So what happens now? Jennifer wanted to ask him.

If it had just been about fulfilling an inappropriate youthful fantasy then she would be able to fully enjoy this moment and move on, but she could already feel a knot of anxiety beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. She wanted so much more than just a romp in the sack. But James was a man who moved on. It was his trademark.

So where, she wondered, did they go from here when they were positioned at opposite ends of the spectrum? Where exactly was the meeting point between a woman who wanted everything and a man whose relationships with women rarely lasted more than a handful of months?

About the Author

CATHY WILLIAMS is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

Recent titles by the same author:

THE TRUTH BEHIND HIS TOUCH

THE SECRET SINCLAIR

HER IMPOSSIBLE BOSS

IN WANT OF A WIFE?

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Girl He’d

Overlooked

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

JENNIFER looked at her reflection in the mirror. She had died and gone to heaven! Fantastic restaurant, fantastic food, even the ladies’ room was fantastic. Beige marble everywhere and delicate little hand towels, a basket of them, to be picked, used and discarded. Could things get any better? Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were glowing.

She leaned forward and for the first time her physical shortcomings did not rush towards her in a wave of disappointment. She was no longer the too tall, too big-boned girl with the hair that was slightly too unruly and a mouth that was too wide. She was a sexy woman on the brink of the rest of her life and, best of all, James was out there, waiting for her. James, her date.

Jennifer Edwards had known James Rocchi all her life. From the small window of her bedroom in the cottage that she had shared with her father, she could daily look out to the distant splendour of his family home—The Big House, as she and her father had always called the Rocchi mansion, with its sweeping drive and imposing acres of stunning Victorian architecture.

As a kid, she had worshipped him and had trotted behind him and his friends as they had enjoyed themselves in the acres and acres of grounds surrounding the house. As a teenager, she had developed a healthy crush on him, blushing and awkward whenever he returned from boarding school, although, several years older than her, he couldn’t have been more oblivious. But she was no longer a teenager. She was now twenty-one years old, with a degree in French firmly behind her and a secondment to the Parisian office of the law firm in which she had spent every summer vacation working only days away.

She was a woman and life couldn’t have felt any better than it did right now, right here.

With a little sigh of pleasure, she applied a top up of her lip gloss, patted her hair, which she had spent ages trying to straighten and mostly succeeded, and headed back out to the restaurant.

He was gazing out of the window and she took a few seconds to drink him in.

James Rocchi was a stunning example of the sort of aggressively good-looking alpha male that could turn heads from streets away. Like his father, who had been an Italian diplomat, James was black-haired and bronze-skinned, only inheriting his English mother’s navy-blue eyes. Everything about him oozed lethal sex appeal, from the arrogant tilt of his head to the muscled perfection of his body. Jennifer had seen the way other women, usually small blonde things he had brought back with him from university, had followed him with their eyes as if they couldn’t get enough of him.

She was still finding it hard to believe that she was actually here with him and she took a deep breath and reminded herself that he had asked her on a date. It gave her just the surge of confidence she needed to walk towards him and she blushed furiously as he turned to look at her with a slow smile on his face.

‘So… I’ve arranged a little surprise for you…’

Jennifer could barely contain her breathless excitement. ‘You haven’t! What is it?’

‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ he told her with a grin. He leaned back, angling his body so that he could stretch his legs out. ‘I still can’t believe that you’ve finished university and are heading off to foreign shores…’

‘I know, but the offer of a job in Paris was just too good to pass up. You know what it’s like here.’

‘I know,’ he agreed, understanding what she meant without her having to explain. Wasn’t this one of the great things about her? he thought. They had known each other for so long that there was hardly any need to explain references or, frankly, sometimes, to finish sentences. Of course, Paris for a year was going to be brilliant for her. Aside from her stint at university, which, in Canterbury, had hardly been a million miles away, he couldn’t think of a time that she had ever left here and, however beautiful and peaceful this slice of Kent was, she should be champing at the bit to spread her wings and fly farther afield. But he didn’t mind admitting to himself that he was going to miss her easy companionship.

Jennifer helped herself to another glass of wine and giggled. ‘Three shops, a bank, two offices, a post office and no jobs! Well, I guess I could have thought about travelling into Canterbury… seeing what I could land there but…’

‘But that would have been a waste of your French degree. I guess John will miss having you around.’

Jennifer wanted to ask if he would miss having her around. He worked in London, had taken over the running of his father’s company when, in the wake of his father’s death six years previously, the vultures had been circling, waiting to snap it up at a knock-down price. At the time he had barely been out of university but he had skipped the gap year he had planned and returned to take the reins of the company and haul it into the twenty-first century. London was his base but he travelled out to the country regularly. Would he miss having her around on those weekends? Bank holidays?

‘I won’t be gone for the rest of my life.’ Jennifer smiled, thinking of her father. ‘I think he’ll manage. He has his little landscaping business and, of course, overseeing your grounds. I’ve been working to get him computer literate so that we can Skype each other.’ She cupped her face in her hands and looked at him. He was only just twenty-seven but he looked older. Was that because he had been thrown into a life of responsibility at the highest possible level from a very young age? He had had little to do with his father’s company before his father had died. Silvio Rocchi had barely had anything to do with it himself. While he had carried out his diplomatic duties, he had delegated the running of the company to his right-hand men which, as it turned out, had not been the best idea in the world. When he died, James had been the young upstart whose job it had been to sack the dead wood. Had that forged a vein of steel inside him that had turned the boy quickly into the man?

She could have spent a few minutes chewing over the conundrum but he was saying something, talking about her father.

‘And it’s just a thought but he might even enjoy having the place to himself, who knows?’

‘Well, he’ll get used to it.’ But enjoy? No, she couldn’t really see that happening. Her earliest memories were of her and her dad as a unit. They had weathered the storm of her mother’s death together and had been everything to each other ever since.

‘I think,’ James murmured, glancing over her shoulder and leaning towards her to cover her hand with his, ‘your little surprise is on its way…’

Jennifer spun around to see two of the waiters walking towards her and felt a stab of sudden disappointment. They were holding a cake with a sparkler and huge bowl of ice cream liberally covered with chocolate sauce and coloured sweets. It was the sort of thing a child would have been thrilled by, not a grown woman. She glanced over her shoulder to James, and saw that he was lounging back, hands clasped behind his head, smiling with an expression of satisfaction so she smiled too and held the smile as she blew out the sparkler to an audience of clapping diners.

‘Really, James, you shouldn’t have.’ She stared down at more dessert than anyone could hope to consume in a single sitting, even someone of her proportions. The awkward girl she had left behind threatened to return as she gazed down at his special gesture.

‘You deserve it, Jen.’ He rested his elbows on the table and carefully removed the sparkler from the cake. ‘You did brilliantly at university and you’ve done brilliantly to accept the Paris job.’

‘There’s nothing brilliant about accepting a job.’

‘But Paris… when my mother told me that you’d been offered it, I wasn’t sure whether you had it in you to take it.’

