Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

Settling The Score
Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover Dear Reader About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

DOMINIC DASHWOOD drove through the ornate golden and navy gates of St Fiacre’s Hill estate with just a little more speed than was necessary. Though not with as much speed as he would have liked, he decided, with a grim smile which nonetheless transformed his devastating features into the kind of face that most women only ever fantasised about.

Tensing one long, muscular thigh, he depressed the accelerator pedal, and his dark green Aston Martin shot forward like a bullet.

What he would have liked was to be on some wide, empty highway, where he could put his foot down and succumb to the heady lure of mechanical power. Machines and speed were two of Dominic’s great passions. In the past women had accused him of being cold and unfeeling.

‘You love that damned car more than you love me!’ some sultry beauty had once poutingly accused him.

And Dominic had been unable to deny the truth which lay behind her accusation. He had taken her to bed one last time—because she had begged him to and, in truth, because he had wanted to—and had then walked away, wondering what it was that made him immune to the pain of emotion.

You know damn well what it is! mocked an inner voice, and Dominic’s long fingers tightened convulsively around the soft leather of the steering wheel, as if they were biting deliciously into a woman’s tender flesh. But not just any woman. He felt the potent flicker of desire as he slowed to take the bend near the clubhouse.

His sensual mouth twisted as a woman in tennis whites emerged from the St Fiacre’s club-house. She stopped dead and stared at the car as it roared by, her eyes narrowing with speculation as they took in the hard, handsome profile of the driver.

But Dominic deliberately avoided eye contact with her. The woman’s body language made it patently clear that she was available, and Dominic avoided such openly available women like the plague.

His unconscious sexual appeal had become the bane of his life. In his youth he had used it, squandered it even. For many years now he had desired the challenge of a woman who would not melt with early submission into his arms.

Unfortunately, the woman he was scheduled to meet in just under an hour was not going to provide the challenge he needed, though once again he felt the reluctant heat coursing around his veins which just the thought of her could provoke.

For Romy Salisbury was everything he despised in a woman.

She was a siren who used her sexuality indiscriminately. Who had ruined at least one man’s life and had haunted his own for longer than he cared to admit.

A muscle worked in his lightly tanned cheek as he drove past another sports car, unwilling excitement shivering its way up his spine as he anticipated what he intended to happen.

Dominic smiled—but it was a cold, cruel smile as his mind lingered on the pleasure of the retribution he was going to exact in the next few days.

He had waited five years for his moment and now it had come at last.

It was high time that he settled the score with the delicious Miss Romy Salisbury.

Romy missed the turning for St Fiacre’s Hill and said something rather rude underneath her breath. The entrance was so well camouflaged she was surprised that even the residents could find it!

But then, didn’t they always say that you got what you paid for? And what St Fiacre’s residents were paying for—apart from ultra-luxurious houses in the jewel-like setting of nine hundred prime Surrey acres—was privacy, pure and sweet.

Privacy from nosy tourists with their instant cameras always to hand, who were curious to know how the super-rich really lived. And privacy from good, old-fashioned fortune-hunters—people with an eye to the main chance who thought they could get rich quick by marrying into money!

Romy glanced in the rear-view mirror, realising that she would have to go right round the roundabout and come back in again.

Minutes later, she was heading back towards the St Fiacre’s turn-off in her zippy little black car, bought largely with the bonus given to her by her last grateful client.

Not for the first time, Romy thanked her lucky stars that in business at least she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. No job was too big, too small or too difficult for Romy to tackle, and Top Class, her very own company, was going from strength to strength.

She drew up in front of the distinctive navy blue and gold wrought-iron gates which separated St Fiacre’s from the rest of the world, and decided to risk a quick, critical glance at herself in the driver’s mirror.

Not too bad, she thought dispassionately as she squinted her eyes against the glare of the sun reflected there. She flicked a trace of dust from one smooth, pale cheek and risked a closer look.

Her face carried the barest trace of make-up and her thick, straight hair was expertly styled in the urchin cut which was currently so fashionable and which made the most of the unusual pale honey colour.

She wore a silk and linen trouser suit in a neutral dark cream colour which flattered the pale magnolia of her skin and the deep velvety brown of her eyes. Beneath the suit Romy wore a simple white silk T-shirt, and she looked as she had intended to look—professional and efficient and ready for anything.

Or anyone, she reminded herself, with a wry little twist of her wide mouth as she punched in the security number she had been given.

The gates swung open and Romy drove through them to have her first inside view of the St Fiacre’s estate.

She could see immediately why it was dubbed ‘the Beverly Hills of England’ by the popular Press. It didn’t just exude money—it positively shouted it from the summit of every beautifully designed rooftop!

Or at least what you could actually see of every rooftop, thought Romy as she craned her neck to try to get a better look at some of the palatial mansions she was passing.

Impossible to see anything, really. The hedges were too high, the gates and the fences too impenetrable. Several houses even had menacing-looking signs bearing the message “Warning! Dogs Loose!”.

