She was pregnant. Pregnant with their baby.

As his face lit up Melanie strained away from him, her back pressing against the driver’s door. ‘No,’ she mumbled, fear in her voice as well as in her body language. ‘I don’t want this—can’t you see? This doesn’t change anything between us.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Forde asked huskily. ‘Of course it does.’ And then, as her words hit home, his eyes widened. ‘Let me get this right. You want the baby but you don’t want me? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

Her face white, Melanie shook her head. ‘I don’t mean that.’

‘Then what the hell do you mean?’ Knowing his voice had been too loud, and struggling for calmness, Forde took a rasping breath. ‘I want to sit down and discuss this properly. You’re carrying my child, Nell. I’ll take you out for a meal tonight. Be ready about eight.’

She really didn’t want to do this. Being with Forde was painful at the best of times, reminding her of all she’d lost. ‘I don’t think—’

She found her words cut off as his mouth took hers.

The kiss was a deliberate assault on her senses. She recognised that from the moment his mouth descended. But he’d taken her by surprise, and by the time reason was back she was trembling at the sweetness of his lovemaking.

About the Author

HELEN BROOKS lives in Northamptonshire, and is married with three children and three beautiful grandchildren. As she is a committed Christian, busy housewife, mother and grandma, her spare time is at a premium, but her hobbies include reading, swimming and gardening, and walks with her husband and their two Irish terriers. Her long-cherished aspiration to write became a reality when she put pen to paper on reaching the age of forty and sent the result off to Mills & Boon.

Recent titles by the same author:

IN THE ITALIAN’S SIGHTS

THE BEAUTIFUL WIDOW

SNOWBOUND SEDUCTION

SWEET SURRENDER WITH THE MILLIONAIRE

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?

Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Just One
Last Night
Helen Brooks

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

MELANIE stared at the letter in her hand. The heavy black scrawl danced before her eyes and she had to blink a few times before reading it again, unable to believe what her brain was telling her.

Didn’t Forde understand that this was impossible? Absolutely ridiculous? In fact it was so nonsensical she read the letter a third time to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming. She had recognised his handwriting as soon as she’d picked the post off the mat and her heart had somersaulted, but she’d imagined he was writing about something to do with their divorce. Instead…

Melanie breathed in deeply, telling herself to calm down.

Instead Forde had written to ask her to consider doing some work for him. Well, not him exactly, she conceded reluctantly. His mother. But it was part and parcel of the same thing. They hadn’t spoken in months and then, cool as a cucumber, he wrote out of the blue. Only Forde Masterson could be so spectacularly outrageous. He was unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable.

She threw the letter onto the table and began to open the rest of the post, finishing her toast and coffee as she did so. Her small dining room doubled as her office, an arrangement that had its drawbacks if she wanted to invite friends round for a meal. Not that she had time for a social life anyway. Since leaving Forde a few weeks into the new year, she’d put all her energy into building up the landscape design company she had started twelve months after they’d married, just after—

A shutter shot down in her mind with the inflexibility of solid steel. That time was somewhere she didn’t go, had never gone since leaving Forde. It was better that way.

The correspondence dealt with, Melanie finished the last of her first pot of coffee of the day and went upstairs to her tiny bathroom to shower and get dressed before she rang James, her very able assistant, to go through what was required that day. James was a great employee inasmuch as he was full of enthusiasm and a tirelessly hard worker, but with his big-muscled body and dark good looks he attracted women like bees to a honeypot. He often turned up in the morning looking a little the worse for wear. However, it never affected his work and Melanie had no complaints.

Clad in her working clothes of denim jeans and a vest top, Melanie looped her thick, shoulder-length ash-blonde hair into a ponytail and applied plenty of sunscreen to her pale, easily burned English skin. The country was currently enjoying a heatwave and the August day was already hot at eight in the morning.

Before going downstairs again, she flung open her bedroom window and let the rich scent of the climbing roses outside fill the room. The cottage was tiny—just her bedroom and a separate bathroom upstairs, and a pocket-size sitting room and the dining room downstairs, the latter opening into a new extension housing a kitchen overlooking the minute courtyard garden. But Melanie loved it. The courtyard’s dry stone walls were hidden beneath climbing roses and honeysuckle, which covered the walls at the back of the cottage too, and the paved area that housed her small bistro table and two chairs was a blaze of colour from the flowering pots surrounding its perimeter. In the evenings it was bliss to eat her evening meal out there in the warm, soft air with just the twittering of the birds and odd bee or butterfly for company. It wasn’t too extreme to say this little cottage had saved her sanity in the first cru-cifyingly painful days after she’d fled the palatial home she’d shared with Forde.

The cottage was one in the middle of a terrace of ten, all occupied by couples or single folk and half of them—like the ones either side of Melanie—used as weekend bolt-holes by London high-flyers who retreated to the more gentle pace of life south-west of the capital, where the villages and towns still retained an olde-worlde charm. It was also sixty miles or so distant from Forde’s house in Kingston upon Thames, sufficient mileage, Melanie had felt, to avoid the prospect of running into him by chance.

She had wondered if her fledgling business would survive when she’d moved, but in actual fact it had thrived so well she had been able to take on James within a month or two of leaving the city. The nature of the work had changed a little; when she had been based in Kingston upon Thames she’d been involved with the layout of housing areas with play facilities and general urban regeneration. Now it was mostly public and private garden work, along with forest landscaping and land reclamation. Some of the time she and James worked with members of a team that could include architects, planners, civil engineers and quantity surveyors depending upon what the job involved. On other projects they worked in isolation on private gardens or country estates. Inevitably office work was part of the deal, along with site visits and checking progress of work where other bodies were involved.

Becoming aware she was in danger of daydreaming, Melanie turned away from the window, her mind jumping into gear and detailing what the day involved.

James was due to oversee the bulldozing of a number of ancient pigsties, which the client wanted transformed into a wild flower garden, being concerned about the loss of natural habitats in the countryside in general and in the surrounding area of the old farmhouse he’d bought in particular. Melanie had suggested a meadow effect, created with a profusion of wild flowers growing in turf on soil that was low in fertility, the mowing regime of which had to allow the flowers to seed before being cut.

In stark contrast, she was off to put the finishing touches to a formal garden she and James had been working on for three weeks. It was a place of calm order, expressed in a carefully balanced treatment of space and symmetry, the details of which had been all-important. The retired bank manager and his wife who had purchased the property recently in the midst of a small country town had been delighted with her initial plan of a neat lawn and matching paved areas at either end of the grass, clipped bushes and trained plants—along with fruit trees in restricted shapes—providing a gentle approach to the precise layout they’d first requested.

