An Heiress for the Marchams

1. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

San Jose, California

“Come on, Mabel. Just hear me out…”

Ignoring Joss and protecting her coffee, Mabel pushed her way through the people loitering at the coffeehouse’s counter and went out to the sidewalk. Bright sunlight shone down on the crowded street, and she wrinkled her nose until her sunglasses fell into place, dimming the glare.

“Mabe...”

He knew she hated being called that. “What?”

Right in front of her, a small table miraculously became vacant, and she claimed it before anyone else could, setting down her coffee before offloading her backpack and sitting on one of the chairs.

“This is a great opportunity.” Joss, not taking the hint that she wanted to enjoy her coffee by herself, sat down across from her.

The noise of the almost stationary traffic and the roar of lunchtime conversation made it difficult to hear exactly what Joss was saying—although that didn’t really matter. In money-hungry, tech-devouring Silicon Valley, all the conversations were the same.

She raised her voice above the insistent honking of a nearby car. “We’ve just wrapped up the Grove Investments project. I need a break.”

Joss frowned. “You can take one next year. This is important.”

“It always is, Joss.” She looked him right in the eye. “I’m close to burnout. If I don’t stop now, I’ll go crazy.”

He reached across the table and grabbed her hand, his thumb caressing the inside of her wrist. “Is it that you don’t want to work with me? Or is it because I broke up with you?”

“No, not everything’s about you, and I broke up with you, remember?” She tried to ease her hand away. “Sammy is much better for you anyway.”

He let go of her hand, his smile complacent. “She’s such a girly girl. I kind of like it after—” He glanced quickly at her. “I mean, no offense, but—”

“That’s okay. I have other strengths.” She sipped her coffee. “I’m sure you’ll find someone with the necessary tech skills to fill my shoes.”

“I doubt that.” He grimaced. “I kind of promised Iko and Deepak that you’d be onboard.” His brown eyes narrowed. “Have you started developing something else? You know we all agreed not to work for competitors.”

“I am not working for, or with, anyone else. I am going to take some time off.” Mabel said the words slowly and hoped this time they registered.

“To do what?” Joss stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “You’ve done nothing but work twenty-four-seven since we left college.”

“Which is why I need a break.” She studied his skeptical expression. “Don’t you ever feel like you want to do something other than this?”

“Hell, no. This is the most exciting and innovative place in the world.” Joss shook his head. “You’ve been acting weird. What happened? You never used to talk like this.”

She sighed. “Maybe I’ve grown up. I’m twenty-eight. Maybe I don’t want to spend twenty hours a day living and sleeping in my office, staring at a screen.”

“But what about the money? The possibility that you might be part of the next big startup or—”

“I’m taking a few weeks off to recharge,” she interrupted. “When I’ve cleared my head, I’ll think about what I want to do next, okay?”

He pouted, glanced down at his phone, and started texting, leaving her to enjoy her coffee in peace.

Tonight, the team was going out to celebrate the successful launch of the Grove project, and after that?

She was free. The idea was both exhilarating and disturbing.

There had to be more to life than writing beautiful code…

Not much more, but surely something.

She loved writing code. But unlike most people her age, she had the ability to take a sabbatical and find out what else the world might have to offer, and she was determined to do just that.

“Who the hell handwrites a letter these days? There isn’t even an email address.”

Colin Marcham knew that talking to himself was the first sign of madness, but at this point in his life he was way beyond worrying about that.

He studied the embossed header of his family solicitor’s thick notepaper.

He’d stuffed the letter in his coat pocket while preparing for his trip to California and forgotten all about it.

Apparently, Edward Deville wanted him to meet with his father to discuss “the future”.

“Words to strike terror into any man’s heart,” Colin muttered. “Especially mine.”

He read the polite letter again and felt the weight of a thousand years of Marcham expectations rest heavily on his shoulders.

What exactly did his father and Edward expect him to do?

He was an architect, not a bloody magician!

This wasn’t like the old days when he could’ve snagged himself a rich heiress to rebuild the faltering family fortunes.

Times had changed, and hanging onto old traditions and the outdated class system that had almost perished after the First World War was impossible.