‘What do you mean?’ It seemed rude to leave the melting ice cream and the slab of cake untouched, so she had a mouthful and looked away from him.

‘You know what I mean. You haven’t strayed far from the family home… university just around the corner so that you could pop in and check on John several times a week, even though you were living out…’

‘Yes, well—’

‘Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s not. The world would be a better place if there were more people like you in it. We certainly would be reading far fewer stories in the newspapers of care homes where ageing relatives get shoved and forgotten about.’

‘You make me sound like a saint,’ Jennifer said, stabbing some cake and dipping it into the bowl of ice cream.

‘You always do that.’

‘What?’

‘Somehow manage to turn cake and ice cream into slush. And you always manage to do… that…’

‘What?’ She could feel her irritation levels rising.

‘Get ice cream round your mouth.’ He reached over to brush some ice cream off and the fleeting touch of his finger by her mouth almost made her gasp. He licked the ice cream from his finger and raised his eyebrows with appreciation.

‘Very nice. Bring that bowl closer and let’s share.’

Jennifer relaxed. This was more like it. Three glasses of wine had relaxed her but she hadn’t been able to banish all her inhibitions. His treating her like a kid was probably going to bring them all back but clinking spoons as they dipped into the same bowl, exchanging mouthfuls of ice cream and laughing…

Once again she felt intoxicated with anticipation.

She made sure to lean forward so that he could see her cleavage, which was daringly on display. Normally, she wore much plainer clothes, big jumpers in winter and loose dresses in summer. But, for this date, she had splashed out on a calf-length skirt and although the silky top was still fairly baggy, its neckline was more risqué.

It was strange but, although she had no qualms about wearing tight jeans and tight tops at university, the standard uniform for students, the thought of wearing anything tight in front of James had always brought on a mild panic attack. The feel of those lazy blue eyes resting on her had always resulted in an acute bout of self-consciousness. His girlfriends were always so petite and so slim. In her head, she had always been able to hear his comparisons whenever he looked at her. Loose clothes had been one way of deflecting those comparisons.

‘So,’ he murmured, ‘will you be leaving any broken hearts behind?’

It was the first time he had ever asked her such a directly personal question and she shivered pleasurably as she shook her head, not wanting, under any circumstances, to let him get the impression that she wasn’t available.

‘Absolutely no one.’

‘You surprise me. What’s wrong with those lads at university? They should have been forming a queue to ask you out.’

Jennifer blushed. ‘I went on a couple of dates, but the boys all seemed so young, getting drunk at clubs and spending entire days in front of their computer games. None of them seemed to take life seriously.’

‘At eighteen and nineteen, life is something not to be taken seriously.’

‘You did when you were barely older than that.’

‘As you may recall, I had no choice.’ Jennifer was the only woman who could get away with bringing his private life into the conversation. She was, in actual fact, the only woman who knew anything at all about his private life and, even with her, there was still a great deal of which she was unaware.

‘I know that and I know it must have been tough, but I honestly can’t think of anyone who would have risen to the occasion the way you did. I mean, you had no real experience and yet you went in there and turned it all around.’

‘I’ll make sure that you’re the first on the guest list when I get knighted.’

Jennifer laughed and pushed the plate of melting ice cream away from her, choosing instead to have a bit more wine and ignoring James’s raised eyebrows.

‘I’m being serious,’ she insisted. ‘I can’t think of a single guy I knew at university who would have been capable of doing what you did.’

‘You’re young. Life shouldn’t be about looking for a guy who can take the world on his shoulders. In fact, it should be about the guy who hasn’t grown up yet. Believe me there’s plenty of time to buckle down and realise that life’s no picnic…’

‘I’m not young!’ Jennifer said lightly. ‘I’m twenty-one. Not that much younger than you, in actual fact.’

James laughed and signalled to the waiter for the bill. ‘You haven’t done justice to those desserts.’ He changed the topic when she would have had him pursue this tantalising personal conversation. ‘I’ve always admired your sweet tooth. So refreshing after some of the girls I’ve dated in the past, who think that swallowing a mouthful of dessert constitutes an offence punishable by death.’

‘That’s why they’re so skinny and I’m not,’ she said, fishing hopefully for a compliment, but his attention was on the approaching waiter and on the bill being placed in front of him.

Now that the evening was drawing to a close, she could feel her nerves begin to get the better of her, although the copious amounts of wine had helped. When she stood up, she swayed ever so slightly and James reached for her with a concerned expression.

‘Tell me you haven’t had too much to drink,’ he murmured. ‘Hang onto me. I’ll make sure you don’t topple over.’

‘Of course I’m not going to topple over! I’m a big girl. I need more than a few glasses of wine to topple over!’ She loved the feel of his arm around her waist as they strolled out of the restaurant. It was August and still balmy outside. The fading light cast everything into shadow but the street lights had not yet come on and the atmosphere was wonderfully mellow and intimate. She surreptitiously nestled a little closer to him and tentatively put her arm around his waist. Her heart skipped a beat.

She was five ten and in heels, easily six foot, but at six foot three he still made her feel gloriously small and feminine.

She could have stayed like this in silence but he began asking her about Paris, quizzing her about the details of her job, asking her what her apartment would be like and reassuring her that, if it wasn’t up to scratch, she was to remember that his company had several apartments in Paris and that he would be more than happy to arrange for her to stay in one of them.

Jennifer didn’t want that. She didn’t want him doing the big brother thing and imagining that she wanted him to take care of her from a distance so she skirted around his offer and reminded him that she wasn’t in need of looking after.

‘Where has this sudden streak of independence come from?’ he asked teasingly, and his warm breath rustled her hair. He was smiling. She heard it in his voice.

They had reached his car, and she felt the loss of his arm around her as he held open the passenger door for her to step inside.

‘I remember,’ he said, still smiling and turning to look at her as he started the engine, ‘when you were fifteen and you told me that you couldn’t possibly get through your maths exam unless I sat and helped you.’

Never thinking that he had better things to do, just pleased to be able to bask in his attention for a couple of hours as he had patiently helped her.

‘I must have been a complete pain,’ she said truthfully.

‘Or a pleasant distraction.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was buried under work trying to fish my father’s company out of its woeful state of affairs. Helping you and listening to all your school gossip often gave me a much-needed break from the headache of running a company.’

‘But what about your girlfriends?’

‘I know,’ James said ruefully. ‘You would have thought that they would have provided a distraction, but at that juncture in my life I didn’t need their demands.’

‘Well, that was such a long time ago. I can’t even remember any of that school gossip.’

‘And if I recall, you went on to get an A in your maths…

Jennifer didn’t say anything. The restaurant was only a matter of thirty minutes away from the house. In the blink of an eye, they would be back at the cottage and she would be able to show him that she really and truly was no longer the kid who had asked for help with her homework or filled him in on the silly happenings in her life whenever he happened to be down for the weekend. Maybe he wouldn’t be entirely surprised…? After all, he had asked her out on a date!

