. Some of the biggest and the best diamonds and jewels collected over generations of wealthy Moreaus,’ Chris explained. ‘There has been a massive increase in armed robberies at such jewellery exhibitions, and James wants a complete, intensive threat analysis. I know it’s a puffball assignment, but you just need to head to New York for a meeting, have a look at their current security arrangements, check out the hotel—do what you do best. With luck we’ll get the contract to oversee the security, based on your report. But for now, it’s just a couple of days in New York and we have an in with Moreau.’

‘When is this meeting?’

‘In the morning. I have you booked on a flight leaving in an hour.’

‘Why can’t you go? You’re James’s mate, not me.’ Noah groaned. ‘I’m beat.’

‘I’ve got a meeting scheduled with another client, and you are far better at security assessments than I am. You’re brilliant at planning operations, getting in and out of places and situations you shouldn’t be, and you can see stuff from a criminal perspective.’

‘Thanks,’ Noah said dryly.

Noah pushed his chair out and stretched his long legs. He linked his hands behind his head in his favourite thinking posture, his eyes on Morgan’s photograph which lay between them on the grubby table. Gorgeous eyes and slanting cheekbones, and she had a wide, mobile mouth with a smile that could power the national electrical grid.


Noah licked his lips and forced his thoughts away from that dangerously sexy mouth. Slowly he raised his eyes to Chris’s face. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. ‘Why don’t you just shoot me now?’

‘It’s an option, but then I’d be out of a partner. It’s a few days, Noah, in an exciting city that you love.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Bag in the car. I went to your flat and picked out some threads.’

Noah swore and flipped the cover of the folder closed. ‘Guess I’m going to New York.’

‘Atta boy.’

Noah narrowed his eyes at his partner. ‘You’re a manipulative git.’

Chris just grinned.

* * *

Sapphires, rubies, pearls. Diamonds. The usual suspects. And then there were the less common gems that sparked her imagination. Alexandrite that changed from green in daylight to red under incandescent light. Maw Sit-Sit, the same green as her eyes. Almandine Garnet, purplish red and the neon blue of Paraiba tourmaline.

Having access to the gemstone vaults of Moreau International was a very big perk as a jewellery designer, and it allowed Morgan the chance to offer her very high-end clients one-of-a-kind pieces containing gemstones of exceptional quality.

Morgan looked up at Derek, their Head of Inventory, and the security guard who’d accompanied the jewels to her airy, light-filled design studio on the top floor of the Moreau Building on Fifth Avenue from the super-secure fourth floor that housed the jewellery vaults. Morgan knew that there was another vault somewhere in the city, and others in other places of the world, which housed more gemstones. Her mother didn’t believe in keeping all their precious eggs in one basket.

‘I’ll take the Alexandrite, the tourmaline and both garnets.’ Morgan scanned the cloth holding the jewels again. ‘The fifteen-carat F marquise-cut yellow diamond and I’ll let you know about the emeralds. Thanks, Derek.’

Derek nodded and stepped forward to help Morgan replace the jewels in their separate bags. She signed an order form as Derek spoke.

‘I have some apparently amazing Clinohumite coming in from a new mine in Siberia. Interested?’

Interested in the rare burnt orange gems that she could never get enough of? Duh. ‘Of course! I’ll owe you if you can sneak a couple of the nicer ones to me before you offer them to Carl.’

Carl was Head Craftsman for MI’s flagship jewellery store which was on the ground floor of the building. A rival to Tiffany and Cartier, Moreau’s made up the third of the ‘big three’ jewellery stores in New York City. Carl had his clients and so did Morgan, and they shared one or two others. They happily waged a silent war, competing for the best of the Moreau gems that were on offer. And for the clients with the deepest pockets.

‘I’ll offer you two per cent above whatever Carl offers for the Clinohumites. Don’t let me down, Derek, I want those stones.’ She might be a Moreau, but her business was separate to the jewellery store and the gemstones. She had to buy her stones at the going rate and sell at a profit...and that was the way she liked it.

‘Of course. I owe you for designing Gail’s engagement ring. She still thinks I’m a god.’