She loved her job. Melanie breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness. Devising a personal creation for each individual client was so satisfying, along with reconciling their ideas with the practical potential of the available plot. Not that this was always easy, especially if a client had seen their ‘perfect’ garden in a magazine or brochure, which inevitably was bigger or smaller than the space they had available. But then that was part of the challenge and fun.

Half smiling to herself as her mind skimmed over several such past clients, Melanie made her way downstairs, pausing at the door to the dining room. It was only then she acknowledged that since reading Forde’s letter, every single word had been burning in her brain.

Dear Melanie,

I’m writing to ask a favour, not for myself but for Isabelle.

Typical Forde, she thought darkly, her heart thudding as she glanced at the letter lying on the table. No ‘how are you?’ or any other such social nicety. Just straight to the point.

She hasn’t been too well lately and the garden at Hillview is too much for her, not that she would ever admit it. The whole thing needs complete changing with an emphasis on low maintenance now she’s nearly eighty. The trouble is she won’t even allow a gardener onto the premises so I’ve no chance of persuading her to let strangers do an overhaul. But she’d trust you. Think about it, would you? And ring me. Forde

Think about it! Melanie shook her head. She didn’t have to think about it to know what she was going to do, and there was no way she was going to ring Forde either. She had insisted on no contact between them and that still held.

Walking over to the table, she picked up the piece of paper and the envelope and ripped them into small pieces, throwing the fragments into the bin. There. Finished with. She had enough to do today without thinking about Forde and his ridiculous request.

She stood for a moment more, staring into space. What did he mean when he’d said Isabelle hadn’t been well? She pictured Forde’s sweet-faced mother in her mind as her heart lurched. It had been almost as bad walking out of Isabelle’s life as that of her son all those months ago, but she had known all threads holding her to Forde had to be severed if she had any chance of making it. She’d written a brief note to her mother-in-law, making it clear she didn’t expect Isabelle to understand but that she’d had good reasons for doing what she’d done and that it hadn’t altered the genuine love and respect she had for the older woman. She had asked Isabelle not to reply. When she had, Melanie had returned the letter unopened. It had torn her in two to do it, but she hadn’t doubted it was the right decision. She wouldn’t put Isabelle in the position of piggy-in-the-middle. Isabelle adored Forde, an only child, and mother and son were closer than most, Forde’s father having died when Forde was in his late teens.

Her mobile ringing brought her out of her reverie. It was James. There had been a bad accident just in front of him and he was stuck in a traffic jam that went back for miles so he was going to be late getting to the site. Was it possible she could go there and detail to the workmen exactly what needed to be done and get them started before she went on to her own job? They had the plan of work on paper but there was nothing like face-to-face instructions…

Melanie agreed. After a disaster on an early job when a perfectly sound conservatory had been demolished and the old ramshackle greenhouse had been left intact, she didn’t trust workmen to take the time to read plans, and this was something she’d drummed into James from the start.

Sighing, she mentally revised her morning, decided to leave straight away rather than see to a pile of paperwork she’d hoped to sort out before she left the house, and within a few minutes was travelling towards the farmhouse in her old pickup truck. It was going to be a hectic day but that was good—if nothing else, of necessity she wouldn’t have time to think about Forde’s letter.

It was a hectic day. Melanie arrived home in deep twilight but with a big, fat cheque in her pocket from the retired couple who had been thrilled how their garden had come together. After sliding the truck into the parking space reserved for her in the square cobbled yard at one side of the row of cottages, she walked along the narrow pathway that led off the yard and along the back of the cottages, pausing at the small doorway in the long, ivy-festooned wall that led into her tiny garden. Unlocking the door, she stepped into her small haven of peace, breathing in the delicious perfume of the roses adorning the walls. She was home, and she wanted nothing more than a long, hot bath to relax her aching muscles. She had been determined to finish the job on schedule today and hadn’t even stopped for a bite of lunch.

Locking the garden door, she entered the house through the kitchen as she did most days, slipping off the thick walking boots she wore on a job and leaving them on the cork mat ready for morning. Barefoot, she padded upstairs, flinging open the bathroom window so the scents of the garden could fill the room, and began to run the bath before going into the bedroom and divesting herself of her clothes.

Two minutes later she was lying in hot, soapy bubbles gazing up at a charcoal sky in which the first stars were peeping. Not for the first time she blessed the fact that the developers who had renovated the string of cottages had had soul. In placing the big, cast-iron bath under the window as they had, it meant the occupier could lie and see an ever-changing picture in the heavens through the clear glass they’d installed. Melanie never closed the blinds until she was ready to get out of the bath and on occasions like tonight, when she was tired and aching, it was bliss to lie in the dark and think of nothing. Although tonight the carefully cultivated trick of emptying her mind and totally relaxing wasn’t working…

Melanie frowned, acknowledging Forde had persistently been battering at the door to her consciousness all day, however much she had tried to ignore him. And she had tried. How she’d tried. She didn’t want any contact with him, however remote. She didn’t want to have him invading her mind and unsettling her. He, and Isabelle too, for that matter, were the past, there was no place for them in the present and less still in the future. This was a matter of self-survival.

She heard the telephone ring downstairs but let the answer machine take a message. Forcing her tight muscles to relax, limb by limb, she slid further into the silky water, shutting her eyes. After a few minutes her mobile began playing its little tune from the pocket of her working jeans in the bedroom. It was probably James, reporting how his day had gone, but she made no attempt to find out. This was her time, she told herself militantly. The rest of the world could take a hike for a while.

It was another half an hour before she climbed out of the bath, and the house phone had taken another two messages by then. After washing her hair and swathing it on top of her head with a small fluffy towel, she slipped on her bathrobe. Her stomach was reminding her she hadn’t eaten since the two slices of toast at breakfast, and, deciding food was a priority, she didn’t bother to get dressed, making her way downstairs just as she was.

She had reached the bottom step and her tiny square of hall when a sharp knock at the front door caused Melanie to nearly jump out of her skin.

What now? She shut her eyes for an infinitesimal moment. It could only be James reporting some disaster or other after he’d been unable to reach her by phone. And that was fine, she was his boss after all, but she really had wanted to simply crash tonight. It was clearly too much to ask.

Wiping her face clear of all irritation and stitching a smile in place, she tightened the belt of her bathrobe and then opened the door.

The six-foot-four, ruggedly handsome male standing on her doorstep wasn’t James.

A bolt of shock shot through her and then she froze.

