Running From the Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

the vintage champagne.
    ‘Go easy on mine,’ Zander said as the wine bubbled into the flutes. ‘I’ll be driving later.’
    When the napkin-wrapped bottle had been replaced in the bucket and the waiter had moved away, Zander lifted his glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to us, Caris, and getting to know one another better.’
    ‘To us,’ she echoed.
    Those fascinating green eyes of his fixed on her face. He remarked, ‘You have an unusual name. Who chose it?’
    ‘My mother.’
    ‘Caris,’ he murmured softly, making the word sound like a caress. ‘It suits you.’
    As she sipped the champagne, emboldened by his toast and wanting to know more about him, she asked, ‘What kind of work do you do?’
    ‘I’m in the hotel business.’
    Of course; she had wondered why the name seemed to be familiar. Now she recalled glancing through a society magazine and reading about the aristocratic Devereux family.
    ‘I thought I knew the name. Devereux Hotels are famous all over the globe. I read in one of the glossy magazines that it’s been a family concern for more than a hundred years.’
    ‘Yes. It all started with my great-grandfather, Gerald Devereux.’
    ‘Wasn’t he the younger brother of a duke?’
    ‘Yes, but he stopped using his title when he married an American and came to live in the States. Originally he set up his own merchant bank in London, then in the late eighteen-hundreds he acquired a hotel as a bad debt. That sparked his interest and as a business proposition he began to build more.’
    ‘So do you run the business?’
     
    ‘No, my father does.’
    ‘James Devereux?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    The article had gone on to say that James Devereux, a multi millionaire who owned a chain of five-star hotels worldwide, had been happily married to the same woman for almost forty years.
    His son, on the other hand, appeared to be a Casanova, noted for his many high-profile affairs and his ability to remain a bachelor despite the amount of women trying to catch him.
    Zander was going on. ‘I’m an architect by training and inclination, so I spend a lot of my time designing and building new hotels or converting existing properties.’
    ‘In the States?’
    ‘Worldwide.’
    ‘Which means you do a lot of travelling?’
    ‘A fair amount.’
    ‘Lucky you. Do you have a favourite country?’
    ‘I have a soft spot for England,’ he admitted.
    ‘Then you know it well?’
    ‘Very well. I was born in London and I went to Oxford. You see, though my father is American by birth, my mother, who died last year, was English.’
    ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Caris said. ‘That is strange, though, as I have an American father and an English mother.’
    ‘So where were you born?’
    ‘A little market town called Spitewinter, on the Cambridgeshire border. My grandfather was the vicar there. I got my law degree at Cambridge University.’
    ‘What made you decide on law as a career?’
    ‘It was decided for me. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. You see, my father had hoped for a son to follow in hisfootsteps, but it wasn’t to be. My mother died when I was quite young.’
    ‘And your father never married again?’
    Caris shook her head. ‘He’d adored my mother and he never really got over her death. He became morose and bitter.’
    ‘But you must have been a comfort to him.’
    ‘Quite the reverse, apparently. I was left in the care of various nannies and sent away to boarding school as soon as I was old enough to go. But, later on, when I proved to be reasonably bright, it became my father’s dearest wish that I should train to be a lawyer and join the firm.’
    ‘Why did you choose to go to Cambridge?’
    ‘Once again, the decision was made for me. Though my father is American born and bred, his family, as well as my mother’s, were originally from Cambridgeshire.’
    ‘How did they end up in the States?’
    ‘In the early eighteen-hundreds one of our ancestors emigrated and settled in New Jersey,