Romy shuddered and uttered a fervent prayer that she wouldn’t bump into anything which growled and bared its teeth!

She glanced down at the directions her secretary had neatly typed out for her.

First right, down the road for half a mile, then the second house past the oak tree. She looked for confirmation that she had found the right house, saw the sign saying “Brunswick House” and, although she had tried for weeks now to suppress it, familiar cold fingers of fear crept over her skin.

Don’t be crazy, she urged herself silently. It’s just a job, like any other job. A job, what’s more, that you could do in your sleep!

But it was so much more than a job to Romy—in fact, for once, most uncharacteristically, the job had taken on secondary importance. Not even her secretary knew how high the stakes were going to be at this particular interview. For Romy was going to see Dominic again, after five long years which had seemed to stretch out in front of her like an eternity.

And this time she intended to exorcise his cruel and sexy ghost once and for all.

The gates were open and Romy steered the car down a sweeping drive which seemed to go on for ever, dimly observing the beautifully laid out gardens in the middle of which glittered a formal lake, before drawing up in front of an elegant red-brick house.

She switched off the ignition and quietly took in her surroundings.

In front of the house a dark green Aston Martin was parked, its sleek lines lying so close to the ground that it looked like a lithe jungle cat, just before it pounced.

So he was home...

Waiting...

Suppressing a shiver, and picking up her slim leather briefcase, Romy swung her legs out of the car, wishing that she could shake off the persistent and rather disconcerting feeling that she was being watched.

She had raised one hand to press on the doorbell when the door was suddenly opened, and Romy stood staring up at a man whose coldly handsome features would be etched on her memory until her dying day.

Dominic Dashwood—in the living, breathing flesh.

And... Oh, my God!

Elation and despair swamped over her like a tidal wave as she discovered that time and maturity had done nothing except add to that formidable appeal of his. He had always been a dynamic-looking man, but now he exuded the quietly confident air of the seriously successful.

With the expertise born of weeks of practice, Romy somehow managed to present to him a face which was both polite and impassive, as if he were just another client she was meeting.

‘Hello,’ he said softly.

‘H-hello,’ she stammered, feeling as overcome as a sixteen-year-old in the presence of her favourite pop star. Oh, why in heaven’s name had she agreed to take the job? Had she really been stupid enough to think that she might now be immune to him? After all that had happened between them?

So what did she do next? Did she pretend she didn’t recognise him, or what? She hunted for the smallest flicker of recognition in his eyes but saw nothing other than self-possession and detachment. So either he didn‘t recognise her or he was pretending not to. Well, two could play at that game, mister!

‘Romy Salisbury,’ he stated, in a deep voice which still had the power to bring her out in goosebumps beneath the cream jacket she wore. His steely grey eyes swept over her in candid assessment.

Romy waited, but that was all he said and she carefully kept her face neutrat—determined not to show that she was itching to know why he had asked her here.

It might simply be coincidence that he had hired her, of course. She was, after all, one of the best party planners in the business. So why on earth look for hidden agendas which might simply not exist? And wouldn’t it be best for everyone if he didn’t recognise her? Five years was a long time.

But deep in her heart she knew that it was not coincidence which had brought her here this weekend. Men like Dominic Dashwood did not allow something as unpredictable as coincidence to govern their lives.

‘That’s right,’ she agreed with a smile, and decided to follow his lead—polite but distant

Very distant.

‘So, by a simple process of elimination, you must be...’ Her voice faltered slightly as she failed to block out just how spectacularly handsome he was. How could she have forgotten that? ‘Austen Holdings, I suppose?’ she finished pertly, giving the name of the company in which he had made the booking, presumably to keep his identity secret

She held her hand out to him, triumphant in the knowledge that in that at least he had failed! ‘So would you prefer me to call you Austen?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘Or Holdings?’

Dominic had to bite back a reluctant smile as he wondered if her cool indifference was feigned or genuine; his pride and his ego instinctively rebelled against the unthinkable—that she did not remember him!

But he hesitated for no more than a fraction of a second, then took her outstretched hand in his. ‘You must call me Dominic,’ he instructed softly. ‘Or Dashwood, if you prefer.’

His grey eyes blazed at her as he watched for her reaction, and this made Romy even more determined to keep her face impassive.

‘Dominic will do just fine.’ she agreed noncommittally. ‘Why on earth should I want to call you Dashwood?’

He smiled, but now Romy could detect a cold flicker of anger which lurked in the depths of his grey eyes. Had her supposed failure to recognise him provoked that? she wondered.

‘Because the new wave of women seem to rather enjoy calling men by their surnames,’ he explained, his deep voice sounding faintly steely. ‘Maybe it reminds them of their schooldays—or maybe it just gives them a feeling of power over the opposite sex,’ he concluded, his eyes glittering with an unspoken question.

But Romy couldn’t think straight enough to answer any question, unspoken or otherwise. Because his handshake assumed an air of almost shocking intimacy as she felt that first brief caress.

