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PROLOGUE.
Even the weather obeyed Caradoc Moore.
He had wanted sunshine in the midst of the darkness, and London had obliged.
Two days of crisp blue skies and milky winter sunshine, despite a temperature that hovered somewhere around the zero mark.
And his mood was even more dire.
He stared, unseeing, at the glorious view framed perfectly by his Canary Wharf penthouse windows. The Thames was a sludge of silver, and the same sun that made it glisten bounced off hair that had been gradually turning grey since his twenty first birthday. It was his hallmark. Hair that was reminiscent of steel – many had remarked that it was a forewarning of a heart that was similarly unbending.
London glistened beneath him like a modern photograph stencilled over historical etchings. Bridges of ancient times nudged their heads up determinedly, but iron and glass dominated.
How he hated it.
London.
All of it. The old. The new. The beautiful and the ugly.
It was not his city.
None of it was his.
He expelled an angry breath and his clear brown eyes clouded over momentarily. How long before he could leave? What was the appropriate amount of time to stay? And did he give a shit? Caradoc Moore was not a man who generally gave in to social convention.
Then again, how often did one’s father die?
The loss of Gower Moore was something Caradoc felt obliged to mark with a semblance of respect, despite the fact he had long despised the weak-minded fool.
With a clearing of his throat, he pulled his cell from the pocket of his bespoke suit. He pressed a button impatiently; Caradoc Moore was always impatient. Like his grey hair, it was a hallmark of his. A single stare from his pale brown eyes made his staff quake in their boots.
His assistant Alexi answered after half a ring. “Good evening, sir,” she greeted smoothly, despite the fact it would still have been morning for her.
He dispensed with any niceties. They were not necessary. “I’ll need a car and driver for …” he stared at the city, his expression one of frustration. “A week. Perhaps two.” An arbitrary duration plucked from the air, it seemed nonetheless appropriate. It would allow time for the funeral, and a little over to settle Gower’s estate and assure his widow and second child were cared for.
“Certainly, sir. When would you like …?”
“Now. I want this dealt with. Over. Finished.”
He disconnected the call without waiting for Alexi’s response then returned to his brooding. It was now only a matter of time before he returned to Bagleyhurst House, and the inheritance he didn’t want.
CHAPTER ONE
“You’re a woman.”
Seraphina James was used to this reaction. She nodded once, just enough to show assent, not enough to show sympathy. After all, what did she have to feel sorry for?
The stunning man with the beautiful apartment creased his brow and continued to stare at her in a manner she might have found insolent were it not for the fact he was so obviously coldly detached. His stare was businesslike, his manner off-hand.
And yet, as his glowing brown eyes danced the length of her figure, Finn’s pulse kicked up a notch in an unwelcome sign of awareness. She tamped it down.
“My assistant sent you?”
Again, Finn nodded. His American accent was perfect; like a Hollywood actor’s, it was clear and concise. His voice was deep; its timbre rich. “Well, she contacted my agency …”
“I haven’t met you before,” Caradoc continued, his doubt obvious.
Finn bit back the sarcastic remark that had been tingling on the tip of her tongue. “No, sir,” she smiled instead.
His mood was not improved by this development. He couldn’t have said why, but something about this chauffeur unsettled him.
It was not her femininity.
He employed many women at senior positions and had zero tolerance for the kind of outmoded opinions that insisted women had a different skillset to men.
Caradoc had made his fortune by seeing people for their potential, not their body parts.
And yet …
He dragged his gaze over her once more.
She was wearing a black suit – perfectly respectable – with a crisp white shirt beneath it. Only, as his eyes lingered a little on the swell of her breasts, he saw the hint of her lace bra beneath the cotton and he felt himself stir in instant reaction.
At her neck, there was a black necklace instead of a tie, and it was oddly erotic.
Her feet too were shod in heels. At least two inches, which gave her slightly more height, though he still towered over her.
Her hair was beyond auburn; it was flame and fire, heat and glow. Her eyes were as green as the ocean of the Aegean, and her skin was like pearl dust – luminescent in its paleness.
He took a step closer and instantly regretted it, for he could more clearly see the small cluster of freckles that danced across her nose. And up close, he caught a hint of her fragrance too – cinnamon and sunshine, it was exotic and sweet.
“What did you say your name is?”
Her mouth wasn’t exactly smiling, but he somehow felt her amusement. “I didn’t, but it’s Seraphina. Everyone calls me Finn though. Seraphina is a mouthful and a half.”
He raised a single brow at the unintended double entendre. “Finn.”
The way he said her name sent sharp darts of pleasure tingling over her spine. She shoved that reaction out of her mind. He was not the first handsome man she’d come across; nor the first handsome client.
She forced a professional expression onto her fine-boned features.