She replayed that lovely feeling of having his arm around her and resisted the temptation to reach out and cover his hand with hers.

They drew up to the cottage in comfortable silence. Set in the grounds of the manor house, it was originally designed to house the head butler, but it had been annexed years before the Rocchis had moved in by a wily investor who had seen it as an efficient way of making some additional money. It was a happy coincidence that her father had bought the tiny two-bedroom place at around the same time as the Rocchis had moved into the manor house. Her own mother had died when she, Jennifer, had been just a toddler and Daisy Rocchi, unable to have any more children after James, had become a surrogate mother, bypassing all rules and conventions that predicated against two families of such differing incomes becoming close.

‘Dad’s not in.’ Jennifer turned to look at James and cleared her throat. ‘Why don’t you… um… come in for something to drink? You barely had any of that wine tonight.’

‘If I had thought ahead, I would have booked a taxi for us instead of driving myself.’

‘Well, I know there’s some wine in the fridge and I think dad’s got a bottle of whisky in the cupboard. His once-a-month vice, he tells me.’ She wasn’t sure what she would do if he turned down her offer but he didn’t and she breathed a sigh of relief as he said no to the alcohol but opted for a cup of coffee instead.

Inside the cottage, she switched on the lamp in the sitting room instead of the harsher overheard light and urged him in while she prepared them coffee with shaking hands. She was trying very hard to recapture the excitement and confidence she had felt earlier on in the restaurant as she had gazed at her reflection in the mirror and told herself that this date had arrived at just the perfect time, when she was still riding the crest of a wave, with her finals behind her and an exciting new job ahead of her.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost sent both mugs of coffee crashing to the ground as she turned to find James lounging in the doorway to the kitchen. Very carefully, she rested the mugs on the pine kitchen table and took two steps to close the distance between them.

Now or never, Jennifer thought with feverish determination. She had nurtured this crush for way too long. All through her time at university, she had tried to make herself like the boys who had asked her out, but her thoughts had always returned to James. His heart-stopping sex appeal and their shared history were a potent, heady combination and she had never quite managed to break free of its spell.

‘I… I liked what you did earlier…’ The palms of her hands were sweaty with nerves.

‘You mean the cake and ice cream?’ He laughed and looked down at her. ‘Like I said, I know what a sucker you are for sweet things.’

‘Actually I was talking about after that.’

‘Sorry. I’m not following you.’

‘When you put your arms around me on the way to the car. I liked that.’ She slid her hand over his chest and nearly fainted at the hard body underneath her fingers. ‘James…’ She looked up at him and before she could chicken out she closed her eyes and tiptoed up to reach him. The first taste of his cool mouth sent a charge of adrenaline racing through her body and with a soft moan she kissed him harder, reached up to wind her arms around his neck as her body curved against his.

Her breasts were aching, her heart was beating like a drum. Every nerve in her body was alive with sensations she had never felt with anyone in her life before. Every kiss she had ever shared with other boys was drowned out by the scorching heat of this kiss. She felt his response as he kissed her back and that response was enough for her to take his hand and guide it underneath the loose shirt, up to the lacy bra that she had worn especially.

She was so lost in the moment that it was a few seconds before she realised that he was gently but firmly detaching himself from her and it was a few more seconds before it sank in that this was not a gesture preparatory to taking her upstairs. This much-longed-for evening was not going to end in her bedroom, making love while candles flickered in the background. She had agonised over her choice of linen, ditching her usual flowery bedcovers for something plain instead. He wasn’t going to see any of it.

‘Jennifer…’

Unable to bear the gentleness in his voice, she spun around with her arms tightly clasped around her body.

‘I’m sorry. Please go.’

‘We need to talk about what… what happened just then.’

‘No. We don’t.’ She refused to look up as he circled round to face her. She kept her eyes pinned to his shoes while her body went hot and cold with mortification. She was no longer a sexy woman on a date with the guy for whom she had spent years nursing an inexhaustible infatuation. She bitterly wallowed in the reality that she was an awkward and not particularly attractive woman in a stupid, newly purchased outfit who had just made a complete fool of herself.

‘Look at me, Jen. Please.’

‘I got the wrong end of the stick, James, and I apologise. I thought… I don’t know what I thought…’

‘You’re embarrassed and I understand that but—’

‘Don’t say any more!’

‘I have to. We’re friends. If we leave this to fester, things will never be the same between us again. I enjoy your company. I wouldn’t want to lose what we have. For God’s sake, Jennifer, at least look at me!’

She looked up at him and for the first time the sight of him didn’t thrill her.

‘Don’t beat yourself up, Jen. I kissed you back and for that I apologise. I shouldn’t have.’

But he had and she knew why. What man wouldn’t succumb to a woman who flung herself at him? It was telling that he had come to his senses in a matter of seconds. Even with everything on offer, she hadn’t been able to tempt him.

‘You’re young. You’re about to embark on the biggest adventure of your life—’

‘Oh, spare me the pity talk,’ Jennifer muttered.

‘I’m not pitying you.’ He stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers and shook his head in frustration.

‘Yes, you are! I’ve been a complete idiot and I’ve put us both in an awkward position and none of it is your fault! Okay, so when you asked me out to dinner tonight, I thought it was more than just two friends having a meal. I fooled myself into believing that you might have begun to see me as a woman instead of the girl next door! Instead of the clumsy, ungainly, unappealing, borderline unattractive girl next door.’

‘Don’t put yourself down. I don’t like it.’

‘I’m not putting myself down.’ She managed to meet his eyes without flinching although it cost her every ounce of will power. ‘I’m being honest. I’ve had a crush on you—’

‘And there’s nothing wrong with that…’

‘You knew.’

‘It was endearing.’

‘Well, a pleasant distraction from when your pocket-sized blonde bombshells were being too demanding, at any rate.’

‘You had a schoolgirl crush and there’s nothing sinful about that,’ James told her with such sincerity that she itched to slap him. ‘But you’re young. I know you said that you’re only a few years younger than me, but in terms of experience we’re light years apart. Trust me when I tell you that in a year’s time you’ll have forgotten all about this. You’ll have met some nice lad…’

‘Yes,’ Jennifer parroted dutifully, wanting this entire conversation to be over so that she could go upstairs and bury herself under the freshly laundered covers.

He sighed and shook his head. This was a Jennifer he didn’t recognise. Gone was the smiling, malleable girl. Had he known that she had a crush on him? Yes, of course he had, although he had never openly addressed the issue. Now, for the first time, he could sense her locking him out. He understood but it was a strange sensation and he didn’t like it.

‘Your feelings for me are misplaced,’ he told her roughly. ‘I wasn’t lying when I told you that you want to enjoy your youth with boys who are uncomplicated and fun-loving.’

‘You make it sound as though I was looking for… looking for something more than just…’

‘A romp in the sack?’

Mortified, Jennifer shrugged.

‘You deserve a lot more than I could give you.’

By which, she thought, you mean that there’s nothing you’re interested in giving me aside from a peck on the cheek every now and again and lots of good advice about how to live my life.