The sensation of having him grasp her fingers like that made her mouth fall open in an instinctive gasp, and she remembered just how intimately those hands had explored every centimetre of her body... She had to battle to stop herself from swaying.

‘Are you feeling ill?’ His eyes narrowed and he let her hand go, but he hadn’t missed the darkening of her eyes and the swift hardening of her nipples beneath the silken T-shirt, and Dominic felt a small but triumphant surge of sexual power heating his loins.

His voice sounded concerned, but Romy didn’t miss the speculative gleam in those steely grey eyes. ‘No. I’m just—hot.’ She indicated the blazing sun with a wave of her arm. ‘That’s all.’

He nodded. ‘Of course you are,’ he agreed formally. ‘Hot and bothered. It’s been the hottest July on record. So why don’t we go inside and I can fix you something cool to drink while we discuss the job?’

Romy was horribly aware that he automatically seemed to be taking control of the situation, and found herself wondering just why she was allowing it to happen.

Romy’s whole life was her job. She was a party planner, or an “entertainment expert” as she preferred to call it! She took the sting out of organising any function—from the smallest children’s birthday tea to the grandest weekend shooting party.

She spent the majority of her time working in other people’s homes, from huge and austere Scottish castles to the most opulent of London residences, and she had never suffered a single qualm about the nature of her work in the past.

So why did she now feel as though she was some poor, unsuspecting little fly being lured into the web of an evil black spider?

And why the hell didn’t he say something about what had happened between the two of them five years earlier? About the man she had gone on to marry?

Feeling weak and more than a little shaky, Romy followed him through a long, echoing hallway and into an airy sitting room which overlooked a garden bright with summer flowers. Even further into the distance shone the golden dazzle of sunlight as it glanced off the waters of the lake.

‘Please sit,’ he suggested, though he did no such thing himself, moving to stand by the elegant stone fireplace and surveying her with a cool watchfulness, an insulting and almost icy detachment in his face which Romy suddenly longed to smash into smithereens.

‘Thanks.’ She perched on the edge of a yellow damask chaise lounge before turning towards him. Taking all her courage into her hands, she drew in a very deep breath and said, ‘So just why have you invited me here today, Dominic?’

An ironic twist of the lips she remembered so well was the only outward reaction to her remark. ‘Ah! So you do recognise me?’

She gave him a bitter, brittle smile. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous! Of course I recognise you!’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ he observed, with sardonic emphasis.

‘Or do you imagine for a moment that I always have—’

‘Sex with complete strangers in lifts?’ he supplied drily.

An angry flare of colour emphasised Romy’s high cheekbones. ‘I did not have sex with you!’ she protested huskily.

‘No? Depends on your definition of sex, surely?’ he queried insultingly. ‘It’s true we stopped short of actual—’

‘Stop it!’ Romy yelled, and actually clapped her hands over her ears, but dropped them almost immediately when she realised how childish the gesture must appear.

‘Why?’ he questioned, in mock surprise. ‘Does it bother you?’

‘Of course it bothers me!’ she declared.

‘What does?’ he snapped. ‘Your indiscriminate sexual appetite? Or your cuckolding of the man who was my best friend?’

‘And what about you, Dominic?’ she retorted, trying to resist the thrill it gave her just to say his name out loud. ‘Does it make you feel good to know that hours before you were due to be best man at our wedding you were practically ripping off my underwear?’

‘Ripping it off?’ he drawled arrogantly. ‘I think your memory must be defective, Romy. As I recall, we didn’t actually remove any of your clothes, did we? But I suspect that you would have needed very little coaxing to do so! Don’t you? Be honest now.’

Her cheeks still on fire, Romy shut her eyes, as if that would dispel the tantalising and forbidden pictures which had sprung up before her mind’s eye with disturbing clarity. And when she opened them again she surprised a taut, angry mask which had momentarily hardened his features. So he was tense, too, was he? she thought with surprise. Then why? Why bring her here? ‘That’s all water under the bridge now, surely?’ she asked him.

His eyes were piercing, their silver-grey light as direct and as steely as a sword. ‘Is it? I find that I tend to file the whole episode away under “unfinished business” rather than “water under the bridge”.’

‘Perhaps that’s your conscience troubling you?’ Romy suggested sweetly, and then immediately wished she hadn’t.

‘Perhaps it is.’ His eyes were icy cold. ‘And what about your conscience, Romy? Does that ever give you a sleepless night? Do you ever think about Mark? Did you think about Mark as you made those false wedding vows—?’

‘They were not false!’ she declared automatically.

‘Those false wedding vows,’ he persisted, with deadly calm. ‘Just hours after I felt you climax beneath my fingers.’ He shook his head, as if he had been given an insurmountable problem to solve. ‘It still seems scarcely credible to me that the supposedly virgin bride my college friend had spoken of so proudly and so fondly should have been grappling half-naked with me within minutes of our meeting.’

But it wasn’t like that! Romy would have yelled at him, if he hadn’t literally taken her breath away with his candour. Nothing like that!

