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stretched out luxuriously upon it as eagerly as a sunbathing cat. His dark glasses slipped along his nose as he gazeddown at her, so that two roguish green eyes glittered above the wire rims.
    Even after a year, he remained the most stomach-tighteningly sexy man she had ever encountered. That rare mix of old-fashioned machismo with a poet’s soul got her every time. To be adored by a man as powerful as Conrad Knight was utterly hypnotising.
    Glowing in the glory of his company, backed up by the sunshine and a hamper full of iced cakes, she lay back on the checked blanket and gazed adoringly across at him as he mixed freshly squeezed orange juice with Prosecco. Her father, the drinks snob, would disapprove enormously, having always claimed buck’s fizz no better than an alcopop, but right now she could think of nothing she’d like to drink more. Dorian North disapproved of everything about Conrad – his age, his pushiness, his rough-diamond charm, and the fact that he had destroyed what Dorian believed to be his daughter’s greatest chance of happiness in marrying her childhood sweetheart.
    Conrad was everything Francis wasn’t; an ambitious gambler with a quick temper, a steel-framed ego and a super-fast corporate brain. A self-made man, he had a fearsome reputation as a brilliant business mind in the ivory towers of literary fiction publishing, and it was said that he had single-handedly dragged renowned old agency, Fellows Howlett, into the twenty-first century. Since being head-hunted from top London publishing house, Clipstone, to take over the directorship from the last of the Fellows family, he had signed a succession of radical new literary names with commercial appeal while pensioning off the worst of the dinosaurs. Literary snobs had accused him of selling out at first, but with more Booker, Orange, Pulitzer and Nobel winners currently on his books than the Athenaeum Club membership list, Conrad had proved his worth. His were high-grossing, chart-topping authors, as well as being critically acclaimed thoroughbreds with good pedigrees and perfect fetlocks, and he saw himself as the leading London trainer. Legs had noticed that the only time he becametouchy was when it was hinted that his real success could be attributed to just one author, the legendary Gordon Lapis with his Ptolemy Finch series, a multi-million-selling runaway success that appealed to children and adults alike and had spawned four smash-hit movies, huge global merchandising and a brand name as recognisable as many fast food chains, fizzy drinks brands and football teams.
    Having discovered Gordon in the agency slush pile, Conrad held the claim of creating a megastar, but he regularly complained that this meant he took all the shots from Gordon’s legendary short temper. He was increasingly using Legs to draw the fire away from his busy days.
    Even now, he read a message on his BlackBerry with lowered brows. ‘Gordon is trying to contact you. Why would he think I can help on a Saturday?’
    Fumbling to turn on her own phone, Legs cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘He might think we work some weekends. He does, after all.’
    ‘He works every day. He has more creative energy than Hollywood.’
    Legs found a new email from Gordon waiting for her:
Would Julie Ocean fight for justice at any cost? If so, would she favour martial arts or firearms?’
    ‘Is it about “the Reveal”?’ demanded Conrad, trying to read the message past the sun-blinding screen glare.
    ‘No.’ She hastily typed
Tai Chi
and pressed send. ‘Just research he’s doing. He always refers me back to you about that. You are his earthly portal, after all.’
    Gordon’s royalties alone accounted for eighty per cent of Fellows Howlett’s not inconsiderable annual profit, but pandering to Lapis’s increasing eccentricity had started to vex Conrad, who preferred his authors bibulous and biddable. He’d told Legs that he thought her more cheerful, informal manner might calm