Project: Runaway Heiress

“You were…extraordinary. As I knew you would be.”

His heartfelt compliment made her blush and filled her with unexpected pleasure. She shouldn’t be happy that he was so impressed with her performance tonight. She should be annoyed. Sorry that she’d helped to bolster his or Ashdown Abbey’s reputation in any way.

But she was pleased. Both that she’d maintained her ruse as a personal assistant, and that she’d done well enough to earn Nigel’s praise.

She was candid enough with herself to admit that the last didn’t have as much to do with his standing as her “boss” as with him as a man.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her throat surprisingly tight and slightly raw.

“No,” he replied, once again brushing the back of his hand along her cheek. “Thank you.”

And then, before she realized what he was about to do, he leaned in…

Dear Reader,

Want to know a secret? I’m a huge fan of television shows like Project Runway, Fashion Star and 24 Hour Catwalk. It’s not the competition itself that interests me nearly as much as the creativity and construction behind the designs that eventually walk the runway.

So when my editor and I began discussing ideas for a new Mills & Boon^® Desire^™ miniseries, PROJECT: PASSION leaped into my head. I just loved the idea of playing off Project Runway for titles, and creating characters and a world that revolves around high fashion. Plus, it seemed like the perfect excuse to watch Project Runway marathons and call it “research.”

I can only hope you’ll love the Zaccaro sisters as much as I do. Lily Zaccaro—eldest sister and founder of Zaccaro Fashions—kicks off PROJECT: PASSION with Project: Runaway Heiress. She’s as protective of her business as she is of her sisters, so when someone steals her designs, her first instinct is to find out who and why. even if her suspicions lead her straight into the arms of handsome, mouthwatering nigel Statham, the British CEO of a rival label.

Enjoy!

Heidi Betts

HeidiBetts.com

About the Author

An avid romance reader since junior high, USA TODAY bestselling author HEIDI BETTS knew early on that she wanted to write these wonderful stories of love and adventure. It wasn’t until her freshman year of college, however, when she spent the entire night before finals reading a romance novel instead of studying, that she decided to take the road less traveled and follow her dream.

Soon after Heidi joined Romance Writers of America, her writing began to garner attention, including placing in the esteemed Golden Heart competition three years in a row. The recipient of numerous awards and stellar reviews, Heidi’s books combine believable characters with compelling plotlines, and are consistently described as “delightful,” “sizzling” and “wonderfully witty.”

For news, fun and information about upcoming books, be sure to visit Heidi online at HeidiBetts.com.

Project:
Runaway Heiress
Heidi Betts

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A huge American thank you to UK reader Amanda Jane Ward, who read much of this story and troubleshot details for me all the way to the end to help ensure that my British hero came across as authentic and, well, you know…British.

Any mistakes are my own—due entirely, I’m sure, to the fact that Jason Statham still refuses to accept my phone calls.

Thank you, Manda! If I couldn’t use Jason for my research, you were definitely the next best thing. ;)

One

Impossible. This was impossible.

Lily Zaccaro maximized her browser window, leaning in even more closely to study the photo on her laptop screen. With angry taps at the keyboard, she minimized that window and opened another.

Dammit.

Screen after screen, window after window, her blood pressure continued to climb.

More angry keystrokes set the printer kicking out each and every picture. Or as she was starting to think of them: The Evidence.

Pulling the full-color photos from the paper tray, she carried them to one of the long, wide, currently empty cutting tables and laid them out side by side, row by row.

Inside her chest, her heart was pounding as though she’d just run a seven-minute mile. Right there, before her very eyes, was proof that someone was stealing her designs.

How had this happened?

She tapped her foot in agitation, twisted the oversize dinner ring on her right middle finger, even rubbed her eyes and blinked before studying the pictures again.

The fabric choices were different, of course, as were some of the lines and cuts, making them just distinctive enough not to be carbon copies. But there was no mistaking her original sketches in the competing designs.

