Lucy King - The Couple Behind the Headlines

‘Jack Taylor.’ He held out his hand.

‘Imogen Christie,’ she said, taking it.

For a moment she was so startled by the feel of his hand wrapped around hers and the energy that suddenly spun through her that the name didn’t register. She was too busy marvelling at the way every nerve-ending she possessed tingled, the way her whole body was suddenly coming alive, and thinking about how much fun dinner was going to be.

But when it did, seconds later, her smile froze and her stomach disappeared. Her heart sank and the heat pounding through her turned to ice.

Jack Taylor? Not the Jack Taylor? Not the one she’d read about? Heard about … Been warned about …

How typical was that? She reluctantly pulled her hand out of his as disappointment washed through her.

According to the financial press the man was some kind of investment superstar. He made millions on a daily basis, backing ventures most people wouldn’t touch with a bargepole and taking risks considered to be either insane or genius, depending on one’s point of view. His funds were huge and his successes were global.

As, apparently, were his extra-curricular activities.

According to her friends, and the kind of press that favoured gossip over finance, Jack Taylor was legendary. He was gorgeous and charming. Smooth and charismatic, yet ice-cool and elusive. He was, by all accounts, a true heartbreaker.

LUCY KINGspent her formative years lost in the world of Mills & Boon ®romance when she really ought to have been paying attention to her teachers. Up against sparkling heroines, gorgeous heroes and the magic of falling in love, trigonometry and absolute ablatives didn’t stand a chance.

But as she couldn’t live in a dream world for ever she eventually acquired a degree in languages and an eclectic collection of jobs. A stroll to the River Thames one Saturday morning led her to her very own hero. The minute she laid eyes on the hunky rower getting out of a boat, clad only in Lycra and carrying a three-metre oar as if it was a toothpick, she knew she’d met the man she was going to marry. Luckily the rower thought the same.

She will always be grateful to whatever it was that made her stop dithering and actually sit down to type Chapter One, because dreaming up her own sparkling heroines and gorgeous heroes is pretty much her idea of the perfect job.

Originally a Londoner, Lucy now lives in Spain, where she spends much of the time reading, failing to finish cryptic crosswords, and trying to convince herself that lying on the beach really is the best way to work.

Visit her at www.lucykingbooks.com

Recent titles by the same author:

SAY IT WITH DIAMONDS

THE CROWN AFFAIR

PROPOSITIONED BY THE BILLIONAIRE

BOUGHT: DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Couple

Behind the

Headlines

Lucy King

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For William

TWO hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds?

Imogen gaped at the catalogue, her jaw practically hitting the floor. It had to be a mistake. A typo or something. Because surely no one could be expected to fork out a quarter of a million pounds for that … that thing .

Bracing herself, she turned back, stared at the canvas hanging on the wall, and winced. ‘The Sting in Society’ was so eye-poppingly ugly it made every cell in her body shrivel in protest. So primitive it looked as if it had been executed by her five-year-old nephew in one of his tantrums. So absolutely hideous that not even the copious amounts of vintage champagne on offer could dent its impact.

And it was enormous. The artist, who’d splashed a blaze of clashing colours onto the canvas in a seemingly random fashion, clearly felt his creativity was too great to contain, which while undoubtedly satisfying some sort of artistic bent for himself, was excruciating for everyone else.

It would be one thing if ‘The Sting in Society’ were a one-off. That she could just about deal with while fulfilling her aim to take every advantage of the free-flowing champagne. But it wasn’t. The plain white walls of the gallery were littered with the things. Beneath unforgivably bright lights hung two dozen canvases, all splattered with the same great swathes of colours, all equally dreadful, and all going for the same mind-blowing sums of money.

Imogen grimaced. She was the first to admit that she was no expert on modern art, but in her opinion whatever its worth, the whole lot should be consigned to the Thames.

Not that anyone else appeared to think so, she thought, glancing around at the trendily dressed throng. Everywhere she looked, people milled about, tilting their heads and tapping index fingers against their mouths while spouting esoteric nonsense about allegory and metaphysics.

Swinging her gaze back to the piece she was standing in front of, Imogen stifled a shudder. It was madness, she mused, narrowing her eyes as she tried to work out its appeal and failed. Complete insanity.

Who in their right mind would pay that amount of money for such a horrendous thing anyway?

She mentally ran through a list of all the things a quarter of a million pounds could achieve. Only yesterday her department had had to allocate exactly that sum to one of the projects run by the Christie Trust, and the options were still fresh in her memory. Spending it on an eye-watering splatter of colours had not, strangely enough, been one of them.

But then what did she know about anything?

Imogen took a step back, bit her lip and frowned. Recent events had proved that her judgement sucked. Big time. So who was she to decide whether or not this stuff was any good? As bizarre as she might think it, little red dots were popping up next to the paintings like chicken pox, so the evidence appeared to be speaking for itself.

Which only hammered home the painful realisation that her judgement was indeed still in bits.

Not that that was any surprise.

Only two months had passed since Connie, her once-upon-a-time partner-in-crime and best-friend-since-school had run off with Max, Imogen’s then boyfriend, and, although the pain had ebbed to a dull ache instead of the agony it had once been, it still hurt.

More so this evening, thought Imogen morosely, her already battered spirits taking a nosedive. The last time she’d been to a private view, Connie had been with her. They’d laughed and talked loudly and pompously about light and depth and perspective, ransacked the canapés and then hit the latest club.

Tonight, however, she was alone, and Connie, the sneaky snake-in-the-grass, was in all likelihood at home, snuggling up to Max on the sofa and hatching wedding plans.

Imogen’s heart twanged. She’d told herself to get over it a million times and she reckoned she was making good progress, but from time to time—usually when she was least expecting it—the whole sorry affair swooped down and smacked her around the head.

Like this afternoon.

Like now.

The backs of her eyes prickled but she blinked the sting away and yanked her shoulders back. What did she care what Connie was up to? So what if the friendship they’d had, the one that had started at kindergarten and had continued for the past twenty-five years, had disintegrated in the ten seconds it had taken to read Max’s note? And so what if her ex-boyfriend and her ex-best friend were getting married?