Morgan laughed. ‘I’m glad she loves it.’

Even though he had a hugely responsible job at Moreau’s, he would never have been able to afford the usual prices Morgan commanded. Sometimes she thought that the money she charged for her designs was insane but, as her mother kept insisting, exclusivity had its price, and the Moreau price was stratospheric.

Morgan heard the door to her studio click closed behind Derek and his guard and sat down on a stool, next to her workbench. She twisted a tanzanite and diamond ring on her finger before resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

Morgan Moreau Designs. She couldn’t deny that being a Moreau had opened doors that would have been a lot harder to break down if she hadn’t possessed a charmed name associated with gemstones. But having a name wasn’t enough; no socialite worth her salt was going to drop squillions on a piece of jewellery that wasn’t out of the very top drawer. Morgan understood that they wanted statement pieces that would stand out from the exceptional, and she provided that time and time again.

It was the one thing—probably the only thing—she’d ever truly excelled at. She adored her job; it made her heart sing. So why, then, exactly, wasn’t she happy? Morgan twisted her lips, thinking that she wasn’t precisely unhappy either. She was just...feeling ‘blah’ about her life.

Which was utterly ridiculous and she wanted to slap herself at the thought. She was a Moreau—wealthy, reasonably attractive, popular. She ran her own business and had, if she said so herself, a great body which didn’t need high maintenance. Okay, she was still single, and had been for a while—her soul mate was taking a long time to make an appearance—but she dated. Had the occasional very discreet affair if she thought the man nice enough and attractive enough to bother with.

She had a life that millions of girls would sell their souls for and she was feeling sorry for herself? Yuck.

‘Earth to Morgan?’

Morgan looked up and saw her best friend standing in the doorway of her studio, her pixie face alight with laughter. Friends since they were children, they’d lived together, travelled together and now they worked together...sort of. Riley was contracted to design and maintain the window displays of the jewellery store downstairs. She was simply another member of the Moreau family.

‘Hey. I’m about to have coffee—want some?’

Riley shook her head. ‘No time. Your mother sent me up here to drag you out of your nest. She wants you to come down and join the charity ball planning meeting.’

‘Why? She’s never included me before.’

‘You know that’s not true. Every year she asks if you want to be involved, and every year you wrinkle your pretty nose and say no.’

‘You’d think she would’ve got the message by now,’ Morgan grumbled. Organising an event on such a scale was a mammoth undertaking and so not up her alley. She’d just make an idiot of herself and that wasn’t an option. Ever.

She’d felt enough of an idiot far too many times before.

‘Well, she said that I have to bring you down even if I have to drag you by your hair.’

‘Good grief.’

Morgan stood up and stretched. She took stock of her outfit: a white T-shirt with a slate jacket, skinny stone-coloured pants tucked into black, knee-high laceup boots. It wasn’t the Moreau corporate look, but she’d do.

Morgan walked towards the door and allowed it to close behind her; like all of the other rooms in the building, entrance was by finger-scan. Keys weren’t needed at Moreau’s.

‘Did you get your dress for Merri’s wedding?’ Riley asked as they headed for the stairs.

‘Mmm. I can’t wait. We’re hitching a lift with James on the company jet, by the way. He’s flying out on the Thursday evening.’

‘Perfect.’

And it was... Their friend Merri was getting married in her and Riley’s hometown of Stellenbosch, South Africa, and Morgan couldn’t wait to go home. She desperately missed her home country; she’d love to return to the vineyards and the mountains, the crisp Cape air and the friendly people. But if she wanted to cement her reputation for being one of the best jewellery designers in the world—like her grandfather before her—then she needed to be in fast-paced NYC. She needed clients with big money who weren’t afraid to spend it...

And talking of exceptional, she thought as they stepped out of the lift onto the fifth floor, where Hannah and the New York-based directors of MI had their offices, she had to start work on the piece Moreau International had commissioned her to design and manufacture that would be sold as part of the silent auction at the charity ball. Maybe that was why Hannah wanted her at the meeting...