To reassure herself she wasn’t imagining things or going completely crazy, Lily moved to one of the hip-high file cabinet drawers where she kept all of her records and design sketches. Old, new, implemented and scratched. Riffling through them, she found the portfolio she was looking for, dragged it out and carried it back to the table.

One after another, she drew out the sketches she’d been working on last spring. The very ones they’d been prepared to work with, manufacture and put out for the following fall’s line.

After a short game of mix-and-match, she had each sketch placed beside its counterpart from her rival. The similarities made her ill, almost literally sick to her stomach.

She leaned against the edge of the table while the images swam in front of her eyes, sending a dizzying array of colors and charcoal lines into the mix of emotions that were already leaving her light-headed and nauseated.

How could this happen? she wondered again. How could this possibly have happened?

Wracking her brain, she tried to think of who else might have seen her sketches while she was working. How many people had been in and out of this studio? There couldn’t have been that many.

Zoe and Juliet, of course, but she trusted them with her life. She and her sisters shared this work space. The three of them rented the entire New York apartment building, using one of the lofts as a shared living space and the other as a work space for their company, Zaccaro Fashions.

Although there were times when they got on each other’s nerves or their work schedules overlapped, their partnership was actually working out surprisingly well. And Lily showed her sisters all of her design ideas, sometimes even soliciting their opinions, the same as they shared their thoughts and sketches with her.

But neither of them—not even slightly flighty party girl, Zoe—would ever steal or sell her designs or betray her in any way. Of that, she was absolutely, one hundred percent certain.

So who else could it have been? They occasionally had others over to the studio, but not very often. Most times when they had business to conduct, they did it at Zaccaro Fashions, their official, public location in Manhattan’s Fashion District, where they had more sewing machines set up, with employees to produce items on a larger, faster scale; offices for each of the sisters; and a small boutique set up out front. Something they hoped to expand upon very soon.

Of course, that particular dream would be nearly impossible to realize if their creations continued to get stolen and put on the market before they could release them.

She collected all of the papers from the cutting table, being sure to keep each of the printed pictures with its corresponding sketch. Then she began to pace, worrying a thumbnail between her teeth and wearing out the soles of her one-of-a-kind Zoe-designed pumps while she wondered what to do next.

What could she do?

If she had any idea who was responsible for this, then she might know what to do. Bludgeoning them with a sharp object or having them drawn and quartered in the middle of Times Square sounded infinitely satisfying. But even going to the police would work for her, as long as the theft and replication of her clothes stopped, and the culprit was punished or fired or chased out of town by a mob of angry fashion designers wielding very sharp scissors.

Without a clue of who was behind this, though, she didn’t even know where to begin. Wasn’t sure she had any options at all.

Her sisters might have some suggestions, but she so didn’t want to involve them in this.

She’d been the one to go to design school, then ask their parents for a loan to start her own business. Because—even though they were quite wealthy and had offered to simply give her the money, since she was already in line for a substantial inheritance—she’d wanted to do this herself, to build something rather than having it handed to her.

She’d been the one to come to New York and struggle to make a name for herself, Zoe and Juliet following along later. Zoe had been interested in the New York party scene more than anything else, and Juliet had quit her job as a moderately successful, fledgling real-estate agent back in Connecticut to join Lily’s company.

Without a doubt, they had both added exponentially to Zaccaro Fashions. Lily’s clothing designs were fabulous, of course, but Zoe’s shoes and Juliet’s handbags and accessories were what truly made the Zaccaro label a well-rounded and successful collection.

Accessories like that tended to be where the most money was made, too. Women loved to find not only a new outfit, but all the bells and whistles to go with it. The fact that they could walk into Zaccaro Fashions and walk back out with everything necessary to dress themselves up from head to toe in a single shopping bag was what had customers coming back time and time again. And recommending the store to their friends. Thank God.

But it wasn’t her sisters’ designs being ripped off, her sisters’ stakes in the business being threatened, and she didn’t want them to worry—about her or the security of their own futures.

No, she needed to handle this on her own. At least until she had a better idea of what was going on.

