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CHAPTER ONE

CARLY glanced discreetly at the s in her role as partner in one of the country’sbusinesses, and wondered how long it would be before she could leave The event was a fortieth birthday party for a banker and he’d chosen to have it at the London Nightclub CoralPink It would not have been the venue she would have chosen but in a business where ultiht that was not her decision to make

Already, though, she could see that their client’s as beginning to look less than pleased at the a the upmarket eye candy on view There were already half a dozen ene on their table, and another of theher to join the to rise ominously in the club’s hormone-drenched heat, Carly realised dispiritedly

She had balked at this assign it wasn’t her cup of tea She preferred the kind of event she had supervised over the weekend—a jolly surprise eightieth birthday party held for a sharp-witted grande fa of finances on Carly’s part to ensure that everything they had wanted was achievable within their et, and she had been justifiably proud of the end result

Mike Lucas’s as going to explode in a rabbed Carly swiftly got up andthe situation before it got out of hand

Ricardo didn’t knohy the hell he had allowed himself to be persuaded to come here His appetite for the proposed business deal that had brought hi he loathed, and could best be sureedy, amoral women, he decided cynically

His attention was caught by the occupants of a table several feet away A group of forty-so from a combination of the club’s heat and the effect of the ski the rooer than they, but they were nowhere near as young as the girls the er than the rest but still a woot up from her seat and walked round to the other side the table, where one of the y brunette for whone

‘Mike’ Carly s herself between hiirl

‘Hello, sexy Want sone?’

Mike Lucasher down onto his knee and putting his hand on her breast

Ih the glance she gave hi, he pulled the other girl towards him as well Unlike Carly, shethe attention

‘Look what I’ve got,’ Mike called out to his friends, one hand on Carly’s breast and the other on the other girl’s He jiggled them inexpertly and boasted drunkenly, ‘Hey, what about this for a threesouys?’

Ricardo’s hooded gaze ht of worown up in the slums of Naples, and these women—these spoiled, paner clothes and their Cartier jewellery—were, as far as he was concerned, far more to be despised than the prostitutes of the Naples alleys

He pushed back his chair and stood up, throwing a pile of banknotes down onto the table Theto soo over and take any for the club

As a billionaire he had no need to observe the niceties that governed the behaviour of other, less wealthy men

Ricardo studied the newspapers the most senior of his quartet of male PAs had left on his desk for him He read them as he drank the second of his ritual two cups of thick, strong black coffee Some tastes could be acquired, but others could never totally be destroyed or denied He frowned, a look that was a for in the almost basalt darkness of his eyes

He was not a prettily handsome man, but he was a man who commanded and indeed demanded the visual attention of others—especially woing male sexuality he exuded

He reached for the first newspaper, flicking dises until he found what he wanted A sainst the ware, curled his lanced swiftly down the newspaper’s much trumpeted, newly revised ‘Rich List’

He didn’t have to look very far to find his own naers of one hand the names that came above his

Ricardo Salvatore, billionaire Estih as he looked at a figure that fell well sho

rt of his actual wealth

Beneath his na hile and thirty-two years old, and untruthfully as having founded his fortune on an inheritance from his uncle A further line offered the infornition of his charitable donations to a variety of good causes, it was ruhthood

Now Ricardo did smile

A knighthood! Not a bad achievement for so Italian mother and British father in a rail accident, and who, because of that, had ended up growing up virtually alone in the worst of Naples’ slurow up, but occasionally Ricardo felt that he had more respect and admiration for the companions of his youth than he did for the people he now mixed with

Fas that had ever formed a part of the fabric of his life, but he did not feel their absence In fact, he actively liked his solitariness, and his corresponding freedo how to survive—by listening and observing—and how to make his own rules for the way he lived his life He drew his strength froht of hihteen, fiercely coambled for and won the money that had enabled him to buy his first container ship

He dropped the newspaper onto his desk, picked up the file adjacent to it marked ‘Potential Acquisitions’ and started to speed-read through its contents Ricardo was always on the look out for pro new acquisitions to add to his portfolio, and Prêt a Party would fit into it very neatly

The first tianisation had been when a business acquaintance hadthat he was a fa Marcus Canning as he did, he was rather surprised that a man as financially astute as Marcus hadn’t seen the potential of the business for himself

He gave a s on the potential of Prêt a Party were of relatively little interest to him By nature Ricardo was a hunter, and, like all hunters, he enjoyed the adrenalin-boosting thrill of the chase almost as much as he enjoyed the ultimate and inevitable kill at the end of it

Prêt a Party ht only represent a small ‘kill,’ but Ricardo’s preparations for the chase would still be carefully planned

The nor detailed industry reports was not one he favoured; for one thing it tended to alert every other hunter to his interest, and for another he preferred his own methods and his own instincts

The first thing he wanted to do was find out a good deal more about how the business worked—how efficient it was, how profitable it was, and how vulnerable to a takeover that would be profitable to him The best person to tell him that was, of course, the owner, Lucy Blayne, but she was hardly likely to equip a potential and predatory buyer with such information Which hy he had decided to pose as a potential client The kind of fussy client anted to know every single in and out of how things worked and how his coave it The kind of client who insisted on seeing Prêt a Party’s organisa-tional capabilities at first hand

Of course in order to have these ‘eccentricities’ catered for, he in turn would have to dangle a very large and very juicy carrot in front of Lucy Blayne

And that was exactly what he was going to do

‘Carly! Thank God you’re back! It’s absolute chaos here!’

Walking into Prêt a Party’s smart but chaotic office in Sloane Street, one of the ed ruefully that things must indeed be chaotic for her once schoolfriend and now employer—kind-hearted and sweet-natured Lucy Blayne—to be in too ht

One pretty but terrified-looking young girl as neas rushing around trying to cope with the nonstop ringing of the telephone, whilst a coupleclients that, yes, everything was in hand for their big event

‘We’re just sooo aly busy—that launch party we did for you-knoho, the It Girl of the ue Nick’s bringing us in so much new business,’ Lucy enthused