‘Hi.’ Forde didn’t smile. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘What?’ She gazed at him stupidly. He looked wonderful. White shirt, black jeans, a muscled tower of brooding masculinity.

The silver-blue eyes with their thick, short, black lashes flicked to her bathrobe and then back to her stunned face. ‘Are you…entertaining?’

As the full import behind his words hit, hot colour surged beneath her high cheekbones along with a reviving dose of adrenaline into her body. Her expression becoming icy, she said slowly, ‘What did you say?’

Forde relaxed slightly. OK, so he’d got that wrong, then. But he had been waiting all day for a response to his letter, which had never come, and after ringing several times tonight he’d decided to see if she was ignoring him or wasn’t home. There had been lights on—upstairs—and then she’d come to the door flustered and dressed like that, or rather undressed like that. What was he supposed to think? ‘I wondered if you had visitors,’ he said carefully, getting ready to use his shoulder on the door if she tried to slam it in his face. ‘You weren’t answering the phone.’

‘I was late home from work and then I had a bath—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘What am I explaining to youfor?’ she added furiously. ‘And how dare you suggest I had a man here?’

‘It was the obvious answer,’ said Forde.

‘To you, maybe, but you shouldn’t judge everyone by your own standards.’ She glared at him angrily.

‘I’m suitably crushed.’

His mocking air was the last straw. Forde had always been the only person in the whole world who could make her so mad the cool façade she hid behind normally melted in the heat. Having been brought up in a succession of foster homes, she had learnt early on to keep her feelings hidden, but that had never worked with Forde. ‘Will you please leave?’ she said tightly, trying to close the door and finding his shoulder was in the way.

‘Did you get my letter?’ In contrast to her fury he appeared calm and composed, even relaxed. That rankled as much as his outrageous assumption she’d had a man in her bed.

Melanie nodded, giving up the struggle to close the door.

‘And?’ he pressed with silky smoothness.

‘And what?’

He studied her with the silvery gaze that seemed to have the power to look straight into her soul. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t care.’

For a moment she thought he was referring to him and then realised he was talking about her concern for his mother. She blinked, the anger draining away. Quietly, she said, ‘How is Isabelle?’

He shrugged. ‘As stubborn as a mule, as always.’

Melanie could almost have smiled. Forde’s mother was a softer, more feminine version of her strong-willed, inflexible son but every bit as determined. But Isabelle had always been wonderfully supportive and loving to her, the mother she’d always longed for but never had. The thought was weakening, intensifying the ever-present ache in her heart. To combat it her voice was flat and without emotion when she said, ‘You said she’d been unwell?’

‘She fell and broke her hip in that damn garden of hers and then there were complications with her heart during surgery.’

Melanie’s dark brown eyes opened wide. When he’d said in his letter Isabelle had been unwell she’d imagined Forde’s mother had had the flu, something like that. But an operation… Isabelle could have died and she wouldn’t have known. Her heart thudding, she murmured, ‘I— I’m sorry.’

‘Not as sorry as I am,’ Forde said grimly. ‘She won’t do as she’s told and seems hell-bent on putting herself back in hospital, refusing to come and stay with me or take it easy in a convalescent home somewhere. She was determined to return home as soon as she was discharged and against medical advice, I might add. The only concession she’d make was to let me hire a live-in nurse until she’s mobile again, and that was under protest. She’s impossible.’

Melanie stared at him. Forde would be exactly the same in those circumstances. He was impossible at the best of times. And easily the sexiest man on the planet.

The last thought caused her to pull the belt of her robe tighter. Don’t let him see how him being here is affecting you, she told herself silently. You know it’s over. Be strong. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘but you must see me doing any work for your mother is ridiculous, Forde. We’re in the middle of a divorce.’

‘We are. That shouldn’t affect your relationship with Isabelle, surely? She was very hurt when you returned her letter unread, by the way,’ he added softly.

Unfair. Below the belt. But that was Forde all over. ‘It was for the best.’

‘Really?’ He considered her thoughtfully. ‘For whom?’

‘Forde, I’m not about to stand here bandying words with you.’ She shivered involuntarily although the night air was warm and humid.

‘You’re cold.’ He pushed the door fully open, causing her to instinctively step back into the hall. ‘Let’s discuss this inside.’

‘Excuse me?’ She recovered her wits enough to bar his way. ‘I don’t remember inviting you in.’

‘Melanie, we’ve been married for two years and unless you’ve put on a pretty good act in all that time, you are fond of my mother. I’m asking for your help for her sake, OK? Are you really going to refuse?’

Two years, four months and five days, to be precise. And the first eleven months had been heaven on earth. After that… ‘Please go,’ she said weakly, much more weakly than she would have liked. ‘Our solicitors wouldn’t like this.’

‘Damn the solicitors.’ He took her arm, moving her aside as he stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him. ‘Parasites, the lot of them. I need to talk to you, that’s the important thing.’

He was close, so close the familiar delicious smell and feel of him were all around her, invoking memories that were seductively intimate. They brought a sheen of heat to her skin, her heartbeat speeding up and beginning to rocket in her chest. Forde was the only man she’d ever loved, and even now his power over her was mesmerising. ‘Please leave,’ she said firmly.

‘Look,’ he murmured softly, ‘make some coffee and listen to me, Nell, OK? That’s all I’m asking. For Isabelle’s sake.’

He wasn’t touching her now but her whole being was twisting in pain. Nevertheless, the harsh discipline she’d learnt as a child held good, enabling her to control the flood of emotion his old nickname for her had induced and say, a little shakily admittedly, ‘This isn’t a good idea, Forde.’

‘On the contrary, it’s an excellent idea.’

She looked at him, big and dark in her little hall, his black hair falling over his brow, and knew he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And considering he was six-feet-four of lean, honed muscle and she was a slender five-seven, she could scarcely manhandle him out of the house. She turned, saying over her shoulder, ‘It doesn’t seem I’ve much option, does it?’ as she led the way into her pocket-size sitting room.

Forde followed her, secretly amazed he’d been allowed admittance without more of a fight. But, hey, he thought. Go with the flow. The first battle was over but the war was far from won.

His gaze moved swiftly over the small room, which had Melanie’s stamp all over it, from the two plumpy cream sofas and matching drapes and the thick, coffee-coloured carpet, to the old but charmingly restored Victorian fireplace, which had a pile of logs stacked against it. Very stylish but definitely cosy. Modern but not glaringly so. And giving nothing of herself away. A beautiful mirror stretched across the far wall making the room appear larger, but not one picture or photograph to be seen. Nothing personal.