Except that he wouldn’t believe her—and why should he? There was a whacking great kernel of truth behind his words. She had done all those things he had accused her of—and more! And if she tried to defend her actions she would sound like the worst kind of hypocrite—the kind of woman who allowed herself to get carried away by passion and then turned around and blamed the man.

No, if there was any blame to be apportioned then it must be laid firmly at her door. After all, Dominic had not forced her to do anything she had not wanted to. Quite the contrary, in fact...

Dominic stared at her and frowned. Her face had gone as white as a glass of milk and she had started to sway. Instinctively, he moved away from the fireplace and was beside her in seconds, his hands gripping at her upper arms beneath the soft material of her jacket.

‘Romy?’ he demanded roughly, the soft feel of her flesh beneath his hands making him want to do something much more elemental than comfort her. ‘Are you OK?’

The way he said her name was like cool water to a thirsty camel, the touch of his hands like some rejuvenating life-force, and Romy found herself staring helplessly into his eyes.

Close up, his presence haunted her even more. Initially she had thought that he had changed very little, but she had been wrong. It was true that the thick ruffled hair had remained untouched by grey—a fact made all the more remarkable by its coal-dark blackness—but the years had subtly redefined his face, Romy realised. All the softness of youth had completely disappeared. His features were harder, while his mouth fell naturally into a cynical line. Around the piercing grey eyes were now the fine lines of age and experience. He looked, she thought, suppressing a sudden shudder of sexual awareness, like a man who knew exactly what he wanted out of life...

So what the hell did he want from her?

‘Romy!’ he said again, and this time gave her an almost imperceptible little shake. ‘What is it?’

She stared at him, completely deflated by the shocking memory of what had happened between the two of them. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Tired?’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘I’m not surprised! Deception can be tiring, can’t it? In fact, it must be positively exhausting. Imagine the amount of devious planning it must take to make sure that your lies don’t get found out. I wonder if Mark ever found you out?’ he mused. ‘I often wonder if your rampant promiscuity could have been a contributing factor to his premature death.’

Romy sucked in an agonised breath, a movement which made her cheekbones look impossibly hollow. How could he? How could he be so deliberately cruel? But she decided to let it go. For the moment.

‘Quite apart from the fact that your sexual demands must have been pretty challenging,’ he continued contemptuously, ‘I must say that even I have never met a woman who was turned on so completely or so quickly as you, Romy. I don’t think that Mark was the best man to be able to cope with your needs, do you?’

‘That’s enough!’ she told him angrily, shaking his hands off her arms impatiently. He had only pretended to be concerned—it had taken very little time for him to start insulting her all over again! ‘Don’t you imagine I feel bad enough about Mark’s death without you adding to it with your vile accusations?’

His eyes glittered with dangerous challenge. ‘So your conscience is entirely clear, is it, Romy?’

‘Oh, damn you, Dominic Dashwood!’ She could barely bring herself to look into those clever, searching silver eyes. ‘Damn you to hell!’ And as her words whipped discordantly around the room Romy wondered just what her secretary would say if she could hear her.

Or see her. Sitting weakly and pathetically on the edge of the sofa whilst glaring balefully at a man who was doing nothing more sensational than recounting facts which she had tried to keep hidden away—even from herself—for all these years.

What the hell was happening to her? Romy Salisbury was famous for her ability to remain unruffled, for refusing to be thrown—no matter how sticky the situation.

What about the time early last year, for example, when a foreign minor royal had hired her to organise an American evening for his thirty-fifth birthday and the cook and the waitress had failed to show?

Romy had cooked and served the meal entirely by herself, and the royal personage had got wind of it, insisting on coming down into the kitchen to congratulate her in person.

‘Oh, it was nothing, sir.’ Romy had blushed modestly, whilst trying out a very rusty curtsy. ‘Just hot dogs and beans and a mud-pie pudding.’

‘Though I suspect,’ the Prince had murmured, with a practised smile, ‘that even a swan fashioned out of ice would not have defeated you!’

‘I’m just grateful that you had less elaborate requirements than that, sir!’ Romy had joked, pulling a mock grimace which had told the Prince exactly what she thought of over-the-top gestures like swans made out of ice. And the twinkle in the Prince’s eye had told her that he agreed with her sentiments entirely!

After that, her workload had quadrupled overnight, giving Romy the luxury of being able to pick and choose her jobs. It really was amazing how much clout royal patronage gave you!

So, this Romy Salisbury who could chat with ease to princes—what connection did she have with the woman who was currently behaving like a beaten dog? Just because she had come across the man she had alternately dreamed of and dreaded meeting for five long years. What are you, Romy Salisbury? she asked herself. A woman or a wimp?

Her dark eyes flared with the light of battle, and Dominic’s eyes raked over her face.

‘So why?’ he suddenly demanded.

So many whys. ‘I’m not a mind-reader!’ she retorted. ‘Why what?’

‘Why did you pretend not to recognise me?’

Romy smiled and decided to brazen it out. ‘Because I dislike the idea of being manipulated, I suppose.’

