Free Blueprint for Love (Choc Lit) by Henriette Gyland Page A

lawlessness, imagine the kind of working environment that would create. I’m not sure about Tabitha, but I think Hazel is exactly who she says she is, and she’s a genuinely nice and trustworthy person.’ He couldn’t be wrong about that, could he?
              ‘How do you know?’ George insisted.
              ‘Dad,’ he sighed. ‘I just know.’
              ‘Like you ‘just knew’ last time?’
              Jonathan’s face flushed, but before he could reply, George held up his hands.
              ‘Sorry, son, that was below the belt.’
              Shaking his head, Jonathan said in a thick voice, ‘No, you were right about Arabella. I wasn’t enough for her, couldn’t live up to her lofty ideals, and that caused her to look elsewhere. Sad, but true.’
              ‘She was a scheming and manipulative ...’ George began, but stopped when Jonathan glared at him.
              ‘She was the mother of my children, and I want them to have an unsullied image of her, even if they don’t remember her.’
              George glared back. ‘Fair enough. If they were my boys, I’d want to protect them too. The thing is, as you’ve noticed, they’ve taken rather a shine to young Hazel there, and if she isn’t who she says she is ...’ He trailed off.
              ‘Fine, I’ll keep an eye on her if that makes you feel better, but I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.’
              ‘You’d best let me be the judge of that,’ George replied gruffly, and left the office looking far from reassured.
              Jonathan returned to his work, but couldn’t concentrate. He considered himself to be a good judge of character and a tolerant man, but his father’s suspicions of Hazel and her possible motives had struck home. What if she really was here under false pretences? In the short time she’d been at Combury Manor, she’d managed to get under his skin, mainly because he’d let her and because she was so easy to like. When she’d been lying sprawled on the ground with her foot in a crate, all he’d wanted to do was to laugh and scoop her up in his arms; she’d looked so funny and cute. Only years of self-control had held him back.
              But what if there was a darker purpose? Had she guessed that he was ready to get close to a woman again, and was exploiting it?
              He shook himself mentally, recalling her expression last night when he’d caught her snooping. He couldn’t help feeling that if she truly had been up to no good, she’d have acted differently, less guiltily and more inclined to explain herself. Instead, she’d been mortified – he could tell – and shame-faced. She’d make a terrible spy, he thought with a wry smile.
              All the same, he intended to keep an eye on her.
              How did the saying go? he thought. Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Yes, that was it.
              Resolutely, he reached for his mobile phone and sent a text to Irene’s daughter, Alison. If he paid her extra on top of what he paid her for the cleaning, he could ask her to follow Hazel.
     
    Hazel managed to get through the week without incident, developing a mechanism for deflecting Tabitha’s barbs. She concentrated on her work and spent her spare time with Irene, and occasionally Ellie, who suggested they went to the cinema one evening to see the latest Julia Roberts film. She played in the park with Seth and Ben, although she was careful to stay away from the outbuilding.
              She tried to avoid Jonathan outside work, which wasn’t always possible. He and the boys would sometimes eat in the kitchen instead of in their private apartment, and although the presence of Seth and Ben made it a noisy affair, the atmosphere at dinner seemed more strained than it had been before. Jonathan’s