when Zara’s aunt, Edith, died and left her niece her small but successful garden design business, Blooming Perfect. The Blakes had sneered at the idea of their severely dyslexic daughter running any kind of a business, not to mention one in a field that required specialist knowledge. Their father had stubbornly ignored the fact that in recent years Zara, who had long shared her aunt’s love of well-groomed outdoor spaces, had successfully taken several courses in garden design. Huge arguments had broken out in the Blake household when Zara stood up to her controlling snobbish parents and not only refused to sell her inheritance but also insisted on taking a close interest in the day to day running of the business.
‘I want … I need to lead my own life,’ Zara confided with more than a hint of desperation.
‘Of course, you do.’ Full of sympathy when she recognised the tears glistening in Zara’s eyes, Bee gripped the younger woman’s hands in hers. ‘But I don’t think marrying Sergios is the way to go about that. You’re only going to exchange one prison for another. He will have just as much of an agenda as your parents. Please think again about what you’re doing,’ Bee urged worriedly. ‘I didn’t like the man when I met him and I certainly wouldn’t trust him.’
Driving away from the specially adapted house that Bee shared with her disabled mother, Zara had a lot on her mind. Zara knew that it didn’t make much sense to marry in the hope of getting a new life but she was convinced that, as a renowned entrepreneur in his own right, Sergios would be much more tolerant and understanding of her desire to run her own business than her parents could ever be. He would be even happier to have a wife with her own interests, who had no need to look to him for attention, and her parents would at last be proud of her, proud and pleased that their daughter was the wife of such an important man. Why couldn’t Bee understand that the marriage was a win-win situation for all of them? In any case, Zara could no more imagine falling in love again than she could imagine walking down the street stark naked. A marriage of convenience was much more her style because love made fools of people, she thought painfully.
Her mother, for a start, was wed to a man who regularly played away with other women. Ingrid, a former Swedish model from an impoverished background, idolised her husband and the luxury lifestyle and social status he had given her by marrying her. No matter what Monty Blake did or how often he lost his violent temper, Ingrid forgave him or blamed herself for his shortcomings. And behind closed doors, her father’s flaws were a good deal more frightening than anyone would ever have guessed, Zara thought, suppressing a shiver of recoil.
A moment later, Zara parked outside Blooming Perfect’s small nursery. Rob, the manager her father had hired, was in the cluttered little office and he got up with a grin when she came in. ‘I was just about to call you—we have a possible commission from abroad.’
‘From where?’ Zara questioned in surprise.
‘Italy. The client has seen one of the gardens your aunt designed in Tuscany and apparently he was very impressed.’
Zara frowned. They had had several potential clients who backed off again the minute they realised that her aunt was no longer alive. ‘What did he say when you told him she passed away?’
‘I told him you do designs very much in the spirit of Edith’s work, although with a more contemporary approach,’ Rob explained. ‘He was still keen enough to invite you out there on an all-expenses-paid trip to draw up a design. I gather he’s a developer and he’s renovated this house and now he wants the garden to match. By the sounds of it, it’s a big bucks project and the chance you’ve been waiting for.’
Rob passed her the notebook on his desk to let her see the details he had taken. Zara hesitated before extending a reluctant hand to accept the notebook. For the sake of appearances she glanced down at the handwriting but she was quite unable to read it. As a dyslexic, reading was always a challenge for her but she had always found that actual handwriting as opposed to type was even harder for her to interpret. ‘My goodness, what an opportunity,’ she remarked dutifully.
‘Sorry, I forgot,’ Rob groaned, belatedly registering what was amiss, for she had had to tell him about her dyslexia to work with him. He dealt with what she could not. Retrieving the notebook, he gave her the details verbally instead.
While he spoke Zara remained stiff with discomfiture because she cringed from the mortifying moments when she could not hide her handicap and colleagues were forced to make allowances for her. It took her right back to the awful days when her father had repeatedly hammered her with the word ‘stupid’ as he raged about her poor school reports. In her mind normal people could read, write and spell without difficulty and she hated that she was different and hated even more having to admit the problem to others.
But Zara’s embarrassment faded as enthusiasm at the prospect of a genuine creative challenge took its place. Apart from the designs she had worked on with Edith, her experience to date encompassed only small city gardens created on a restricted budget. A larger scheme was exactly what her portfolio lacked and, handled well, would give Blooming Perfect the gravitas it needed to forge a fresh path without relying so heavily on her late aunt’s reputation. In addition if she made such a trip now it would ensure that Sergios and her family appreciated how seriously she took her new career. Perhaps then her family would stop referring to the design firm as her hobby.
‘Phone him back and make the arrangements,’ she instructed Rob. ‘I’ll fly out asap.’
Leaving Rob, Zara drove off to check the progress of the two current jobs on their books and found one in order and the other at a standstill because a nest of piping that nobody had warned them about had turned up in an inconvenient spot. Soothing the customer and organising a contractor to take care of the problem took time and it was after six before Zara got back to her self-contained flat in her parents’ house. She would have preferred greater independence but she was reluctant to leave her mother alone with her father and very much aware that Monty Blake made more effort to control his temper while his daughter was within hearing.
Her indoor pet rabbit, Fluffy, gambolled round her feet in the hall, welcoming her home. Zara fed the little animal and stroked her soft furry head. Within ten minutes of her return, Ingrid Blake, a beautiful rake thin woman who looked a good deal younger than her forty-three years, joined her daughter in her apartment.
‘Where the heck have you been all afternoon?’ her mother demanded impatiently and at the sound of that shrill tone Fluffy bolted back into her hutch.
‘I was at the nursery and I had some jobs to check—’
‘The nursery? Jobs?’ Ingrid grimaced as if Zara had said a rude word. ‘When is this nonsense going to stop, Zara? The nursery can only ever be an interest. The real business of your life is the wedding you have to arrange—there’s dress fittings, caterers and florists to see and that’s only the beginning—’
‘I thought we had a wedding organiser to take care of most of that for us,’ Zara responded evenly. ‘I’ve made myself available for every appointment—’
‘Zara,’ Ingrid began in a tone of exasperation, ‘don’t be more stupid than you can help. A bride should take a more active role in her own wedding.’
‘Don’t be more stupid than you can help’ was a comment that could still cut deep, like a knife slicing through tender flesh, for Zara still looked back on her school years as a nightmare. Her lack of achievement during that period was, even now, a deep source of shame to her.
‘This is more your wedding than mine,’ Zara finally felt pushed into pointing out, for she couldn’t have cared less about all the bridal fuss and frills.
Ingrid clamped a thin hand to a bony hip and swivelled to study her daughter with angry eyes. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Only that you care about that sort of thing and I don’t. I’m not being rude but I’ve got more on my mind than whether I should have pearls or crystals on my veil and Sergios won’t care either. Don’t forget that this is his second marriage,’ Zara reminded her mother gently, seeking a soothing note rather than piling logs on