‘Sit down and I’ll get the coffee.’ She waved to one of the sofas before leaving, shaking her hair free of the towel as she went.

Forde didn’t take the invitation. Instead he followed her into the hall and through to the kitchen-diner. This was more lived in, the table scattered with files and papers and the draining board in the tiny kitchen holding a few plates and dishes. He dared bet she spent most of the time at home working.

Melanie had turned as he’d entered and now she followed his glance, saying quickly, ‘I didn’t have time to wash up this morning before I left and I was too tired last night.’

Forde pulled up one of the dining chairs, sitting astride it with his arms draped over the back as he said easily, ‘You don’t have to apologise to me.’

‘I wasn’t. I was explaining.’

It was curt and he mentally acknowledged the tone. Ignoring the hostility, he smiled. ‘Nice little place you’ve got here.’

Her eyes met his and he could see she was deciding whether he was being genuine or not. He saw her shoulders relax slightly and knew she’d taken his observation the way it had been meant.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I like it.’

‘Janet sends her regards, by the way.’

Janet was Forde’s very able cook and cleaner who came in for a few hours each day to wash and iron, keep the house clean and prepare the evening meal. She was a merry little soul, in spite of having a husband who had never done a day’s honest work in his life and three teenage children who ate her out of house and home. Melanie had liked her very much. Janet had been with her on the day of the accident and had sat and held her until the ambulance had arrived—

She brought her thoughts to a snapping halt. Don’t think of that. Not now. Woodenly, she said, ‘Tell her hello from me.’ Drawing in a deep breath and feeling she needed something stronger than coffee to get through the next little while, she opened the fridge. ‘There’s some wine chilled if you’d prefer a glass to coffee?’

‘Great. Thanks.’ He rose as he spoke, walking and opening the back door leading onto the shadowed courtyard. ‘This is nice. Shall we drink out here?’

She was trying very, very hard to ignore the fact she was stark naked under the robe but it was hard with her body responding to him the way it always did. He’d always only had to look at her for her blood to sing in her veins and her whole being melt. Forde was one of those men who had a natural magnetism that oozed masculinity; it was in his walk, his smile, every move he made. The height and breadth of him were impressive, and she knew full well there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the lean, muscled body, but it was his face—too rugged to be pretty-boy handsome but breathtakingly attractive, nonetheless—that drew any woman from sixteen to ninety. Hard and strong, with sharply defined planes and angles unsoftened by his jet-black hair and piercing silvery eyes, his face was sexy and cynical, and his slightly crooked mouth added to his charm.

Dynamite. That was what one of her friends had called him when they’d first begun dating, and she’d been right. But dynamite was powerful and dangerous, she told herself ruefully, taking the opportunity to run her hands through the thick silk of her hair and bring it into some kind of order.

When she stepped into the scented shadows with two glasses and the bottle of wine, Forde was already sitting at the bistro table, his long legs spread out in front of him and his head tilted back as he looked up at the riot of climbing roses covering the back of the house. They, together with the fragrant border plants in the pots, perfumed the still warm air with a sweet heaviness. Another month or so and the weather would begin to cool and the first chill of autumn make itself felt.

It had been snowing that day when she’d left Forde. Seven months had passed. Seven months without Forde in her life, in her bed …

She sat down carefully after placing the glasses on the table, pulling the folds of the robe round her legs and wishing she’d taken the time to nip upstairs and get dressed. But that would have looked as though she expected him to stay and she wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

The thought mocked her and she had to force her eyes not to feast on him. She had been aching to see him again; he’d filled her dreams every night since the split and sometimes she had spent hours sitting out here in the darkness while the rest of the world was asleep after a particularly erotic fantasy that had left her unable to sleep again.

‘How are you?’ His rich, smoky voice brought her eyes to his dark face.

She reached for her glass and took a long swallow before she said, ‘Fine. And you?’

‘Great, just great.’ His voice dripped sarcasm. ‘My wife walks out on me citing irreconcilable differences and then threatens to get a restraining order when I attempt to make her see reason over the next weeks—’

‘You were phoning umpteen times a day and turning up everywhere,’ she interrupted stiffly. ‘It was obsessional.’

‘What did you expect? I know things changed after the accident but—’

‘Don’t.’ This time she cut him short by jumping to her feet, her eyes wild. ‘I don’t want to discuss this, Forde. If that’s why you’ve come, you can leave now.’

‘Damn it, Nell.’ He raked his hand through his hair, taking a visibly deep breath as he struggled to control his emotions. A few screamingly tense moments ticked by and then his voice came, cool and calm. ‘Sit down and drink your wine. I came here to discuss you taking on the garden at Hillview and making it easy for my mother to manage it. That’s all.’

‘I think it’s better you go.’

‘Tough.’ He eyed her sardonically, his mouth twisting.

Her nostrils flared. ‘You really are the most arrogant man on the planet.’ And unfortunately the most attractive.

Forde shrugged. ‘I can live with that—it’s a small planet.’ He took a swallow of wine. ‘Sit down,’ he said again, ‘and stop behaving like a Victorian heroine in a bad movie. Let me explain how things stand with Mother at present before you decide one way or the other, OK?’

She sat, not because she wanted to but because there was really nothing else she could do.

‘Along with her damaged hip she’s got a heart problem, Nell, but the main problem is Isabelle herself. I actually caught her trying to prune back some bush or other a couple of days ago. She’d sneaked out of the house when the nurse was busy. I’ve offered to get her a gardener or do the work myself but she won’t have it, although under pressure she admits it’s getting overgrown and that upsets her. When I suggested it needs landscaping she reluctantly agreed and then flatly refused to have what she called clod-hopping strangers tramping everywhere. You can bet your boots once the nurse is no longer needed in a couple of weeks she’ll be out there doing goodness knows what. I shall arrive one day and find her collapsed or worse. There’s nearly an acre of ground all told, as you know—it’s too much for her.’

He was really worried; she could see that. Melanie stared at him, biting her lip. And she knew how passionate Isabelle was about her garden; when she had still been with Forde she and his mother had spent hours working together in the beautiful grounds surrounding the old house. But what had been relatively easy for Isabelle to manage thirty, twenty, even ten years ago, was a different story now. But Isabelle would pine and lose hope if she couldn’t get out in her garden. What needed to be done was a totally new plan for the grounds with an emphasis on low maintenance, but even then, if they were to keep the mature trees Isabelle loved so dearly, Forde’s mother would have to agree to a gardener coming in at certain times of the year to deal with the falling leaves and other debris. And she really couldn’t see Isabelle agreeing to that, unless …

Thinking out loud, she said slowly, ‘I’d obviously need to make a proper assessment of the site, but looking to the future, James, the young man who works for me, is very personable. All the old ladies love him.’ The young ones as well. ‘If Isabelle got to know him, perhaps she’d agree to him coming in for a day or two once a month to maintain the new garden, which I’d design with a view to minimum upkeep.’