He was being patronising and the worst of it was that he wasn’t even aware of it.

‘Don’t worry about me, James,’ she said with a forced smile, relieving him of the obligation to keep thinking about her feelings because he was a decent human being. ‘I’ll be fine. These things happen.’ Two steps back, putting distance between them. ‘I probably won’t see you before I leave.’

‘No.’

‘Of course I’ll keep in touch and I’m sure we’ll bump into one another now and again.’ One more step back.

‘You’ll be all right, will you?’

Jennifer chose to interpret this at face value and she looked at him with a polite, unfocused expression. ‘Of course I will. As I told you, the job I’ll be doing over there isn’t going to be substantially different than what I’ve done over the summer vacations. Naturally, I’ll be following through on a lot more and there’ll be a great deal of translating but I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it.’

‘Right. Good.’

‘So.’

James hesitated and raked his fingers through his hair.

‘Thanks for dinner, James… and I’ll see you…’

She remained frozen to the spot as he brushed past her, pausing fleetingly, as though hesitant to leave.

What did he think she was going to do? Jennifer wondered. Fling herself out of her bedroom window because he had rejected her? Was she so pathetic in his eyes that he doubted her ability to get over the slight?

The soft click of the front door closing signalled his departure and it was only once she was certain that he had left the cottage that Jennifer slumped.

She closed her eyes and thought of the excited girl who had bought a new outfit especially for her big date. She remembered her anticipation at having him all to herself over dinner. She had dreamt of seduction and of finally having this crazy crush of hers fulfilled. It suddenly felt like a million years ago and, although a year wasn’t long, it was long enough to say goodbye to that person.

CHAPTER ONE

EXCEPT one year became two, which became three, which became four. And in all those four years, Jennifer had not once set eyes on James. Each Christmas, she had contrived to bring her father over to Paris for the holidays, which he had loved. What had begun as a one-year placement, during which she could consolidate her French, had seen her rise through the company, and as she had risen so too had her pay cheque. She found that she could afford to holiday with her father abroad, and on those occasions when she had returned to England she had been careful with her visits, always making sure that they were brief and that James was nowhere in the vicinity.

He had walked out of the cottage four years previously and she had fled to Paris, her wounds still raw. She couldn’t imagine ever facing him again, and not facing him had developed into a habit. He had emailed her, and she had been happy enough to email back, but on the occasions when he had been in Paris she had excused herself from meeting him on grounds of being too busy, prior engagements, not well, anything because the memory of him gently letting her down remained, that open wound quietly hurting somewhere in the background of her shiny new life.

Except now…

She had nodded off on the train and woke with a start as it pulled into the station.

When she looked through the window it was to see that the flurries of snow that she had left behind in London were a steady fall here in Kent. The weather was always so much harsher out here. She had forgotten.

At six-thirty in the evening the train was packed with commuters and fetching her bags was chaotic, with people jostling her on all sides, but eventually she was out of the train and braving the freezing temperatures and snow on the platform.

She wasn’t planning on staying long. Just long enough to sort out the problems in the cottage, problems she had learnt about via an email from James who had been checking his house in his mother’s absence and had happened to walk down to the cottage to take a look only to find water seeping out from under the front door. Her father was away on his annual post-Christmas three-week holiday to visit his brother in Scotland. The email had read:

You can pass this on to your father, but I gather you’re in the country so you might want to check it out yourself instead of ruining your father’s fishing trip. This, of course, presupposes that you can interrupt your busy schedule.

The tone of the email was the final nail in the coffin of their enduring friendship. She had run away and, never looked back, and over time, the chasm between them had become so vast that it was now unbreachable terrain. His emails, which had been warm and concerned at the beginning of her stint in Paris, had gradually become cooler and more formal, in direct proportion to her avoidance tactics. It occurred to her that she actually hadn’t heard from him at all for at least six months.

In Paris, she could tell herself that she didn’t mind, that this was just the way things had turned out in the end, that their friendship had always been destined to run its course because it had been an unrealistic union of the inaccessible boy in the manor house and the childishly doting girl next door.

But now here, back in Kent, his email was a vaguely sexy reminder of how things used to be.

She wheeled her suitcase out to where a bank of taxis was only just managing to keep the snow on their cars from settling by virtue of having their engines running. Everywhere, the snow was forming a layer of white.

The water had been cleared, James had informed her, but there was a lot of collateral damage, which she would have to assess for the insurance company. He had managed to get the heating started. So at least when she arrived at the cottage, she wouldn’t freeze to death. She hoped he might have left her some fresh provisions before he cleared off, on his way to Singapore for a series of meetings, he had politely informed her in his email, but she wasn’t banking on it.

That was how far their friendship had devolved. When Jennifer thought about it for too long, she could feel a lump of sadness in her throat and she had to remind herself of that terrible night when she had made such a fool of herself. Someone better and stronger might have been able to survive that and laughingly put it behind them so that a friendship could be maintained, but she couldn’t.

For her, it had been a devastating learning curve and she had learnt from it.

She gazed out of the window of the taxi but could barely see anything because of the snow. Deep in the heart of the Kent countryside, the trip, in conditions like this, would take over an hour. She settled in for the long haul and let her thoughts drift without restraint.

It had been a while since she had returned to the cottage for any length of time. She and her father had spent summer in Majorca, two weeks of sun and sea, and every six weeks she brought him over for a weekend. She loved the fact that she could afford to do that now. She knew that there was a part of her that was reluctant to return to the place that held so many memories of James, but that was fine because her father was more than happy to travel out to see her and she always, always made sure that she met Daisy, James’s mother, for lunch in London when she was over on business. She had politely asked about James and given evasive non-answers whenever Daisy showed any curiosity as to why they no longer seemed to meet. Eventually his name had been quietly dropped from conversations.

To think of him moving around in the cottage made something in her shiver. Sometimes, a memory of the scent of him, clean and masculine and woody, would surface from nowhere, leaving her shaken. She hoped that scent wouldn’t be lingering in the cottage when she got there. She was tired and it was too cold to run around opening windows to let out an elusive smell.

By the time they reached the cottage, driving was becoming impossible.

‘And they predict at least a week of this,’ the driver said bitterly. ‘Business is bad enough as it is without Mother Nature getting involved.’

‘Oh, this won’t last,’ Jennifer said airily. ‘I’ve got to be back in London by day after tomorrow.’

‘Lots of clothes for an overnight stay.’ The driver struggled up to the door with the case, unable to wheel it in the snow.

‘I’ll be leaving one or two things behind. Clearing out old stuff.’

She paid him, thinking of the task that lay ahead. Aside from sorting out the cottage, she would be bagging up all those frumpy clothes that had once been the mainstay of her wardrobe. None of them would fit any more. In the space of four years, she had been seduced by Parisian chic. She had lost weight, or maybe, thanks to her daily run, the weight had just been reassigned. At any rate, the body she had once avoided looking at in the mirror now attracted wolf whistles and stares from strangers and she was not ashamed to wear clothes that accentuated it. Nothing revealing, that would never be her style, but fashionable and figure hugging. Her untamed hair had been tamed over the years, thanks to the expert scissors of her hairdresser. It was still long, longer even than it used to be, but it was cleverly layered so that the frizz had been replaced with curls.

