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CHAPTER ONE

ROWAN FARRINGDON DREADED Sunday dinners with her parents The tradition was a new one, instated exactly one lealory of a house that has all the showiness of a ements were formal

She’d o, when she’d turned up with an armful of scented overblown creaated to the laundry sink—doubtless to be tossed out at her mother’s earliest convenience

She hadn’t ain

For some reason her mother loved this house, and insisted that Rowan—as her only child and heir—love the house as well

Never going to happen

Rowan’s hurried ‘I’m well set up already, Mum Sell the house Spend every last penny you have before you go, I really won’t mind …’ probably hadn’t been the ht ever voiced, but Rowan had meant every word of it

To say that Rowan and herof an understatement

Four people graced the enor’s forrandfather, and herself Presuave the i at it was of equal importance, but the actual conversation around the table told a different story

Rowan shared a glance with her grandfather as her father launched into yet another nitaries and very important people she’d never heard of Both her parents had been Arn as later on They’d led the expat life for ely left behind with her grandfather His job hadn’t exactly been geared towards the raising of children either—he’d been an Areneral—but he’d never once left her behind and she loved him all the more for it

Rowan’s phone buzzed once fro on the side table where she’d put it when she arrived, and Roinced She kneas co

‘I thought I asked you to turn that off?’ her mother told her coolly, her almond-brown eyes hard with displeasure

People often thought brown eyes were soft, liquid and lovely

Not all of them

‘You know I can’t’ Rowan rose ‘Excuse me I have to take that’

She took her phone and the information on it out into the hall and returned ait over her shoulder

‘You’re leaving?’ Her mother’s voice was flat with accusation rather than disappointment