Returning to the laptop, she hopped up on the nearest stool and straightened her skirt, tucking her feet beneath her on one of the lower rungs. Her fingers hesitated over the keys, then she just started tapping, not sure she was doing the right thing, but deciding to follow her gut.

Two minutes later, she had the phone number of a corporate-investigation firm uptown, and five minutes after that, she had an appointment for the following week with their top investigator. She wasn’t certain yet exactly what she would ask him to do, but once he heard her dilemma, maybe he would have some ideas.

Then she continued searching online, deciding to dig up everything she could on her newest, scheming rival, Ash-down Abbey.

The London-based clothing company had been founded more than a hundred years ago by Arthur Statham. Their fashions ranged from sportswear to business attire and had been featured in any number of magazines, from Seventeen to Vogue. They owned fifty stores worldwide, earning over ten million dollars in revenue annually.

So why in heaven’s name would they need to steal ideas from her?

Zaccaro Fashions was still in its infancy, earning barely enough to cover the overhead, make monthly payments to Lily’s parents toward the loan and allow Juliet, Zoe and herself to continue living comfortably in the loft and working in the adjoining studio. Ashdown Abbey might as well have been the Hope Diamond sitting beside a chunk of cubic zirconium in comparison.

The hijacked fashions in question had originated from Ashdown Abbey’s Los Angeles branch, so she dug a little deeper into that particular division. According to the company’s website, it was run by Nigel Statham, CEO and direct descendant of Arthur Statham himself.

But the Los Angeles offices had only been open for a year and a half and were apparently working somewhat independently of the rest of the British company, putting out a couple of exclusive lines and holding their own runway shows geared more toward an American—and specifically Hollywood—customer base.

Which meant it wasn’t all of Ashdown Abbey out to ruin Lily’s life, just the Los Angeles faction.

Lily narrowed her eyes, leaning closer to the laptop screen and focusing on a photo of Nigel Statham. Public Enemy Number One.

He was a good-looking man, she’d give him that much. Grudgingly. Short, light brown hair with a bit of curl at the ends. High cheekbones and a strong jaw. Lips that were full, but not too full. And eyes that looked to be a deep shade of green, though that was difficult to tell from a picture on the internet.

She wanted to despise him on sight, but in one photo, he was smiling. A sexy, charming smile that went all the way to his eyes and threatened to turn her knees to jelly.

Of course, she was sitting and she was made of sterner stuff than that, so that wasn’t going to happen. But at first glance, she certainly wouldn’t have pegged him as a thief.

She continued to scroll through pictures and articles and company information, but much of it was for the U.K. division and the other European stores. The Los Angeles branch still seemed to be finding its footing and working to establish itself as a British clothing company on American soil.

Deciding there wasn’t much more she could do until she met with the investigator except seethe in silence, Lily began to close up shop. She checked her watch. She was supposed to meet her sisters for dinner in twenty minutes, anyway.

But as she was shutting down browser windows, something caught her eye. A page filled with “job opportunities at Ashdown Abbey—U.S.A.” She’d been perusing the list just to get a better idea of how the company operated.

Now, though, she expanded the window, clicked on the link for “more information” and hit Print.

It was crazy, what she was suddenly thinking. Worse yet that she was contemplating actually going through with it.

Her sisters would try to talk her out of it for sure, if she even mentioned the possibility. The investigator would undoubtedly warn her against it, then likely try to convince her to let him handle it at—what?—one hundred…two hundred and fifty…five hundred dollars an hour.

It would be so much easier for her to slip in and poke around herself. She knew the design world inside and out, so she would certainly fit in. And if she made herself sound smart and qualified enough, surely she would be a shoo-in.

A tiny shiver of anxiety rolled down her spine. Okay, so it was dangerous. A lot could go wrong, and she probably stood to get herself into a heap of trouble if anyone—or the wrong someone, at any rate—found out.

But it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Almost as though she was meant to go through with this, fate bending its bony finger to point the way. Otherwise, what were the chances this particular position would open up just when she most needed the inside scoop on Ashdown Abbey?