Forde shifted in his seat. ‘You’ll do it, then?’ he said softly. ‘You’ll take on the job?’

Melanie brought her eyes to his face. There was something in his gaze that reminded her—as if she didn’t know—that she was playing with fire. Quickly, a veil slid over her own expression. ‘On certain conditions.’

One black eyebrow quirked. ‘I might have guessed. Nothing is straightforward with you. OK, so what are these conditions? Nothing too onerous, I trust?’

It was too intimate—the hushed surroundings enclosing them in their own tiny world, the perfumed air washing over her senses, Forde’s big male body just inches away, and—not least—her nakedness under the robe. This sort of situation was exactly what she’d strived to avoid by not seeing him over the last torturous months. She really shouldn’t have let him in.

She gulped down the last of her wine and poured another for Dutch courage. Forde’s glass was half-full but he put his hand over the rim when she went to top it up. ‘Driving,’ he said shortly, settling back in his seat and crossing one leg over the other knee. ‘Spell out your demands,’ he added, when she still didn’t speak. ‘Don’t be shy.’

The sarcasm helped, stiffening her backbone and her resolve, but she still felt as though she was standing on the edge of a precipice. One false move and she’d be lost.

‘But before you do …’ He moved swiftly, taking her hand before she had time to pull away and holding it fast in his own strong fingers as he leaned across the table. ‘Do you still love me, Nell?’

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS so typical Forde Masterson! She should have been expecting it, should have been aware he’d take her off guard sooner or later. His ruthless streak had taken the fledgling property-developing business he’d started in his bedroom at the family home when he was eighteen years old, using an inheritance left to him by his grandmother, into a multimillion-pound enterprise in just sixteen years. His friends called him inexorable, single-minded, immovable; his enemies had a whole host of other names, but even they had to admit they’d rather deal with Forde than some of the sharks in the property-developing game. He could be merciless when the occasion warranted it but his word was his bond, and that was increasingly rare in the cut and thrust of business.

Melanie stared into the dark, handsome face just inches from hers. His eyes shone mother-of-pearl in the dim light, their expression inscrutable. Somehow she managed to say, ‘I told you I’m not discussing us, Forde.’

‘I didn’t ask for a discussion. A simple yes or no would suffice.’ Black eyebrows rose mockingly.

She moved her head, allowing the pale curtain of her hair to swing forward, hiding her face as she jerked her hand free. ‘This is pointless. It’s over—we’re over. Accept it and move on. I have.’ Liar.

‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

‘I don’t have to.’ In an effort to control the trembling deep inside she reached out her hand and picked up her glass of wine, taking several long sips and praying her hand wouldn’t shake. ‘This is my house, remember? I make the rules.’

‘The trouble is, you never did believe in happy endings, did you, Nell?’ Forde said softly.

Her head jerked up as his words hit home and then he watched a shutter click down over her expression. She had always been able to do that, mask what she was thinking and adopt a distant air, but nine times out of ten he’d broken through the defence mechanism she used to keep people at bay. He knew her childhood had been tough; orphaned at the age of three, she couldn’t remember her parents. Her maternal grandmother had taken her in initially but when she, too, had tragically died a year later, none of Melanie’s other relations had stepped up to the mark. One foster home after another had ensued and Melanie admitted herself she’d been a troubled little girl and quite a handful. When he had fallen in love with her he had wanted to make that all better. He still wanted to. The only obstacle was Melanie herself, and it was one hell of an obstacle.

‘From the first day we met you were waiting for us to fall apart,’ he continued in the same quiet tone. ‘Waiting for it to all go wrong. I didn’t realise that until recently. I don’t know why. There were enough indicators early on.’

She spoke through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

He studied her thoughtfully as she finished her second glass of wine. Her voice and body language belied her blank face. Underneath that formidable barrier she presented, that of a capable, strong businesswoman and woman of the world, Melanie was scared. Of him. He had acknowledged it at the same time he’d come to the conclusion she had never believed they’d make old bones together. She had loved and trusted him, he knew that, but he also knew now that those feelings had made her feel vulnerable and frightened. She had been on her own emotionally all her life before they’d met—twenty-five years—and that tough shell had been hard to break, but he’d done it. She had let him in. But not far enough, or they wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

Following through on his thoughts, he said, ‘I blamed myself at first after the accident, you know—for the distance between us, for the way every conversation fragmented or turned into a row. Stupid, but I didn’t understand you’d made the decision to shut me out and nothing short of a nuclear explosion could have changed things.’

She didn’t say a word. In fact she could have been carved in stone. A beautiful stone statue without feelings or emotion.

‘The accident—’

‘Stop talking about the accident,’ she said woodenly. Although she had been the one to insist they called it that. ‘It was a miscarriage. I was stupid enough to fall downstairs and I killed our son.’

‘Nell—’

‘No.’ She held up her hand, palm facing him. ‘Let’s face facts here. That is what happened, Forde. He was born too early and they couldn’t save him. Another few weeks and it might have been all right, but at twenty-two weeks he didn’t stand a chance. I was supposed to nurture him and keep him safe and I failed him.’

In one way he was glad she was talking about it; she’d refused to in the past, locking her emotions away from him and everyone else. In another sense he was appalled at the way even now, over sixteen months later, she was totally blaming herself. She had been a little light-headed that morning and had stayed in bed late after he’d left for work, Janet having brought her up a breakfast tray some time around ten o’clock. At half-past ten Janet had heard a terrible scream and a crash and rushed from the kitchen into the hall, to find Melanie lying twisted and partially conscious at the foot of the stairs, the contents of the tray scattered about her.

It had been an accident. Tragic, devastating, but an accident nonetheless, but from the time their son had been stillborn some hours later Melanie had retreated into herself. He hadn’t been able to comfort her, in fact she’d barely let him near her and at times he was sure she’d hated him, probably because he was a reminder of all they’d lost. And so they’d struggled on month after miserable month, Melanie burying herself in the business she’d started and working all hours until he was lucky if he saw her for more than an hour each night, and he— Forde’s mouth set grimly. He’d been in hell. He was still in hell, come to it.

