Blind-Date Baby. Fiona Harper

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To my editor, Kimberley Young,

      who urged me to dig deeper—somewhere else—

      and I found unexpected treasure.

      And to Jennie Adams and Melissa McClone—

      even the (very) early morning IM chats were a blast!

      CHAPTER ONE

      GRACE MARLOWE and six o’clock in the morning weren’t normally on speaking terms. But here she was, standing in the middle of her darkened kitchen, the clock ticking in time with her heartbeat. Pearly light seeped between the slats of the blind, draining all colour from her funky little kitchen. She wrinkled her nose. Everything was grey, even the lime green mugs and the pink toaster. This truly was a repulsive time of day.

      What was she doing here? Right about now she should be mumbling incoherently in her sleep, her left foot tucked over the top of the duvet to keep it nice and cool.

      In a sudden flurry of movement she turned and headed towards a cupboard—any cupboard—and opened the door. It didn’t matter which one. She just needed to be doing something. Because she refused to think about why her little flat seemed like a gaping black hole this morning.

      Bags of dried pasta and tins of tomato soup stared blankly at her from inside the cupboard. She shut the door carefully and tried the next one. Five boxes of breakfast cereal sat in a row, waiting for her to choose one of them. She closed that door too.

      The kettle was within easy reach and she absent-mindedly flicked the switch. It roared into life, unnaturally loud in the pre-dawn stillness. She really must get around to de-scaling it some time soon. It boiled so violently when limescale had furred up the insides. The curse of London hard water…

      Grace blinked. Just for a few seconds she’d forgotten to be miserable and lonely. That was good, wasn’t it?

      She reached for her favourite mug, the oversized baby-pink one with the words ‘Hot Mama’ spelled out in crimson glitter. A present from Daisy last Mother’s Day. Daisy shared Grace’s love of kitsch and had known her ‘hot mama’ would appreciate the sentiment of the slogan and the garish colours.

      Daisy had given the mug to her with a twinkle in her eye that had made Grace chuckle, pleased to see proof that her daughter had inherited her sarcastic genes. But when the laughter had subsided, she’d mourned. No more pigtails and scraped knees. Daisy was all grown up and ready to fly the nest.

      In fact, she’d already flown.

      It was Mother’s Day again in a couple of weeks and, for the first time ever, she wouldn’t spend it doing something totally fabulous with Daisy. Last year they’d gone to the ice rink and had spent the whole afternoon falling on their bottoms. Then they’d eaten a Chinese takeaway so huge it had gone down in family history as ‘the one that could never be surpassed’. But this year Daisy would be in Paris or Romania or Prague. She was going to be away for a whole year. And after backpacking there was university…

      Grace hugged the mug to her chest. She missed her daughter already and she’d only been gone eighteen hours. How completely pathetic.

      She dropped the mug to the counter with a clunk and stood there, her arms folded and her brows pinched together. Come on, Grace! You’re supposed to be the cool one, remember? The mum that all Daisy’s friends wished was theirs. The mum who had once worn fishnets and thigh-high boots to parents’ evening. The mum who had dressed up as Santa, complete with beard and potbelly, when little Joseph Stevenson’s dad had been too hungover to play the role. The fact that it had been Grace’s tequila that had caused the hangover in the first place was neither here nor there…

      But Grace didn’t feel cool. For the first time in nineteen years she felt old and lonely. And not just wandering-round-not-knowing-what-to-do lonely. There was an ache deep inside her that could only have been caused by someone sneaking into the flat in the middle of the night, carving a huge chunk off her soul and stealing it away. She had a funny feeling that chunk might currently be sleeping in a youth hostel in Montmartre, but she couldn’t be entirely sure.

      She made the tea and forced herself to turn the light under the cooker hood on. Sitting here in the dark would only give the impression that she was depressed, she thought as she slumped into a chair and lay her head on the table. Steam curled from the mug in front of her and she watched it rise gracefully on unseen currents and drift away. Eventually, she peeled her face from the table top and reached for the mug to take a sip.

      Yuck! She stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips and grimaced. What the heck was wrong with her tea this morning? Looking into the mug gave her a pretty big clue. No teabag. Lukewarm water with milk in it was really not her thing.

      Sighing, she hauled herself up from the table and crossed to the cupboard where the teabags lived. She reached inside and pulled out the Earl