No, she had to do this. She had to find out what was going on, how it had happened and get it to stop. And going to work for Ashdown Abbey seemed like a good way to do exactly that.

Not just good—perfect.

Because Nigel Statham needed a personal assistant, and she was just the right woman for the job.

Two

Nigel Statham muttered an unflattering curse, slapping the company’s quarterly financial report down on top of his father’s latest missive. The one that made him feel like a child in short trousers being scolded for some minor transgression or another.

Handwritten on personal stationery and posted all the way from England—because that’s how his parents had always done it, and email was too commonplace for their refined breeding—the letter outlined the U.S. division’s disappointing returns and Nigel’s failure to make it yet another jewel in the Ashdown Abbey crown since he’d been appointed CEO eighteen months ago.

Disappointment clung to the words as though his father was standing in the room, delivering them face-to-face: hands behind his back, bushy white brows drawn down in a frown of displeasure. Just like when he’d been a boy.

His parents had always expected perfection—an aim he had fallen short of time and time again. But he hardly thought a year and a half was long enough to ascertain the success or failure of a new branch of the business in an entirely new country when it had taken nearly a century for Ashdown Abbey to reach its current level of success in the U.K. alone.

He thought perhaps his father’s expectations for this new venture had been set a bit too high. But try telling the senior Statham that.

With a sigh, Nigel leaned back and wondered how long he could put off responding to the letter before his father sent a second. Or worse yet, decided to fly all the way to Los Angeles to check in on his son in person.

Another day, certainly. Especially since he was currently dreading the job of training a brand-new personal assistant.

He’d been through three so far. Three attractive but very young ladies who had been competent enough but hardly dedicated.

The problem with hiring personal assistants in the heart of Los Angeles, he decided, was that they tended to be either aspiring actresses who grew bored easily or quit as soon as they landed a part in a hand-lotion commercial; or they were aspiring fashion designers who grew bored when they didn’t make it to the top with their own line in under six months.

And each time one of them moved on, he had to start all over training a new girl. It was enough to make him consider hiring an assistant to be on hand to train his next assistant.

Human resources had hired the latest in his stead, then sent him a memo with her name and a bit of background information, both personal and professional. It probably wasn’t even worth remembering the woman’s name, but then he’d never been that kind of boss.

Before he had the chance to review her résumé once more, there was a tap on his office door. Less than half a second later, it swung open and his new assistant—he deduced she was his new assistant, at any rate—strode across the carpeted floor.

She was prettier than her photo depicted. Her hair teetered somewhere between light brown and dark blond, pulled back in a loose but smoothly twisted bun at the back of her head. Her face was lightly made up, the lines classic and delicate, almost Romanesque.

A pair of dark-rimmed, oval-lensed glasses sat perched high on her nose. Small gold hoops graced her earlobes. She wore a simple white blouse tucked into the waistband of a black pencil skirt that hit midcalf, concealing three-quarters of what he suspected could prove to be extraordinary legs. And on her feet, a pair of patent-leather pumps, color-blocked in black and white with three-inch heels.

Being in fashion, he took note more than he might have otherwise. But as a man, there were certain aspects of her appearance he would have noticed regardless.

Like her alabaster skin or the way her breasts pressed against the front of her shirt. The bronze-kiss shade of her lips and rose-red tips of her perfectly manicured nails.

“Mr. Statham,” she said in a voice that matched the rest of the package. “I’m Lillian, your new personal assistant. Here’s your coffee and this morning’s mail.”

She set the steaming mug stamped with the Ashdown Abbey logo on the leather coaster on his desk. It looked as though she’d added a touch of cream, just the way he liked it.

She placed the pile of envelopes directly in front of him, and he flipped through, noticing that it seemed to be all business correspondence, no fluff to waste his time sorting out.

As first impressions went, she was making a rather positive one.

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

“No, thank you,” he replied slowly.

With a nod, she turned on her heel and started back toward the door.

“Lillian.” He stopped her just before she reached the doorway.