The cottage was in complete darkness although the door was surprisingly unlocked. She lugged the suitcase through and slammed the door shut behind her, luxuriating for a few seconds in the blissful warmth, eyes closed, lights still off because she just wanted to enjoy the cottage before she could see all the damage that had been caused by the flood.

And then she opened her eyes and there he was. Lounging against the door that led into the kitchen.

The cottage hadn’t been in complete darkness, as she had first thought. No, one of the kitchen lights had been switched on, but the kitchen was at the back of the house and the door leading to it had been shut when she had entered.

She literally froze on the spot.

God, he hadn’t changed. He was still as beautiful as he always had been, still the man who towered over other men. His hair was shorter than it had been four years ago and she could tell from the shadow on his jawline that he hadn’t shaved. In the space of a few seconds, during which time Jennifer felt her breath catch in her throat, she took in everything. The lean, long body in a pair of jeans and an old striped rugby jumper, the sleeves of which were shoved up to the elbows, those amazing deep blue eyes, now focused on her in a way that made her head swim.

Disastrously, she felt herself catapulted back to the young, naive girl she had once been.

‘James. What on earth are you doing here?’ She knew that her hand was trembling when she hit the light switch. ‘You told me that you would be leaving the country!’

‘I should be in the air right now but the weather got in the way of those plans. It’s been a long time, Jennifer…’

The silence stretched and stretched and stretched and she had to fight to maintain her self-control. Four years of independence, of cutting herself free from those infantile ties that had bound her to this man, and she could feel them melting and slipping away. She could have wept. Instead, she let the little ball of remembered bitterness and anger form into a knot inside her stomach and she began to get rid of her coat, which was heavy and damp from the snow.

‘Yes. Yes, it has. How are you?’ She forced a stiff smile but her heart was thumping like a sledgehammer.

‘I thought I’d stay in the cottage until you got here, make sure you arrived safely. I wasn’t sure whether you were going to drive or take the train.’

‘I… I took the train.’ Her car was parked outside her friend’s house in London where she stayed every time she came back to the city. ‘But there was no need for you to hang around here. You know I can take care of myself.’

‘You’ve certainly been doing a very good job of that while you’ve been in Paris. My mother frequently regales me with news of yet more promotions.’

She still hadn’t taken a single step towards him because her feet appeared to be nailed to that one spot in the hallway.

He was the first to break the spell, turning away and heading into the kitchen, leaving her to follow him.

He hadn’t said a word about how much she had changed. How could he have failed to notice? But then, why was it so surprising when he had never really noticed her? The ease she had once felt in his company was nowhere to be found and it was a struggle thinking of polite conversation to make.

‘It’s been a very successful posting for me,’ Jennifer said politely. ‘I never thought that I’d end up staying over there for four years but as I accepted more and more responsibility, the work became more and more challenging and I found myself accepting their offers to stay on.’

‘You look like a visitor, standing there. Sit down. You might as well forget about getting anything done tonight. We can work on detailing what will need to be done to the cottage tomorrow.’

‘We? Like I said, there’s absolutely no need for you to help me with this. I plan on having it all finished by tomorrow afternoon and I’ll be leaving first thing the following morning.’ This was not how two old friends, meeting after years of separation, would act. Jennifer knew that. She could hear the sharp edge to her voice and, while she was dismayed by it, she was also keenly aware that it was necessary as a protective tool, because just looking at him rooting around in the fridge with his back to her threatened to take her down memory lane and that was a journey she wasn’t willing to make.

‘Good luck arguing with the weather on that score.’

‘What are you doing in the fridge?’

‘Cheese, eggs. There’s some bread over there, bought yesterday. When the snow started, I realised I might find myself stuck here and if I was stuck here, then you would be as well, so I managed to make it down to the shops and got a few things together.’

‘Well, that was very kind of you, James. Thank you.’

‘Well, isn’t this fun?’ He fetched a bottle of wine from the fridge, something he had bought along with the food, she was sure, and poured them both a glass. ‘Four years and we’re struggling to pass the time of day. Tell me what you’ve been up to in France.’

‘I thought I just had. My job is very invigorating. The apartment is wonderful.’

‘So everything lived up to expectation.’ He sat back in the kitchen chair and took a deep mouthful of wine, looking at her over the rim of the glass. God, she’d changed. Did she realise just how much? He couldn’t believe that the last time he’d seen her had been four years ago, but then she had made sure to be unavailable whenever he’d happened to be in Paris, and somehow, whenever she’d happened to be in the UK, he’d happened to be out of it.

She had cut all ties with him and he knew that it had all happened on that one fateful night. Of course, he didn’t regret the outcome of that evening. He had had no choice but to turn her down. She had been young and vulnerable and too sexy for her own good. She had come to him looking for something and he had known, instinctively, that whatever that something was he would have been incapable of providing it. She had been trusting and naive, not like the hard-edged beauties he was accustomed to who would have been happy to take whatever was on offer for limited duration.

But he had never suspected that she would have walked out of his life permanently.

And changed. And had not looked back.

‘Yes.’ Jennifer played with the stem of her wine glass but there was no way that she was going to drink any of it. ‘Everything lived up to expectation and beyond. Life has never been so good or so rewarding. And what about you, James? What have you been up to? I’ve seen your mother over the years but I really haven’t heard much about you.’

‘Shrinking world but fortunately new markets in the Far East. If you like, I can go into the details but doubt you would find it that fascinating. Aside from the challenging job, what is Paris like for you? Completely different from this neck of the woods, I imagine.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

‘Are you going to expand on that or shall we drink our respective glasses of wine in silence while we try and formulate new topics of conversation?’

‘I’m sorry, James. It’s been a long trip with the train and the taxi and I’m exhausted. I think it’s probably best if you went up to your house and we can always play the catch-up game another time.’

‘You haven’t forgotten, have you?’

‘Forgotten what?’

‘Forgotten the last time we met.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes. Yes, I think you do, Jen.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by dragging up the past, James.’ She stood up abruptly and positioned herself by the kitchen door with her arms folded. Not only were they strangers, but now they were combatants, squaring up to each other in the boxing ring. Jennifer didn’t dare allow regret to enter the equation because just looking at him like this was making her realise that on some deep, instinctive level she still responded to him. She didn’t know whether that was the pull of familiarity or the pull of an attraction that refused to remain buried and she was not willing to find out.

‘Why don’t you go and change and I’ll fix you something to eat, and if you tell me that you’re too exhausted to eat, then I’m going to suspect that you’re finding excuses to avoid my company. Which wouldn’t be the case, would it, Jen?’

‘Of course not.’ But she could feel a delicate flush creep into her cheeks.