‘Manipulated?’

“That’s right.’

‘Manipulated by whom?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ she remonstrated tartly. ‘By you, of course. You deliberately went to the trouble of booking me under the name of one of your more obscure property companies instead of giving your real name. Presumably with the intention of shocking me when we met. What kind of reaction were you hoping for, Dominic? That I would collapse in a swoon at your feet when I came face to face with you?’

His grey eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you knew that you were about to meet me?’

‘Of course I knew!’ scoffed Romy. ‘Or did you imagine that I would just happily take a job without bothering to check it out first? My work involves me going into people’s homes—often staying there. And I’m a woman! Do you suppose for a moment that I would put myself at risk by not finding out a few details about who is employing me? I’m running a business here, Dominic, for heaven’s sake, not a knitting circle!’

He gave her a grudging look of admiration. ‘Well, well, well, Romy,’ he observed drily. ‘You seem to have acquired a little common sense over the years, at least. Pity it didn’t come five years earlier.’

His patronising comment made Romy even more angry. She drew a deep, indignant breath. ‘But even if I hadn’t known I was going to meet you, why would you naturally assume that I’d recognise you immediately? Is it so inconceivable that I would fail to do so? Do you imagine that you are such a magnificent specimen, Dominic, that you’re unforgettable? That any woman meeting you would have you branded indelibly on her memory for evermore?’

‘I would have been more than a little—surprised if you had failed to recognise me. Quite apart from the fact that I was your best man. After all, we had quite an...experience together, didn’t we?’ He gave a lazy smile which made Romy uncomfortably aware that he was recalling that erotic encounter in the lift. ‘Though I have to admit that most women tell me I have an unforgettable face.’

His words stabbed at her like a knife and it took every ounce of concentration that Romy possessed not to lash out at him in a jealous fit of rage she knew she had no right to feel.

‘Oh, do they?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled arrogantly. ‘They do.’

‘Dominic Dashwood,’ Romy declared heatedly, ‘did anyone ever tell you that you are nothing but an arrogant...arrogant...?

‘Bastard?’ he supplied drily. ‘Is that the word you’re searching for? So why not come out and say it, Romy? It’s true, after all.’

Romy gave him a steady look. ‘I would have used a far more creative insult than “bastard”, thank you very much! And that sounds like a mighty big chip on your shoulder to me.’

His smile had suddenly died and now he shook his dark head with slow emphasis. ‘Not at all,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Illegitimacy no longer carries the stigma that it did when I was growing up.’

She stared at him in surprise. Surely that wasn’t a trace of vulnerability showing through the steely armour?

Romy had always defined Dominic as a black-hearted villain and seducer. But now, with the benefit of maturity, she recognised that she might have been guilty of a little over-simplification.

Had he been a victim of taunts at school? Ridiculed and derided as a child because he had been born on the wrong side of the blanket?

For the first time she lost something of her guarded expression. Her mouth softened and her lips moved into an unconscious pout as a wave of empathy washed over her.

What was it about this man, she wondered, that she should want to take him in her arms and comfort him? And after everything that had happened between them, too...

She gazed across the room at him, the sudden silence making her acutely aware of their isolation.

Her mind began to stray into forbidden territory as she allowed her eyes to drift over the magnificent thrust of his thighs, all tensile muscular perfection beneath the cambric trousers. And the thin silk shirt he wore did absolutely everything to emphasise the hard, lean abdomen and the suggestion of strength rippling in each arm.

Romy shut her eyes in despair, and when she opened them it was to find him staring at her.

‘We’d better have something to drink,’ he said abruptly. ‘You look terrible.’

‘You don’t look so wonderful yourself,’ she lied, but she found herself sinking back against the chaise lounge. Because he was right. She felt terrible. The shock of seeing him again, no doubt. And making the disappointing discovery that in five years she had built up no magic immunity against his devastating appeal.

His eyes narrowed as they raked over her slumped frame. ‘Stay there!’ he ordered curtly.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she murmured drily.

Their eyes locked for one long moment, and when he turned to leave Romy found herself watching his retreat obsessively, unable to tear her eyes away from him and yet despising her need to do so.

When Romy had met him he had been twenty-six—very bright and very ambitious. It had been easy, then, to predict that he had a golden future ahead of him. But now it was possible to see how he had managed to surpass even that early promise.

And it wasn’t so much the palatial mansion he lived in, or the expensive clothes he wore, or even the tell-tale designer watch which was designed to withstand almost anything and had a price tag to match. No, it was something much less tangible than material possessions, and yet far more valuable in its way.

For Dominic carried a quiet authority about him which combined both strength and dignity.

He was, Romy recognised, the type of man whose respect would be highly valued. And there was no doubt in her mind that he would probably accord more respect to a snail than he would to her.

And could she blame him? Could she? If she told even the most impartial observer the facts concerning their ill-fated meeting, would they not condemn her, too?

She tried to stem them, but the memories were too strong, too long suppressed for her to be able to stop them flooding back with bitter-sweet clarity.