He wanted to say, ‘Accidents happen,’ but that was too trite in the circumstances. Instead he stood up, drawing her stiff, unyielding body into his arms. ‘You would have given your life for his if you could have,’ he said softly. ‘No one holds you responsible for what happened, Nell, don’t you see?’

Melanie drew in a shuddering breath. ‘Please go now.’

She felt brittle in his grasp; she was too thin, much too thin, and even as he held her she swayed slightly as though she was going to pass out. ‘What’s the matter?’ He stared into her white face. ‘Are you unwell?’

She looked at him, her eyes focusing, and he realised she was holding onto him for support. ‘I—I think I must be a little tipsy,’ she murmured dazedly. ‘I missed lunch and I haven’t eaten yet, and two glasses of wine …’

Hence the reason she’d spoken about the miscarriage, but, hell, if he needed to keep her in a permanent state of intoxication to break through that iron shield, he would. He gentled his voice when he said, ‘Come indoors, I’ll get you something.’

‘No, I can manage. I— I’ll ring you.’

There was no way on earth he was walking out of here right now, not when they were talking—properly talking—for the first time since Matthew’s death. For a second a bolt of pain shot through him as he remembered his son, so tiny and so perfect, and then he controlled himself. He said nothing as he led her into the house and when he pushed her down on one of the dining room chairs and walked into the kitchen, she made no protest. He rifled the fridge before turning to face her. ‘OK, I can make a fairly passable cheese omelette—’ He stopped abruptly. Tears were washing down her face.

With a muttered oath he reached her side, lifting her against him and holding her close as he murmured all the things he’d been wanting to say for months. That he loved her, that she was everything to him, that life was nothing without her and that the accident hadn’t been her fault …

Melanie clung to him, all defences down, drinking in the strength, the hard maleness, the familiar smell of him and needing him as she’d never needed him before. She had never loved anyone else and she knew she never would; Forde was all she had ever wanted and more. At the back of her mind she knew there was a reason she should draw away but it was melting in the wonder of being in his arms, of feeling and touching him after all the months apart.

‘Kiss me.’ Her voice was a whisper as she raised her head and looked into his hard, handsome face. ‘Show me you love me.’

He lowered his mouth to hers, brushing her lips in a tender, feather-light kiss, but as she blatantly asked for more by kissing him back passionately, her mouth opening to him, the tempo changed.

She heard him groan, felt all restraint go and then he was kissing her like a drowning man, ravaging her mouth in an agony of need. When he whisked her off her feet, holding her close to his chest, his mouth not leaving hers, she lay supine, no thought of escape in her head.

Their lovemaking had always been the stuff dreams were made of and she’d been without him for so long, she thought dizzily. She needed to taste him again, experience his hands and mouth on her body, feel him inside her …

She was barely aware of Forde carrying her up the stairs but then she was lying on the scented linen of her bed and he was beside her, the darkness broken only by the faint light from the window. He continued to kiss her as he tore off his clothes in frantic haste, caressing the side of her neck, the hollow under her ear with his burning lips before taking her mouth again in a searing kiss that made her moan with need of him.

Her robe had come undone and now he slipped it off her completely, his voice almost a growl as he murmured, ‘My beautiful one, my incomparable love …’

There was no coherent thought in her head, just a longing to be closer still, and the fierceness of his desire matched hers. They touched and tasted with a sweet violence that had them both writhing and twisting as though they would consume each other, and when he plunged inside her she called out his name as her body convulsed in tune with his. Their release was as fierce and tumultuous as their lovemaking, wave after wave of unbearable pleasure sending them over the edge into a world of pure sensation, where there was no past and no future, just the blinding light and heat of the present.

Forde continued to hold her as the frantic pounding of their hearts quietened, murmuring intimate words of love as their breathing steadied. Her eyes closed, she settled herself more comfortably in the circle of his arms as she’d done so many times in the past after a night of loving, her thick brown lashes feathering the delicate skin under her eyes as she sighed softly. Within moments she was fast asleep, a sleep of utter exhaustion.

Forde’s eyes had accustomed to the deep shadows and now he lifted himself on one elbow, his gaze drinking in each feature of her face. Her skin was pure milk and roses, her eyelids fragile ovals of ivory under fine, curving brows and her lips full and sensuous. He carefully stroked a strand of silky blonde hair from her brow, unable to believe that what had happened in the last hour was real.

He had had women before he’d met Melanie, and when he’d first seen her at a mutual friend’s wedding he’d thought all he wanted to do was possess her like the others, enjoy a no-strings affair for as long as it lasted. By the end of their first date he’d fallen deeply in love and found himself in a place he’d never been before. They had married three months later on her twenty-sixth birthday and taken a long honeymoon in the Caribbean, which had been a magical step out of time.

His body hardened as he remembered the nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms. For the first time he’d understood the difference between sex and making love, and he’d known he never wanted to be without this woman again for a moment of time.

They had returned to England where Melanie had spent the next little while giving his house in Kingston upon Thames a complete makeover to turn it into their home, rather than the very masculine bachelor residence he’d inhabited. She had given up her job working for a garden contractor when they’d got married; Melanie had wanted to try for a baby straight away and whatever she’d wanted was fine with him. He knew her history, the fact she’d never had a family home or people to call her own, and had understood how much she wanted her own children, little people who were a product of their love.

He frowned in the darkness, still studying her sleeping face. What he hadn’t understood, not then, was that her haste to start a family was motivated more by fear than anything else. She’d been like a deprived child in a sweet shop cramming its mouth with everything in sight because it was terrified it would soon find itself locked outside once again in the cold.

And then the miscarriage happened.

He groaned in his soul, shutting his eyes for a moment against the blackness of that time.

And everything had changed. Melanie had changed. He felt he’d lost his wife as well as his child that day. He hadn’t doubted at first that he would get through to her, loving her as he did, but as weeks and then months had gone by and the wall she’d erected between them had been impenetrable he’d begun to wonder. When he had returned home one night and found her gone—clothes, shoes, toiletries, every personal possession she had—and read the note she’d left stating she wanted a divorce, it almost hadn’t come as a surprise.

He had been so angry that night. Angry that she could leave him when he knew nothing on earth could have made him leave her. And bereft, desperate, frantic with fear for her.

Melanie stirred slightly before curling even closer, her head on his chest and her hair fanning her face. His arms tightened round her; she seemed so small, so fragile, so young, but in part that was deceptive. She had walked away from him and made a new life for herself over the last months, managing perfectly well without him. Whereas he… He had been merely existing.