Spine straight, she returned her attention to him. “Yes, sir?”

“Are those Ashdown Abbey designs you’re wearing?” he asked. “The blouse and skirt?”

She offered him a small smile. “Of course.”

He considered that for a moment, almost afraid to believe that his luck in the personal-assistant department might actually be changing for the better.

Clearing his throat, he said carefully, “You wouldn’t happen to be an actress, would you?” He resisted the urge to use the term aspiring, but only barely.

A slight frown drew her light brows together. “No, sir.”

“What about modeling? Any interest in that?”

That question brought out a short chuckle. “Definitely not.”

He thought back to some of the bullet points from her résumé. She hadn’t simply wandered in from the street, that was for certain. Her background was in both business and design, with a degree in the former and a few very strong courses in the latter.

On paper she was rather ideal, but he knew as well as anyone that everybody became a bit of a fiction writer when it came to cooking up a résumé.

“And your interest in the fashion industry is…” He trailed off, leaving her to fill in the blank on her own.

For the blink of an eye, she seemed to consider what response he might be looking for. Then she replied in a firm tone, “Strictly business. And the opportunity to get my hands on fresh designs sooner than the rest of the world. I’m a bit of a clotheshorse, I’m afraid.” She ended with a guileless half grin that brought out the tiniest hint of dimple in the center of her right cheek.

Almost in spite of himself, he caught his own lips turning upward. “Well, then, you’ve certainly come to the right place. Employees get a discount at our company store, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” she said slowly, and he could have sworn he saw a sparkle of devilment in her eye.

“Excellent,” he murmured, feeling better about her employment already.

He hadn’t exactly seen her in action, but she had, as they say, passed the first hurdle. At the very least, she hadn’t walked in with a wide smile and an IQ equal to her age.

“If you haven’t already, please familiarize yourself with my daily schedule and appointments for the week. There may be a few meetings and events to which I’ll need you to accompany me, so watch for those notations. And be sure to review the schedule frequently, as I tend to change or update it regularly and without warning.”

Picking up his coffee, he took a sip, surprised to find it quite tasty. Almost the exact ratio of cream to coffee that he preferred.

“Yes, sir. Not a problem.”

“Thank you. That will be all for now,” he told her.

Once again, she turned for the door. And once again, he stopped her just before she stepped out of his office.

“Oh, and, Lillian?”

“Yes, sir?” she intoned, tipping her head in his direction.

“Excellent coffee. I hope you can make an equally satisfying cup of tea.”

“I’ll certainly try.”

With that, she closed the door behind her, leaving Nigel with a strangely unexpected smile on his face.

As soon as the door to Nigel Statham’s stately, expansive office clicked shut and she was alone—blessedly, blissfully alone—Lily rushed on weak legs to the plush office chair behind her large, executive secretary’s desk and dropped into it like a sack of lead.

She was shaking from head to toe, her heart both racing and pounding at the same time. It felt as though an angry gorilla was trapped inside her chest, rattling her rib cage to get out.

And her stomach…her stomach was pitching and rolling so badly, she thought she must surely know how it felt to be on a ship that was going down in a storm-tossed sea. If she didn’t lose her quickly scarfed-down breakfast in the next ten seconds, it would be a miracle.

To keep that from happening, she leaned forward, tucking her head over her knees. Over them, because it was nearly impossible to get between them in the slim, tailored skirt she’d chosen for her first day of working undercover and with a false identity.

Lillian. Blech. It was the best name she’d been able to come up with that she thought she would answer to naturally, the blending of her first and middle names—Lily and Ann.

And as a last name, she’d gone with something simple and also easily identifiable, at least to her. George—what she and her sisters had called their first pet. A lazy, good-natured basset hound their father had found wandering around the parking lot where he worked.

Her mother had been furious right up until the moment she’d realized George woofed at the top of his lungs the minute anyone stepped foot on their property. From that point on, he’d been her “very best guard dog” and had gotten his own place setting of people food on the floor beside the dining-room table whenever they sat down to eat.

