Free More Than You Know by Penny Vincenzi

electrical fitting, anything, in fact, that might prompt a query. He was determined not to be caught out in any particular.
    He watched from an upstairs window as they arrived in Eliza’s Fiat. Eliza was wearing a short red shift, long black boots, and sunglasses; she looked amazing. Maddy was very pretty too: tiny, with long blond hair falling down her back; it was hard to believe she’d got this important contract Eliza had been shouting at him about.
    Maddy loved the building, said it was absolutely fab; Eliza had been more practical. She said it needed a lot of money to convert it and that Maddy didn’t actually need three floors.
    “It really is too big,” said Eliza. “And too expensive. You’d be crazy, Maddy, far too much of an overhead for the business. But, Matt, suppose we found you a tenant for the third floor? A photographer we know, Jerome Blake, is looking for a studio.”
    “That would be fine,” said Matt, “as long as he negotiated through us, of course. I’m sure the landlord would be very grateful for an introduction.”
    “I should think he would,” said Eliza. “I would expect a reduction of your fee, as a matter of fact.”
    “Well I … That is …”
    She grinned at him suddenly.
    “I wasn’t serious. Maddy’ll ring you when she’s made a decision. And as you can tell, she does quite like the place.”

    Jerome Blake (real name Jim Biggs), the photographer, had been very keen to take the top floor as a studio; Colin White agreed to a slight reduction in Maddy’s rent, and a deal was struck.
    The whole incident had rather changed his opinion of Eliza. She was gorgeous and she was sexy, but she was very bossy. Not used to being crossed, obviously, or even argued with. It would probably do her good—just as long as it wasn’t he who had to do it.

My dear ,
I was just wondering if you would be able to take tea with me one day either this week or next? I am staying at the Connaught hotel with my son, David. He is here on business, while I am taking in some fun!
Leave a message at the hotel and let me know. Any day will do, except next Thursday
Yrs affectionately ,
Lily Berenson .
    Scarlett had never believed in love at first sight; she had frequently declared it, indeed, to be a load of old toot. “You can fancy someone, obviously,” she would say, “think they’re good-looking and sexy and so on. But that can’t be love; it really can’t. You’d have to know someone to love them. Otherwise it isn’t love.”
    And she was thus totally unprepared for it when love walked towards her in the lounge of the Connaught hotel and stood before her, holding out its hand and smiling: love in the form of a tall, brown-haired man with his mother’s green eyes. Beautifully dressed, love was, in a dark grey suit and a light blue shirt, with a deep, slightly drawling voice, and its handshake was firm and warm, and as it spoke her name and told her how delighted it was to be meeting her and that its mother had told it so much about her, she felt the ground shift a little beneath her, felt her knees, only a few moments ago perfectly strong, turn slightly weak, felt a strange, lurching sensation in her stomach and a slow, wondering disturbance in her heart.
    She could not have told you what had been said or done over the next hour or so; clearly she had drunk her tea and picked at the smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches and smiled politely at Mrs. Berenson and listened to what she had to say and even responded, but all she was aware of was the presence facing her, sitting side by side with his mother, smiling at her, passing her sugar and plates and pastries, jumpingup once when a bellboy came into the room with a sign reading, Phone Call for Mr. David Berenson , and disappearing to take the call.
    During his absence, Mrs. Berenson said that wasn’t it lovely she could meet David—“He is my firstborn, you know. Always so special to a mother”—and Scarlett was able to ascertain that