He hadn’t expected this tonight. Hell, the understatement of the year, he thought wryly. Would she regret it in the morning? His chin nuzzled the silk of her hair. He’d have to make damn sure she didn’t, he told himself grimly. He had told her, in one of their furious rows after she had first left him when she had been staying with friends, that he would never let her go, and he meant it. But he’d also seen then that she was at the end of her tether, mentally, physically and emotionally. So he’d drawn back, given her space. But enough was enough. Tonight had proved she still wanted him physically however she felt about their marriage, and that was a start.

He lay perfectly still in the darkness while Melanie slept, the acutely intelligent and astute mind that had taken him from relative obscurity to fabulous wealth in just a few short years dissecting every word, every gesture, every embrace, every kiss they’d shared. When the sky began to lighten outside the window he was still awake, only finally drifting off after the birds had finished the dawn chorus, Melanie still held close to his heart.

CHAPTER THREE

THE sun was well and truly up when Melanie’s eyes eased open after the first solid night’s sleep she’d had since leaving Forde. She had slept so deeply that for a moment she was only semiconscious, and then memories of the previous night slammed into her mind at the same time as she became aware that she was curled into the source of her contentment.

Forde.

Frozen with horror, she stiffened, petrified Forde would open his eyes, but the steady measured vibration beneath her cheek didn’t pause, and after a moment she cautiously raised her head. He was fast asleep.

She disentangled herself slowly, pausing to look into his face. Her gaze took in the familiar planes and hollows, made much more boyish in slumber; the straight nose, high cheekbones, crooked mouth with its hint of sensuality even in repose, and the dark stubble on his chin. A very determined chin. Like the man himself.

How could she have been so unbelievably stupid as to sleep with him again? Her breath caught in her throat as her stomach twisted. And it was no good blaming the wine. She had wanted him last night; she had ached and yearned for him since the time they’d parted, more to the point.

But she didn’t need him, she told herself stonily. She had proved that; she had lived without him for seven months, hadn’t she? And she was getting by.

She had barely survived losing Matthew. She had wanted nothing more than to die, the grief and guilt crucifying. She didn’t ever want to be in a place where something like that could happen again. She wouldn’t be in such a place.

She slid carefully out of bed, the trembling that had started in the pit of her stomach spreading to her limbs. She had to get out of the house before Forde woke up. It was cowardly and mean and selfish, but she had to. She loved him too much to let him hope they could make a go of their marriage. It was over, dead, burnt into ashes with no chance of being resurrected. It had died the moment she’d begun to fall down those stairs.

But he would be hoping, a little voice in the back of her mind reminded her relentlessly as she gathered her clothes together as silently as a mouse. Of course he would. As mixed messages went, this one was the pièce de résistance.

Once in the kitchen she dressed swiftly, scared any moment there would be movement from upstairs. Then she wrote him a note, hating herself for the cruelty but knowing if she faced him this morning she would dissolve in floods of tears and the whole sorry mess would just escalate.

Forde, I don’t know how to put this except that I’m more sorry than I can say for behaving the way I did last night. It was all me, I know that, and it was inexcusable.

Melanie paused, her stomach in a giant knot as she considered her next words. But there was no kind way to say it.

I can’t do the together thing any more and that’s nothing to do with you as a person. Again, it’s all me, but it’s only fair to tell you my mind is made up about the divorce. I’ll still do the work for Isabelle if you want me to. Ring me about it tonight. But no more visits. That’s the first condition.

Again she hesitated. How did you finish a note like this? Especially after what they’d shared the night before.

Tears were burning at the backs of her eyes but she blinked them away determinedly. Then she wrote simply:

I hope at some time in the future you can forgive me. Nell

She owed him the intimacy of the nickname at least, she thought wretchedly, feeling lower than anything that might crawl out from under a stone. He had been attempting to comfort her last night when they’d first come into the house, and she had practically begged him to make love to her. She had instigated it all; she knew that.

Creeping upstairs, she placed the note on top of the clothes he’d discarded so frantically the night before but without looking at him again. She couldn’t bear to.

It was only when she was driving away from the house that the avalanche of tears she’d been holding at bay burst forth. She managed to find a lay-by that was hidden from the road by a row of trees once she’d entered it, and cut the engine.

Steeped in misery made all the worse by the remorse and self-condemnation she was feeling, she cried until there were no more tears left. Then she wiped her eyes and blew her nose and got out of the car to compose herself in the warm, fresh air. The chirping of the birds in their busy morning activities in the trees bordering the lay-by registered after a minute or two, and she raised her eyes, searching out a flock of sparrows who were making all the noise.

Life was so simple for them, for all the animal kingdom. It was only Homo sapiens, allegedly the superior species, who made things complex.

The fragrance of Forde still lingered on her skin, the taste of him on her lips. Hugging her arms about her, she recalled how it had felt to have him inside her again, taking her to heaven and back. Falling asleep with her head on his chest, close to the steady beat of his heart, had felt like coming home and had been as pleasurable as their lovemaking.

She straightened, her soft mouth setting. She wasn’t going to think about this. She was too early to arrive at the farmhouse where she and James would be working for the next week or so, but there was a café on the way that would be open. She’d go and buy herself breakfast.

The café only had one other occupant when she pushed open the door, a lorry driver who was reading his paper while he shovelled food into his mouth. After ordering a round of bacon sandwiches and a pot of tea, Melanie made her way to the ladies’ cloakroom, locking the door behind her. The small room held a somewhat ancient washbasin besides the lavatory, and she peered into the speckled mirror above it. She’d looped her hair into a ponytail before leaving the house but it was in dire need of attention. And she hadn’t showered or brushed her teeth.

Stripping off her clothes, she had a wash with the hard green soap, which was as ancient as the washbasin, before drying herself with several of the paper towels in the rusty dispenser. Dressing quickly, she brushed her hair and redid her ponytail before applying plenty of the sunscreen she always carried in her handbag. Brushing her teeth would have to wait.

She was about to leave the cloakroom when she glanced at herself in the mirror again and then drew closer, arrested by the look in her eyes. She blinked, unnerved by the haunting sadness. Was that what Forde had seen? Worse, was that why he had stayed and made love to her? He’d stated quite clearly that the only reason he had come to see her was to discuss the work he wanted her to undertake for Isabelle. Had he felt sorry for her? He had left her severely alone since the time she’d threatened to take out a restraining order; maybe he was seeing other women now?

Feeling emotionally sick, she left the cloakroom and went into the main part of the café. The lorry driver had left but a group of motorbike enthusiasts were clustered around three tables, talking and laughing. She saw them glance her way but, after one swift glance, kept her head down. Dressed in leathers and with tattoos covering most of their visible flesh, they were a little intimidating, as were the huge machines parked outside next to her beaten-up old truck.