Long-forgotten fragments of events floated free and her mind took her back to a summer’s afternoon almost exactly five years before...

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS the afternoon before her wedding, and Romy was feeling sick.

The make-up artist had just been through a trial run before tomorrow’s church service, and had put far more gunge on her face than she was used to. Romy peered in the mirror and frowned. The oodles of mascara and foundation might have made her eyes look bigger and her skin even smoother, but she looked much older. And harder, too.

So she went straight into the bathroom and scrubbed the whole lot off!

Her mother was lying on the bed in the hotel room, drinking unchilled white wine and stuffing cottonwool balls between her toes as she waited for the red varnish on her nails to dry.

She looked up as Romy entered the room, and frowned. ‘Put some make-up on!’ she ordered instantly. ‘Your face looks awful without it!’

Ignoring that, Romy sat down on the edge of her bed and studied her fingernails intently. ‘Do you—do you think every bride feels like this?’ she asked her mother tentatively.

Her mother took another swig of warm wine. ‘Like what?’

Romy swallowed as she struggled to explain her thoughts to her mother—although she supposed that there was absolutely no reason why she should suddenly succeed after all these years. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Excited, I suppose, and yet...well, afraid, too...’

Stella Salisbury, whose dissolute life was finally taking its toll on her once beautiful face, shot her daughter an acid look. ‘All I can remember is the feeling of being shackled,’ she drawled, and lit a cigarette. ‘But unfortunately there wasn’t a lot I could do about it—I was pregnant with you at the time.’

‘Mum...’ Romy sighed worriedly. ‘Do you really think you need any more to drink? There’ll be plenty at the party tonight. And you want to be sober for that, don’t you?’

‘Why?’ asked her mother, inhaling deeply on her cigarette. ‘It’s hardly likely to be the bash of the year, now, is it? Honestly, Romy, I didn’t spend all that money on your education for you to marry the first man who asked you! The Ackroyds may be a fine, old-established family—but they’re as dull as ditchwater!’

And that’s precisely why I’m marrying Mark, thought Romy as she helplessly watched her mother refilling her glass. Because he’s everything that you’re not and he wants to give me everything I’ve never had.

In a nutshell, Mark represented security. And Romy craved security with all the fervour of someone who had spent her formative years being bundled from pillar to post while her mother worked her way through a series of unsuitable boyfriends. Romy’s father had been killed in Africa when she was just a tiny baby, and she had never known a single, stabilising male influence.

‘Besides...’ Stella fixed her daughter with a sharp look ‘...there might not even be a wedding at this rate!’

Romy pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her eye. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked in alarm.

Stella shrugged. ‘Well, the best man still hasn’t arrived, has he? And it beats me why a man with Mark Ackroyd’s connections has chosen someone who nobody knows from Adam. Someone told me that he grew up on completely the wrong side of the tracks, so why on earth—’

‘Becàuse he saved Mark’s life when they were at Oxford,’ put in Romy patiently. ‘I thought I’d explained that’

‘Then why isn’t he here?’

‘He’s flying over from Hong Kong. He works there. He’ll arrive tomorrow morning. The wedding’s not until three, so there will be plenty of time.’

‘Cutting it a little fine, isn’t he? What if he’s delayed?’

Romy shrugged. ‘He won’t be.’

‘What do you mean, “He won’t be”?’

‘Just that Mark says that when Dominic says he’ll do something then we are to consider it done.’ She coughed, her nostrils filling with the smoke from her mother’s cigarette, which hung in a foul-smelling grey fog in the hotel room. ‘It’s so smoky in here!’ she spluttered, flapping her hand around in an effort to dispel it.

‘It’s a dump!’ retorted Stella, looking around the room with a grimace.

‘It is not a dump!’ protested Romy automatically.

‘Why we’re staying here I simply don’t know!’ shrilled Mrs Salisbury. ‘Not when your husband-to-be owns the biggest house in the entire county.’

Because Romy had put her foot down very firmly—that was why! She suppressed a shudder as she tried to imagine her mother and Mark’s mother sharing the same house, even for one night! ‘You get your freedom here,’ she said, looking meaningfully at the overflowing ashtray and the half-empty bottle of wine.

Though perhaps if Stella had been treated to the rather abstemious hospitality of the formidable Mrs Ackroyd, then she might have applied the brakes a bit. And subsequently have been in a better state for tonight’s party!

Romy sighed, wishing that the ceremony was already over, and it was just her and Mark.

And?

She swallowed.

It was normal to feel pre-wedding nerves, perfectly normal—she had to accept that. And Mark was so very proud of the fact that she was a virgin.

‘So many girls aren’t these days,’ he had told her fondly, planting a tender kiss on her long neck. ‘That’s why I want to keep you pure and innocent for as long as possible!’

Romy impatiently pushed another lock of hair off her suddenly hot face. ‘I’m going out for a while!’ she told her mother abruptly.

‘Out? Now? But you can’t! What about the party?’