But he’d never convince his father of that.

The old man would go down fighting, and Colin would either have to drown alongside him, or find a way to swim to shore.

Unless he won the National Lottery there was no way to swim ashore.

He’d finally managed to get hold of some of the family’s financials and had spent a week going through them in growing despair.

From what he’d seen, the best he could hope for was to tread water for a while until there were no other choices left.

Or his father died…

Things would be much simpler then.

He hated himself for even allowing that insidious thought to slide into his head.

Letting out his breath, he stared at the bland painting on the wall above his hotel bed.

There was no escape—unless he really hadn’t changed.

And he was determined to prove his father wrong about that.

Searching the desk, he found some ComfortZone Inn stationery and composed his reply.

He knew there was no point taking out his ire on Edward, although it would’ve been nice to be more prepared for the horrors of the Marcham accounting books he’d been reluctantly shown. Poor Edward’s family had been dealing with the mad Marchams for almost two hundred years.

Picking up Edward’s letter, Colin realized there was something still inside it. The highly perfumed stationery told him exactly whose spider scrawl would be on the pink paper. He read the words out loud, mimicking his grandmother’s high-pitched voice.

“Colin, come home immediately, or I will be forced to come to London and get you myself. Your father needs you. G.”

“Needs” was heavily underlined and decorated with an inkblot.

Had none of his bloody friends or family ever heard of a typewriter or a laptop?

His grandmother was a woman of her word.

He had a horrific vision of her marching into his office, grabbing him painfully by the earlobe and dragging him down the stairs.

And why did they suddenly need him when they’d been busy trying to disown him for years?

Part of him wanted to make them pay for that, but he just couldn’t do it.

They might be the most maddening bunch of people in the entire world, but they were still his family.

And God, he owed them something after his years of hell raising…

But confronting his family and making life-changing decisions would have to wait until he returned from California. Now all he had to do was persuade his father to accept the inevitable financial collapse.

And that wasn’t going to happen without a fight.

The only questions left were how much he could salvage and how much his family would come to hate him on the way down.

Billy Berks was packed and loud conversation ebbed and flowed over the sound of multiple TVs on the walls.

Mabel hated trying to socialize like this, but being part of a team meant she had to suck it up and deal.

She clutched her drink and shouted a response to a question from Rick Manta, the CEO of Grove Tech.

Rick pointed at the guy next to him, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and yelled something to Mabel that was probably an introduction.

She couldn’t quite hear above the raucous laughter of the table beside her.

She nodded at the man beside Rick and then took a longer look as he acknowledged her.

Dark wavy hair, very blue eyes, tall, and not too muscular.

Just her type and far too pretty to be anything but gay. What a shame.

Someone walked by and stepped too close, catching her foot and making her yelp. She suddenly decided she had schmoozed enough for one night. She mouthed a good night to Rick and the other guy. Waving at Joss and Sammy, who were entwined together like an amorous octopus, she pointed at the door.

As she headed that direction, she checked the time on her phone.

“Excuse me.”

She looked up into a pair of very blue eyes and blinked.

“Hi.”

The man who’d been with Rick smiled down at her. “I wonder if you could help me.”

His cultured British accent made her want to smile right back. “What’s up?”

“I’m trying to get back to the Wind Chimes Hotel and I’m completely lost. I get my streets mixed up in this city, and I usually end up crossing over to third instead of second.

I think.” His shrug was followed by another disarming smile.

“If you could just set me off in the right direction, I’m sure I’ll find it. ”

Up close, she noticed he wore an old blue T-shirt with a college name she didn’t recognize and faded jeans that fitted very nicely. Very nicely, indeed…

Mabel made sure her mouth was closed and that she wasn’t drooling. Okay, from the way he was checking her out, he definitely wasn’t gay.

“You need to go back down San Fernando. I’m walking right past Wind Chimes, so you can keep me company if you like.”

He studied her for a moment and then touched her elbow, carefully drawing her to one side to avoid a new crush of people entering the bar.

“Are you sure you’re not a mad axe killer luring me to my death?”