The waitress brought her sandwich and tea immediately as she sat down. Aware her eyes were still puffy from the storm of weeping, Melanie forced down the food as quickly as she could and drank one cup of tea before standing up to leave. She had just reached the door when someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned sharply to find a huge, bearded biker behind her.

‘Your bag, love,’ he said, holding out her handbag, which she realised she’d left on a chair, the keys to the car being in her pocket. And then, his eyes narrowing, he added, ‘You all right?’

‘Yes, yes, th-thank you,’ she stammered, feeling ridiculous.

‘You sure?’

His blue eyes were kind under great winged eyebrows, and, pulling herself together, Melanie managed a smile. ‘I’m fine, and thank you for noticing the bag,’ she said, silently acknowledging this was an apt lesson in not going by appearances.

He grinned. ‘I’m well trained, love. My girlfriend’s the same. Forget her head, she would, if it wasn’t screwed on.’

Once on the road again, Melanie gave herself a stern talking-to. The biker had asked if she was all right and the honest answer would have been no, she doubted if she would ever be what he termed ‘all right’ again, but that was nobody’s fault but her own. She should have known better than to marry Forde and try to be like everyone else. She wasn’t like everyone else.

She passed a young mother pushing a baby in a pushchair and bit hard on her lip. It still hurt her, seeing mothers with babies. Like a knife driven straight through her heart.

Throughout her life, every person she had loved had been taken from her in the worst possible way. First her parents, then her grandmother, even her best friend at school—her only friend, come to it, because she hadn’t been a particularly sociable child—had drowned while on holiday abroad with her parents. She could still remember the numbing shock she had felt when the headmaster had announced Pam’s death in assembly, and the feeling that somehow the tragedy was connected with Pam’s friendship with her.

If she hadn’t married Forde and wanted his baby, Matthew wouldn’t have died. She had tempted fate, thought she could escape the inevitable and because of that Forde’s heart had been broken as well as hers. She would never forget the look on his face when he’d held that tiny body in the palms of his hands. That was the moment she had known she had to let him go, make him free to find happiness somewhere else. Forde had said last night that she would have given her life for Matthew’s if she could and he was right, but she hadn’t been able to. But she could protect Forde from more hurt by exiting his life. Once the divorce was through she would move again, far away, perhaps even abroad, and in time he would meet someone else he could commit to. Women fell over themselves to get his attention and he was a passionate and very physical man. Whatever the cost in the present, this was the right thing to do for the future. And there could be no more incidents like last night.

Her mind irrevocably made up, Melanie felt slightly better. She had to be cruel to be kind. It was the only way.

Forde awoke suddenly with the presentiment that something was wrong. For a moment he couldn’t reconcile where he was and then he remembered, turning to see that the place next to him in the bed was empty. The house was quiet and still, no sound from the bathroom or downstairs, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Glancing at his watch, he saw it was gone nine o’clock and he swore softly, cursing the fact he hadn’t woken before her as he swung his feet out of bed, running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. Damn it, this was exactly what he’d wanted to prevent. But maybe she was having breakfast in the tiny courtyard garden they’d sat in the night before?

As naked as the day he was born, he took the stairs two at a time, but even before he opened the back door and looked into Melanie’s tiny garden snoozing in the sun he knew she wasn’t around. The small house was devoid of her presence, as if the heart of it was missing.

Cursing some more, he retraced his steps, and this time, as soon as he entered her bedroom, he saw the note on top of his clothes, which she had folded neatly for him. It was a single piece of cream-coloured paper and, sitting down on the side of the bed, he began to read it.

His stomach muscles contracted, as though a cold, hard fist was squeezing his gut. So nothing had changed. After all they’d shared last night, the fire, the passion, she was still intent on divorcing him.

Screwing the paper into a ball, he flung it across the room before getting to his feet and reaching for his clothes. He needed to get out of her house fast before he gave in to the crazy urge to break something.

Once downstairs again he relocked the back door and left by the front one, which had a Yale lock, slamming it hard behind him. His Aston Martin was waiting for him in the small car park and after sliding into the car he sat, the door wide open and his hands on the steering wheel.

Where did he go from here? This morning had been a repeat of so many mornings when he’d awakened from erotic dreams of their lovemaking and reached out for her across an empty expanse of bed, only for reality to slam in. But this morning had been different. Last night had been real. She’d been silk and honey in his arms, her body opening to him and accommodating him perfectly as he’d thrust them both to a climax of unbearable pleasure. But it wasn’t just his body that burnt for her, hot and fulfilling though their lovemaking had always been. He wanted her, his Nell.

He watched a black cat saunter across the car park, stopping for a moment when it noticed him, its green eyes narrowing before it dismissed him as unimportant and continued with its leisurely walk. The cat that walked alone, he thought fancifully. Like Nell. She’d come to the same conclusion about him as that damn animal, whereas he needed her in every part of his life. He wanted to share waking up together at the weekend and reading the Sunday papers in bed while they ate croissants and drank coffee, watching TV with a glass of wine after a hard day’s work while the dinner cooked, going to the theatre or to a film, or simply taking a long walk in the evening arm in arm. In the early days they’d done all those things and they had talked about anything and everything—or so he’d thought. Now he realised there was a huge part of her psyche she’d kept from him.

He started the car, frowning to himself.

He’d known she’d been damaged by her earlier life when he’d got to know her, of course. He’d just underestimated the extent of the damage and that had been fatal. Or maybe his ego had ridden roughshod over any concerns he might have had, telling him he would be able to deal with any difficulties in the future.

He nosed the powerful car out of the car park and onto the road beyond, deep in thought. But all that was relative now. One thing was for sure, she wouldn’t have responded to him as she’d done last night if she didn’t still care for him, deep down somewhere. And when he’d asked her if she loved him she hadn’t said no. Admittedly, she hadn’t said yes either …

He’d call her tonight, as she’d suggested. Everything in him wanted to come back here and bang on the door till she let him in so he could convince her how much he loved her, but something told him that would accomplish nothing. He’d played the waiting game for months, hadn’t he? He could play it a little longer. But this time on his terms. She wouldn’t go back on her word, she’d work at Hillview and he knew how fond she was of his mother. That was the reason he’d suggested this in the first place.

Well, he conceded in the next moment. Not the only reason. It was true his mother’s heart wasn’t good since the hip operation but she hadn’t been quite so…difficult about the garden as he’d led Melanie to believe. But Hillview’s grounds did

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