‘Nothing fancy. You know my culinary talents are limited.’

The grin he delivered was an aching reminder of the good times they had shared and the companionable ease they had lost.

‘And don’t,’ he continued, holding up one hand as though to halt an interruption, ‘tell me that there’s no need. I know there’s no need. Like I said, I’m fully aware of how independent you’ve become over the past four years.’

Jennifer shrugged, but her thoughts were all over the place as she rummaged in the suitcase for a change of clothes. A hurried shower and she was back downstairs within half an hour, this time in a pair of loose grey yoga pants and a tight, long-sleeved grey top, her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

It had always been a standing joke that James never cooked. He would tease her father, who adored cooking, that the kitchen was a woman’s domain, that cooking wasn’t a man’s job. He would then lay down the gauntlet—an arm-wrestling match to prove that cooking depleted a man of strength. Jennifer used to love these little interludes; she used to love the way he would wink at her, pulling her into his game.

However, he was just finishing a remarkably proficient omelette when she walked into the kitchen. A salad was in a bowl. Hot bread was on a wooden board.

‘I guess I’m not the only one who’s changed,’ Jennifer said from the doorway, and he glanced across to her, his eyes lazily appraising.

‘Would you believe me if I told you that I took a cookery course?’

Jennifer shrugged. ‘Did you?’ She sat at the table and looked around her. ‘There’s less damage than I thought there would be. I had a look around before I went to have a shower. Thankfully, upstairs is intact and I can just see that there are some water stains on the sofa in the sitting room and I guess the rugs will have to be replaced.’

‘Have we finished playing our catch-up game already?’ He handed her a plate, encouraged her to help herself to bread and salad, before taking up position opposite her at the kitchen table.

Jennifer thought that this was the reason she had avoided him for four years. There was just too much of him. He overwhelmed her and she was no longer on the market for being overwhelmed.

‘There’s nothing more to catch up on, James. I can’t think of anything else I could tell you about my job in Paris. If you like I could give you a description of what my apartment looks like, but I shouldn’t think you’d find that very interesting.’

‘You’ve changed.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘I barely recognise you as the girl who left here four years ago. Somewhere in my memory banks, I have an image of someone who actually used to laugh and enjoy conversing with me.’

Jennifer felt the slow burn of anger because he hadn’t changed. He was still the same arrogantly self-assured James, supremely confident of their roles in life. She laughed and blushed and he basked in her open admiration.

‘How can you expect me to laugh when you haven’t said anything funny as yet, James?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about!’ He threw his hands up in a gesture of frustration and pushed himself back from the table. ‘You’ve either had a personality change or else your job in Paris is so stressful that it’s wiped out your sense of fun. Which is it, Jen? You can be honest with me. You’ve always been open and honest with me, so tell me: have you bitten off more than you can chew with that job?’

‘I know that’s what you’d like me to say, James. That I’m hopelessly lost and can’t handle the work in Paris.’

‘That’s a ridiculous statement.’

‘Is it? If I told you that I was having a hard time and just couldn’t cope, then you could be the caring, concerned guy. You could put your arm round my shoulder and whip out a handkerchief for me to sob into! But my job is absolutely brilliant and if I wasn’t any good at it, then I would never have been promoted. I would never have risen up the ranks.’

‘Is that what you think? That I’m the sort of narrow-minded, mean-spirited guy who would be happy if you failed?’

Jennifer sighed and pushed her plate away.

‘I know you’re not mean-spirited, James, and I don’t want to argue with you.’ She stood up, began clearing the dishes, tried to think of something harmless to say that would defuse the high-voltage atmosphere that had sprung up.

‘Leave those things!’ James growled.

‘I don’t want to. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day and the less I have to do in the kitchen, tidying up stuff that could be done now, the better. And by the way, thank you very much for cooking for me. It was very nice.’

James muttered something under his breath but began helping her, drying dishes as she began washing. Jennifer felt his presence as acutely as a live charge. If she stepped too close, she would be electrocuted. Being in his presence had stripped her of her immunity to him and it frightened her, but she wasn’t going to give in to that queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She launched into a neutral conversation about their parents. She told him how much her father enjoyed Paris.

‘Because, as you know, he stopped going abroad after Mum died. He once told me that it had been their dream to travel the world and when she died, the dream died with her.’

‘Yes, the last time I came here for the weekend, he was waiting for the taxi and reading a guide book on the Louvre. He said it was top on the agenda. He’s been ticking off the sights.’

‘Really?’ Jennifer laughed and for an instant James went still. He realised that the memory of that laugh lingered at the back of his brain like the refrain from a song that never quite went away. Suddenly he wanted to know a lot more than just whether she enjoyed her job or what her apartment was like. She had always, he was ashamed to admit to himself, been a known quantity, but now he felt curiosity rip through him, leaving him bemused.

‘You’ve opened up a door for John,’ he drawled, drying the last dish and then leaning against the counter with the tea towel slung over his shoulder. ‘I think he’s realised what he’s been missing all these years. He was in a rut and your moving to Paris forced him out of it. I have a feeling that he’s going to get bored with weekends to Paris pretty soon.’

‘We don’t just stay in Paris,’ Jennifer protested. ‘We’ve been doing quite a bit of Europe.’ But she was thrilled with what James had told her. It was a brief window during which, with her defences down, they were back to that place they had left behind, that place of easy familiarity, two people with years and years of shared history.

She glanced surreptitiously at him and edged away before that easy familiarity could get a little too easy, before her hard-won independence began draining away and she found herself back to the girl in the past who used to hang onto his every word.

‘In fact, I’ve already planned the next couple of weekends. When the weather improves, we’re going to go to Prague. It’s a beautiful city. I think he’d love it.’

‘You’ve been before, have you?’

‘Once.’

‘And this from the girl who grew up in one place and never went abroad, aside from that school trip when you were fifteen. Skiing, wasn’t it?’

Yes, it certainly was. Jennifer remembered it distinctly. James’s father had just died and he had been busy trying to grapple with the demands of the company he had inherited. He hadn’t been around much and when, after the skiing trip, she had seen him for the first time after several weeks, she had regaled him with a thousand stories of all the little things the class had done. The cliques that had subdivided the groups. The quiet girl, usually in the background, who had come out of her shell because she was one of only a handful who had been any good at skiing.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘And who did you go to Prague with?’ James enquired casually. ‘I’ve actually been twice. Romantic city.’ He turned to fill the kettle and found that he was keenly awaiting her response.

Jennifer frowned. She was relieved that he had his back to her. Her first instinct was to tell him that her private life was none of his business. She quickly decided that it was one thing being scrupulously polite, but if she began to actively push him away he would start asking himself why and they would be back to the subject she was most desperate to avoid: her mistimed, unfortunate pass at him. He would really be in his element then, she concluded bitterly, holding her hand and trying to assure her that she shouldn’t let the memory of it interfere with her life, that their friendship was so much more important than a silly non-escapade. She would be mortified.