‘The party isn’t for hours,’ answered Romy, with an oddly detached kind of calm. ‘And I’m afraid I’ll have little stomach for it if I sit around here watching you get steadily sozzled. So why don’t you order up some black coffee, Mum, and try to get a little sleep?’

Barely registering her mother’s amazement at the fact that she had answered her back, Romy left the hotel room without a backward glance.

She hesitated outside the door, not quite sure where she intended going. A walk, perhaps. Yes, that was it! A walk in the brilliant July sunshine—that might help her shake off this curiously unsettled mood. Besides, there was nothing else for her to do except fill in the empty hours.

Everything was ready and waiting for the Big Day. The white tulle dress was hanging in the wardrobe swathed in thick plastic. The white satin shoes were lined up neatly below, and frothy little flounces of white lace underwear lay in neat, snowy piles.

Romy automatically quickened her step as she walked towards the smaller lift at the end of the tenth-floor corridor, instinctively avoiding the main lift. Lots of the wedding guests were also staying at the hotel and she didn’t want to run into any of them. Because for some reason Romy couldn’t face talking, not to anyone, not just now...

She pressed the button and waited, and presently the lift doors jerked open and she stepped inside, pressed the button for the ground floor and it began its descent.

On the seventh floor the doors opened and a man entered, a man so drop-dead gorgeous that Romy actually blinked distractedly as she stared at him.

He stared right back—so intently and with such a piercing expression in a pair of exceptional silver-grey eyes that all Romy’s usual defences crumbled, and she was left feeling curiously exposed and vulnerable.

Hastily she started studying the carpet with the kind of avid interest she usually reserved for the gossip column in her favourite newspaper!

But, try as she might to concentrate on the swirly red and gold pattern, she found herself unable to stop observing him from out of the corner of her eye, even though she pretended not to.

He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and was impressively tall, with hair which was as dark as coal. He had powerfully built shoulders and his skin was lightly tanned, so that it made a flattering contrast against the pale linen suit he wore.

But it was his face which was truly remarkable—angular and hypnotic, its hard, flat planes casting intriguing shadows. The mouth was a contradiction, in that it had full, curved lines which hinted at an experience Romy did not dare dwell on, but already there was a hard, cynical twist in place. And that was surprising in one so young, she thought fleetingly.

He looked up and caught her peeping, and his grey eyes flicked over her with unashamed interest. He gave a brief, knowing smile, before turning his attention back to the folded-up copy of the financial paper he was carrying.

Romy couldn’t concentrate. Or, rather, she could—but on one thing and one thing alone.

That man!

As the lift continued its descent she found herself so acutely aware of his presence that it was almost painful. But then he was an exceptionally good-looking man, she reasoned, and her reaction was perfectly natural. Just because she was getting married the next day, that did not mean that she would never find another man attractive!

Nevertheless, she found herself praying that the lift would quickly reach its destination.

It did—but it was not the one she had been counting on! In between floors five and six it made a sickening kind of screeching noise and then juddered to a deafeningly silent halt.

Nervously, Romy lifted her hand and started jabbing at the button several times, but the lift remained stubbornly stuck, and when she dared to look up at the man it was to find him observing her, a wry smile on his lips making her quickly revise her earlier opinion of him. Not exceptionally good-looking, she concluded, but outrageously good-looking!

‘And you thought that this kind of thing only happened in films, didn’t you?’ he said.

Romy didn’t answer, just continued to punch away at the lift button with a desperation she did not quite like to analyse.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so,’ he observed, in that same deep and drawling voice, ‘bashing the thing is likely to do more harm than good!’

‘Then what do you suggest I do?’ she snapped back.

He raised a lazy black brow. ‘You could try pressing the alarm button,’ he suggested.

Now why hadn’t she thought of that?

Feeling more than a bit of a fool, Romy did just that, disappointed and yet not surprised when nothing happened.

He moved forward and began studying the buttons, pressing each one experimentally at first and then trying different combinations, like someone struggling to find the right password on a strange computer. But, no matter what he did, the lift remained stubbornly still.

The man frowned. ‘Could be the electrics, I suppose, as the alarm isn’t working either,’ he commented thoughtfully. ‘Although we still have light, so maybe the mechanism is on a completely different circuit.’

For some reason, his calm assurance infuriated her. And so did the fact that she couldn’t understand a word he was saying!

‘Is that all you can say?’ she demanded, her voice rising with every word. ‘Standing there wittering on about electrics when we’re stuck in this lift--alone!’

‘Not alone. Together,’ he corrected her, and gave her a narrow-eyed look. ‘And if you continue to get hysterical—’

‘I am not getting hysterical!’

‘Yes, you are!’ he chided gently.

‘I’ll get hysterical if I want to!’ she yelled. ‘Who wouldn’t get hysterical if they were stuck in a lift with a complete stranger?’

He gave a lazy smile, the corners of his mouth turning up in a way which suddenly made Romy’s heart thunder as it had never thundered before. ‘Do I make you nervous, then?’ he queried wickedly.

