Secret Things and Highland Flings
Lexi Ryan’s ex-husband has squandered their money and run away to Spain with his PA, leaving Lexi to deal with the fallout. Determined to keep her beloved art gallery afloat, Lexi doesn’t tell anyone about the bag of cash she found in their basement. But when Martin returns demanding his money, she doesn’t know who to turn to…Olly Wentworth seems to have it all. He’s carefree and travelling the world – but he’s running from an old family secret. And, when his father dies and he suddenly finds himself the Earl of Horsley, his life is turned upside down. Now he has to find the money to fund his family estate – and fast.When their two paths cross in the Scottish highlands, Lexi and Olly are instantly drawn to one another. But how long can it last, when they both have secrets to hide?
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Secret Things and Highland Flings
TRACY CORBETT
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Tracy Corbett 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Cover illustrations © Shutterstock
Tracy Corbett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008299491
Version: 2019-03-22
For Simon, thank you for helping me find my smile again. x
Table of Contents
Tuesday 29th May
Lexi Ryan wasn’t having the best of mornings. She’d managed to slice open her finger while chopping apricots for the muffins she’d baked first thing, and then she’d torn a contact lens and spent the next thirty minutes trying to locate the broken pieces in her eye. By the time she’d recovered and rushed down from the flat to open up her art gallery below, her finger was throbbing and her eye was bloodshot. Not exactly the composed and professional look she was aiming for.
She’d hoped wearing her favourite emerald-green fifties wrap-around dress might cheer her flagging spirits, but not even her love of vintage clothing was working today.
It was now lunchtime and things hadn’t improved. She had a pile of bills that needed paying and insufficient funds in her account to cover them. She’d phoned a few long-standing clients, hoping to encourage them into settling their accounts, but it had proved a fruitless exercise. Exceeding her overdraft limit this month was looking highly likely.
Concealing her agitation, she returned her attentions to her waiting clients. After all, she had a business to run. Stressing over her finances wouldn’t save her precious gallery from foreclosure, or prevent her from inflicting GBH on the annoying businessmen who couldn’t make up their mind between Livemont’s Scent of a Rose and Munch’s The Scream. Professionalism was called for.
‘Original?’ the older of the two said, pointing to the post-Impressionist masterpiece.
She joined them by the glass cabinet. Of course it’s an original, she was tempted to say. The Munch Museum grew tired of generating millions from displaying the Norwegian’s best-known expressionist work and decided to loan it to a small independent gallery in Windsor.
Except she didn’t say it, of course. She fought the urge for sarcasm, kept her smile in place and pointed to the index card. ‘All of the paintings displayed along this wall are copies,’ she said, refusing to catch the eye of the Woman at the Window in case she gave the game away.
‘Very good.’ He nodded manically, gesturing to the painting again. ‘Very good.’
‘I agree. They might not be originals, but they’re all exquisite works of art in their own right, painted by some of the country’s leading artists.’ She tried to dazzle them with a winning smile and brushed her blonde hair away from her face … except the plaster on her finger got stuck in her fringe, ruining the effect.
As she attempted to disentangle herself, the gallery door opened.
She glanced over, momentarily distracted by the sight of a huge bouquet of pink roses being carried through the doorway. And then she realised who was carrying the flowers and her day went from ‘mildly irritating’ to ‘catastrophic’ in an instant. It was her ex-husband.
The throbbing in her finger increased … until she realised she was gripping her hair.
She tried to regain her composure, but the sight of Marcus made that impossible. He was wearing a fitted shirt with black tailored trousers, looking tanned and relaxed, his beguiling smile enhanced by straight white teeth and deep brown eyes. He made quite an impact standing there, grinning, holding the flowers aloft like he was God’s gift. It didn’t stop her wanting to scream and throw a sharp object at his head, though.