‘Yes. It’s a very romantic city. I love everything about it. I love the architecture and that terrific feeling of a place almost suspended in time. Don’t you agree?’

‘So who did you go with? Or is it a deep, dark secret?’ He chuckled and turned round to face her, moving to hand her a mug of coffee and then sitting down and pulling one of the chairs in front of him so that he could fully relax, using the spare chair as a footrest.

‘Oh, just a guy I met over there.’

‘A guy!’

‘Patric. Patric Alexander. Just someone I met at a party a while back…’

‘Well.’ He didn’t know why he was so shocked at this. She had always been sexy, although it was fair to say that she had never realised it. She was still sexy and the only difference was that Paris had made her realise just how much.

‘French guy, is he?’ James heard the inanity of his question and his lips thinned although he was still smiling.

‘Half French. His mother’s English.’ She gulped down her coffee and stood up with a brisk smile. ‘Now, I really think it’s time for you to head back to your house, James. I have unpacking to do and I want to be up fairly early to make a list of what needs doing. Hopefully not that much. I noticed that the rug in the sitting room’s already been rolled. Thank you for that.’

‘Thank God there’s no carpet downstairs. The joys of flagstones when there’s a flood! Why didn’t this Patric guy come to help you?’

‘Because he’s in Paris.’ She moved to the door and frowned when he remained comfortably seated at the table.

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell. I’m sure your father would have mentioned him to me in passing—’

‘Why would he?’ Jennifer snapped.

‘Because I’m his friend…? How long have you been going out with this Patric guy?’

‘I really don’t want to be having this conversation with you.’

‘Because you feel uncomfortable?’

‘Because I’m tired and I want to go to sleep!’

‘Fair enough.’ James took his time getting to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t want to be accused of prying and I certainly wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable in any way…’ He walked towards her and, the closer he got, the tenser she could feel herself becoming.

‘I’m perfectly comfortable.’

‘I just wonder,’ he mused, pausing to invade her personal space by standing only inches in front of her, a towering six-feet-three inches of pure alpha male clearly hell-bent on satisfying his curiosity, ‘whether you avoided me over the years because you were reluctant to let me meet this man of yours…’

‘I was not avoiding you over the years,’ Jennifer muttered uncomfortably. ‘I thought we corresponded very frequently by email…’

‘And yet every time I happened to be in Paris, you were otherwise occupied, and every time you happened to be in this country, I was out of it…’

‘The timings were always wrong.’ Jennifer shrugged, although she could feel hot colour rising to her face and she stared down at the ground with a little frown. ‘Patric and I are no longer involved,’ she finally admitted, when the silence became unbearable. ‘We’re still very good friends. In fact, I would say that he’s my closest confidant…’

This time she did look at him and James knew instantly, from the genuine warmth of her smile, that she was being completely truthful.

The girl who had always turned to him, the girl who had matured into a woman he hadn’t seen for nearly four years, now had someone else to turn to.

‘And what about you?’ she asked, because if he could ask intrusive questions then why shouldn’t she? ‘Is there anyone significant in your life at the moment, James?’

James was still trying to get over a weird feeling of disorientation. He tilted his head to one side, considering her question.

‘No. No one at the moment. Until recently, I was involved with an actress…’

‘Blonde?’ Jennifer couldn’t resist asking and he frowned at her and nodded.

‘Petite? Fond of very high heels and very tight dresses?’

‘Did my mother mention her to you? I got the impression she wasn’t bowled over by Amy…’

‘No, your mother didn’t mention anyone to me. In fact,’ she added with a hint of smugness, ‘your mother and I haven’t really discussed you at all. I’m just guessing because those are the sort of girls you’ve always been interested in. Blonde, big hair, small, very high heels and very tight dresses.’ Jennifer couldn’t help herself, even though dipping into this subject would be to open a door to all the insecurities she had felt as a young woman, pining for him and comparing herself incessantly to the girls he would occasionally bring back to the house. Amy clones. She took a deep breath and fought her way through that brief reminder of a time she would rather have forgotten.

James flushed darkly.

‘Nothing changes,’ she said scornfully.

‘Really? I wouldn’t say that’s true at all.’

‘You still go out with the blonde airheads. Daisy still despairs. You still only have relationships that last five seconds.’

‘But you don’t still have a crush on me…’

That softly spoken remark, a lazy, tantalising question wrapped up in a statement, was like a bucket of freezing water thrown over her and she stepped back as though she had been slapped.

What had she been thinking? Had she been so shocked to find him in the cottage that she had forgotten how efficiently he could get under her skin? She had managed to keep her distance so how was it that they had somehow drifted into a conversation that was so personal?

‘That was all a long time ago, James, and, like I said, there’s nothing to be gained from rehashing the past.’

‘Well…’ He finally began strolling to where his coat was hanging over the banister. She wondered how she had managed to miss that when she had walked in but, of course, she hadn’t been expecting him. ‘I’ll be heading off but I’ll be back tomorrow and please don’t tell me that there’s no need. I’ll roll the other carpets. Get them into one of the outbuildings and keep them dry so that they can be assessed for damage when this snow decides to stop and someone from the insurance company can come out.’

‘I’m sure that can wait,’ Jennifer said helplessly. ‘I won’t be here long. I plan on leaving… well… if not tomorrow evening, then first thing the following morning…’

James didn’t say anything. He took his time wrapping his scarf round his neck, then he pulled open the front door so that she was treated to the spectacular sight of snow swirling madly outside, so thick that she could barely make out the fields stretching away into the distance.

‘Good luck with that.’ He turned to her. ‘I think you’ll find that we might both end up being stuck here…’

With each other. Jennifer tried not to be completely overwhelmed at the prospect of that. He wasn’t going to stay cooped up in his house when he thought that she needed help in the cottage. He would be around and she had no idea how long for. Certainly, the snow looked as though it was here for the long haul and the house and cottage were not positioned for easy access to handy, cleared roads. They were in the middle of nowhere and it would not be the first time that heavy snow would leave them stranded.

But maybe it was for the best. She couldn’t hide away from him for ever. Sooner rather than later she would be returning to the UK to live. Her father wasn’t getting any younger and she had enough on her CV to guarantee a job, or at least a good prospect of one. When that happened, she would be seeing him once again on weekends.

She decided that this was fate.

‘You could be right,’ she said with more bravado than she felt. ‘In which case, thank heavens you’re here! I mean, I adore Patric, but I have to be honest and tell you that an artist probably wouldn’t be a huge amount of practical help at a time like this…’

CHAPTER TWO

AN ARTIST? Jennifer had gone out with an artist? James could scarcely credit it. She had never shown any particular interest in art, per se, so how was it that she had been enticed into an affair with an artist? And who else had there been on the scene? He was disconcerted to find that she had somehow managed to escape the box into which he had slotted her and yet why should he be? People changed.

Except, there had been something smug about her tone of voice when she had implied that he had changed very little over the years. Still going out with the same blonde bimbos.