So Lillian George it was. Even though being referred to as Lillian made her feel like a matronly, middle-aged librarian.

Then again, she sort of looked like a librarian.

Her usual style, and definitely her own designs, leaned very strongly toward the bright, bold and carefree. She loved color and prints, anything vibrant and flirty and fun.

But for her position at Ashdown Abbey, she’d needed to be much more prim and proper. Not to mention doing as much as she could to disguise her identity and avoid being recognized or linked in any way to Zaccaro Fashions.

She could only hope that the change of name and switch to a wardrobe drawn entirely from Ashdown Abbey’s own line of business attire, coupled with the glasses and darkening of her normally light blond hair would be enough to keep anyone at the company from figuring out who she really was.

It helped, too, that Zaccaro Fashions was only moderately successful. She and her sisters weren’t exactly media darlings. They’d been photographed here or there, appeared in magazines or society pages upon occasion, but mostly in relation to their father and their family’s monetary worth. But she would be surprised if most people—even those familiar with the industry—would recognize any one of them if they passed on the street. Although Zoe was doing her level best to change that by going out on the town and getting caught behaving badly on a more and more regular basis.

After a couple of minutes, Lily’s pulse, the spinning of her head and the lurching in her stomach all began to slow. She’d made it this far. She’d made it past human resources with her creatively worded but fairly accurate résumé and her apparently not-so-rusty-after-all interview skills. Then she’d stood in front of corporate CEO Nigel Statham himself without being found out or dragged away in handcuffs.

He also hadn’t followed her out of his office, shaking a finger at her deceit, or instructed security to meet her at her desk. Everything was quiet, calm, completely normal, as far as she could tell.

Ashdown Abbey certainly didn’t have the hum of voices and sewing machines in the background the way the Zaccaro Fashions offices did. But, then, Zaccaro Fashions wasn’t a major, multimillion-dollar operation the way Ashdown Abbey was, either. They hadn’t yet reached the point where their corporate offices and manufacturing area were two separate entities.

Frankly, Lily thought she could use the mechanical buzz of a sewing machine or her sisters’ laughter as she worked with her cell phone pressed to her ear right about now. Sometimes silence was entirely overrated. Times like these, when all she could hear was her own rapid breathing and the panicked voices in her head telling her she was crazy and sure to get caught.

To keep those voices from getting any louder and leading her in the wrong direction, she started to recite one of the simple, meaningless poems she’d been forced to memorize in grade school, then slowly sat up.

Tiny stars flashed in front of her eyes, but only for a second. She blinked and they were gone, leaving her with clear vision and a clear—or clearer, anyway—head.

Nigel Statham believed she was his new personal assistant, so maybe she should go back to acting like one.

Rolling her chair up to the desk, she pulled out her computer’s keyboard and mouse, and started clicking away. She’d familiarized herself with the computer’s operating system just a bit before going into Nigel’s office, but was sure there was much more to learn.

His daily schedule, for instance. Something she was apparently going to have to stay on top of or risk not knowing what she was supposed to be doing from one hour to the next.

She felt a small stab of guilt as she bypassed the email program, wondering if her sisters had found her note yet and honored her wishes by not telling anyone about her sudden disappearance or trying to track her down themselves.

She’d told them she had some personal business to attend to. Something she couldn’t discuss just yet, but needed some time away to deal with. She assured them she would be fine and wasn’t in any danger, and asked them to trust her to get in touch as soon as she could.

She didn’t want them to worry about her, but she wasn’t ready to tell them what was really going on, either. One day…one day she would fill them in on everything. She would tell them the entire story over a bottle of wine, and chances were they would have a good laugh about it.

But not until it was resolved and there was a happily-ever-after to report. When the threat to their company was gone and there were no fears or rumors left to spread like wildfire if anyone else got wind of it.

Before she left, she’d also met with Reid McCormack of McCormack Investigations about running comprehensive background checks on everyone under Zaccaro Fashions’ employ. Lily honestly didn’t believe he would find anything incriminating, but better safe than sorry.