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offered his heart to, trampled it into the limestone floor.
    “Sir, the neighbours are complaining.”
    Cameron chuckled. It was a hell of a thing when even his laugh sounded rusty only after two weeks of self-imposed exile. A fortnight since he last saw Sandy running away from him as if he had the Plague.
    “Tell the neighbours—” Cameron cleared his throat and tried again. “Sedrick, will you tell the good neighbours I shall desist immediately.” He jabbed a button on the minuscule remote control, cutting off John Travolta in the middle of a heart-wrenching ‘ Saaan-dy ’.
    “Right away, Your Highness.”
    “Sedrick!”
    The old man turned around with an air of stiff upper lip.
    “I asked you not to call me that.”
    “But your father—”
    “No longer employs you, I do. The name is Cameron, or since you insist—sir. Or any one of the choice names I’m sure you must have for me when I’m out of earshot—but never that.”
    Sedrick gave a small head bob. “Sir.” Turned and left Cameron scowling at the spot on the parquet floor where the man—who’d been more of a father to him than his own—had stood. For as long as he could remember, Sedrick had been around. First as his father’s butler, then after his father’s death five years ago, the old man had stayed on as Cameron’s. And in between, he’d been the only person who knew the loneliness Cameron had experienced as a child when his father’s ‘duties’ had kept him away from the family home for weeks at a time. His four older brothers were too busy with their own lives to notice quiet, studious Cameron, who had been his mother’s last-ditched attempt to save a crumbling marriage. He’d later found out ‘duties’ was code for I’m off with my latest mistress.
    Within moments, Sedrick was back. “Master Cameron, you have a visitor.”
    “Tell whoever it is, I’m out. I’ve told you I don’t want to see anyone.”
    “From the incessant racket you’ve played for the past two weeks, I should think you will want to see this young lady.”
    Cameron gulped. Nah, it couldn’t be. Not Sandy? He came alive, scrambled off the easy chair, and nearly fell flat on his face.
    “Are you all right, sir?”
    He righted himself but only just. He gave the plush royal blue carpet the same glower he’d given the parquet floor a short while ago. “Yes.” He spun around, his gaze running over the mess of scattered CDs and untouched breakfast. Where did he put his shirt? Giving up the search, he leaned over the glass balcony in an effort to get a glimpse of the ‘young lady’.
    All he saw was Sedrick’s stern frown. The same one he used to get when he was ten and thought sliding down the long winding banister at his father’s house was fun.
    He lowered his voice. “Who did she say she was?”
    “A Miss Sandy Donovan, Your—sir.”
    He was so juiced that Sandy had come to see him he couldn’t be bothered to pull Sedrick up on his near-slip. He came down the stairs at a bare-footed gallop, missing out several treads in his haste. “Where’d you put her?”
    “In the sunroom, sir.”
    “The apartment has a sunroom?” He’d lived here five years, and he didn’t know that.
    “Over there, sir.”
    He was pretty sure Sedrick was overdoing the ‘sirs’ to get a rise out of him. “Knock it off, Sedrick. I’m not too nice to fire you, old man.” Cameron headed toward the room where his butler had pointed—the lounge.
    “You will need a shirt, Master Cameron.”
    Cameron spun around, not missing a step as he walked backwards toward the room where Sandy waited. “Great idea. Grab me a fresh one, will you? I seem to have misplaced the other one.” He turned back toward the lounge.
    He pushed open the door, surprised to find his hands shook. Mid-morning winter sunshine streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows filled the room, but it was Sandy’s sheer radiance that captivated him. She sat on the edge of a chair, her back straight,