He was up at the crack of dawn the following morning and one glance out of the window told him that neither of them would be going anywhere, any time soon. If anything, the snow appeared to be falling with even greater intensity. Drifts of it were already banking up against the sides of the outbuildings and his car was barely visible. It was so silent out here that if he opened a window he would have been able to hear the snow falling.

Fortunately, the electricity had not been brought down and the Internet was still working.

He caught up with outstanding emails, including informing his secretary that she would have to cancel all meetings for at least the next couple of days, then, on the spur of the moment, he looked up Patric Alexander on an Internet search engine, hardly expecting to find anything because artists were a dime a dozen and few of them would ever make it to the hall of fame.

But there he was. James carried his laptop into the sprawling kitchen, which was big enough to fit an eight-seater table at one end and was warmed by the constant burn of a four-door bottle-green Aga. Mug of coffee in one hand, he sipped and scrolled through pages of nauseating adulation of the new up-and-coming talent in the art world. Patric was already garnering a loyal following and a clientele base that ensured future success. The picture was small, but James zoomed into it and found a handsome, fair-haired man surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women, standing in front of a backdrop of one of his paintings.

He slammed shut the lid of the computer, drained his coffee and was in a foul mood when, minutes later, he stood in front of the cottage and banged on the knocker.

It was barely eight-thirty and so dark still that he had practically needed a torch to find his way over. Even with several layers of clothing, a waterproof and the wellies he had had since his late teens, he could feel the snow trying to prise its way to his bare skin. His mood had slipped a couple of notches lower by the time Jennifer eventually made it to the door and peered out at him.

‘What are you doing here so early?’

‘It’s too cold for us to make conversation in a doorway. Open up and let me in.’

‘When you said you were going to come over, you never told me that you would be arriving on my doorstep with the larks’

‘There’s a lot to do. What’s the point in sleeping in?’ He looked at her as he removed his coat and scarf and gloves and sufficient layers to accommodate the warmth of the cottage. She was in a pair of faded jeans and, yes, she really had changed. Lost weight. She looked tall and athletic. She had pulled back her hair and it hung down her back in a centre braid. ‘I hope I didn’t wake you? I’ve been up since five-thirty.’

‘Oh, bully for you, James.’ The day suddenly had the potential to be unbearably long. He followed her to the kitchen, sat down and seemed pleasantly surprised when she began cracking eggs into a bowl. He hadn’t had any breakfast. Great if she could make some for him as well. Did she need a hand?

‘I thought you said that you had made sure to buy some food?’

‘Oh, the fridge at home is stocked to capacity but I didn’t think to make anything for myself.’

‘Even though you were up at five-thirty? It never crossed your mind that you could pour yourself a bowl of cereal? Grab a slice of toast?’

‘When I start working, nothing distracts me. And small point of interest… I don’t eat cereal. Can’t stand the stuff. Just bits of cardboard pretending to be edible and good for you.’

Jennifer had spent a restless night. This was the last thing she needed and she turned to him coolly.

‘This isn’t going to work, James.’

‘What?’

‘This! You strolling over here and making yourself at home!’

‘It’s impossible to stroll in this weather.’

‘You know what I mean! If you think that you need to help, to get the rugs to the outbuildings, then that’s fine, but you can’t just waltz in here for the day. I have things to do!’

‘What?’

‘I have to clear some cupboards and I have lots of work to catch up on if it turns out that I can’t leave tomorrow as planned!’ She felt his eyes on her as she turned round to pour some eggs into a frying pan.

‘It makes sense for us to share the same space, Jen. What’s the point having the heating going full blast in my house when I’m the only person in it?’

‘The point is you won’t be under my feet!’

‘I’m going to be doing some heavy lifting on your behalf today, Jennifer. It’s hardly what I would call being under your feet.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered with a mutinous set to her mouth. ‘I’m very grateful for the practical help you intend to give me but—’

‘Okay. You win, Jennifer. I don’t know why you want to draw battle lines, but if that’s what you’re intent on doing, then I’ll leave you to get on with it.’

He stood up and Jennifer spun round to look at him. Was this what she really wanted? To make an enemy out of the person who had always been her friend? Because she found it difficult being in the same room as him?

‘I don’t want to draw battle lines,’ she said on a heavy sigh. ‘I just don’t want you to… to think that nothing’s changed between us.’ She flicked off the stove and moved to sit at the table. The past was still unfinished business. That clumsy pass had never been discussed and she had carried it with her for four years. The memory of it was still so bitter that it had shaped all her relationships over the past four years, not that there had been many. Two. The first, to a young French lawyer she had met through work, had barely survived three months and, although he had laboured to win her over, she had been hesitant and eventually incapable of giving him the commitment he had wanted.

Patric had been her soul mate from the start and they had had three years of being friends before they decided to take that step further. It was a relationship that should have worked and yet, try as they had, she had not been able to capture the sizzle, the breathless excitement, the aching anticipation she had felt for James.

She knew that all of that was just a figment of her imagination. She knew that she had to somehow find it in her to prise herself out of a time warp that had her trapped in her youth, but eventually she and Patric had admitted defeat and had returned, fortunately, to being the close friends they had once been.

He had laughingly told her that there was no such thing as a friend with benefits. She had told herself that she needed to find a way of blocking James out of her head. She wasn’t an impressionable young girl any more.

James looked at her in silence.

‘I know I… I made that awful pass at you all those years ago. We never talked about it…’

‘How could we? You left the country and never looked back.’

‘I left the country and then life just became so hectic…’ Jennifer insisted. ‘I suppose to start with,’ she said, conceding an inch but determined to make sure that an inch was the limit of her concessions, ‘I did think that it might be awkward if we met up. I may have avoided you at first but then, honestly, life just became so busy… I barely had time to think! I guess I could have come back to England more frequently than I did, but Dad’s never travelled and it was fun being able to bring him over, take him places. It was the first time I’ve ever been able to actually afford to take him on holiday…’ The egg she had been scrambling had gone cold. She relit the stove and busied herself resuscitating it, keeping her back to him so that she could guard her expression from those clever, perceptive deep blue eyes, which had always been able to delve into the depths of her. She couldn’t avoid this conversation, she argued to herself, but she wasn’t going to let him know how much he still affected her.

She was smilingly bland when she placed a plate of toast and eggs in front of him.

‘I think what I’m trying to say, James, is that I’ve grown up. I’m not that innocent young girl who used to hang onto your every word.’

‘And I’m not expecting you to be!’ But that, he realised, was exactly what he had been expecting. After four years of absence, he had still imagined her to be the girl next door who listened with eagerness to everything he had to say. The smiling stranger he had been faced with had come as a shock, and even more surprising was the fact that his usual cool when dealing with any unexpected situation had apparently deserted him.

‘Which brings me to this: I don’t want for there to be any bad feeling between us, but I also don’t want you thinking that because we happen to be temporarily stranded here, that you have a right to come and go as you please. You’ve seen to the little flooding problem in the cottage and I’m very grateful for that but it doesn’t mean that you now have a passport to my home.’

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