‘Yes, you jolly well do! And I’m certainly not going to accept this false imprisonment lying down!’

It was the worst thing she could have said, and the answering glint of light in his grey eyes made her fervently wish that she could rephrase that last statement!

‘What a pity,’ he murmured.

‘In fact, I’m going to yell for help!’ she announced wildly, saying anything—anything—to stop him looking at her in that way... She glared at him challengingly.

‘Be my guest,’ he drawled, and carelessly loosened the tie of cornflower silk which was knotted around his throat. ‘Yell to your heart’s content, sweetheart!’

Sticking her mouth as close to the door as possible, Romy shouted, ‘Help!’ at the top of her voice, and listened as the word echoed its way down the silent lift shaft. She drew in a deep breath for another attempt. ‘Help!’ But again her shout simply echoed into nothingness, and the lack of response made Romy’s heart race with real fear.

‘Why don’t you yell for help?’ she challenged.

‘Because there’s no one out there to hear us,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘It’s a little-used lift. We would do much better to wait until we hear someone banging around, and then yell!’

‘And what if we never get out?’ she babbled, moving forward and clutching onto his lapels with white-knuckled fingers, her voice rising to a high, brittle note which threatened to crack. She buckled against him. ‘What if We die of thirst, or starve to death?’

‘We won’t,’ he soothed, and almost absently stroked the blonde hair which was now resting against his chest. ‘We’ll be just fine.’

She quickly dropped her hands from where they were busy creasing the linen of his lapels! ‘No, we won’t! We’ll be stuck here for ever! I just know we will! I—’

He lifted her chin with his forefinger so that she could not escape that blazing, stormy gaze. ‘The classic remedy for hysteria is a slap to the face.’ He cut across her words with a frown which gradually gave way to a slow, careful smile. ‘But I’m not inclined to do that. For a start, it’s such a beautiful face...’

The softness in his deep voice instantly and magically diffused all the terror she felt. A beautiful face? Romy went pink with pleasure at the compliment, and then immediately started thinking how pathetic she must look! And should he really be saying something like that to an engaged woman?

But when she threw a covert glance down at her left hand she discovered that she had left her engagement ring lying on the dressing table in the hotel room. There was no outward symbol to show the world she was spoken for. So she had better start acting like a mature woman who was about to be married!

Fixing her most intelligent look on her face, she drew a deep, calming breath and said steadily, ‘And how do you propose we get out of here?’

He stared down at her intently, his face and body suddenly tense. His eyes were cold and grey, Romy noted with a shiver—as hard and as glittering as a blade of steel.

Romy instantly became aware that all normal sounds had been deadened—muffled by the pulses which thundered in her head. Her line of vision had contracted to one small area, and she found that all she could see were the firm, sensual curves of his mouth.

He seemed to move fractionally towards her, and for one heart-stopping moment she actually thought that he was about to bend that dark, gorgeous head to kiss her—and found that she was holding her breath, waiting and anticipating his next move.

Then suddenly he laughed, and shifted his weight rather awkwardly, as though he was uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any immediate solution. So we’ll just have to wait. Sooner or later someone is bound to notice that one of us is missing or that the lift is firmly stuck between floors.’

‘Of course,’ she said stiffly, and deliberately turned her back on him, feeling absolutely mortified—aware that for a moment back then she had very much wanted him to kiss her. Had he been aware of her wish, too?

Was that another sign of pre-wedding nerves? she wondered worriedly. Wanting total strangers to pull you into their arms and to kiss you to within about an inch of your life? Tight-lipped, she stared at the blank wall, feeling disgusted with herself.

Dominic looked at the tense set of her shoulders, his mouth hardening as he recognised the hypnotic pull of sexual attraction which was building up in the confined space with all the speed of cells multiplying.

He tried to rationalise the situation. He had given little time or thought to pleasure over the past year, and this overwhelming need to crush her against him was probably just his body’s reaction to such self-imposed denial.

He had been working flat out for months and months, taking on a job in a law firm in Hong Kong for which he had been much too young and too unqualified, but in which he had absolutely triumphed—to everyone’s astonishment bar his own.

For Dominic was determined to succeed, to be the first member of his family who didn’t live in fear of the bailiffs.

He had grown up in poverty—real, abject poverty—with a mother who was proud and hard enough to let her only child go hungry. And Dominic had never forgotten hunger. Memories of that great aching emptiness gnawing away at the pit of his stomach had driven him on and on. He had vowed to stop only when he had made enough never to have to worry about hunger again.

The only trouble was that he had reached that stage a long time ago, but had blinded himself to the fact.

His whole life was work. Women did not feature in his grand scheme of things. Women distracted you with their beguiling eyes and their soft bodies. And women like this one—with her honey-blonde hair rippling like moonbeams over pert, high young breasts—well... Dominic could imagine never wanting to work again if he lost himself in her arms.

Oh, he dated occasionally—but in relationships he could control. Completely. And for this reason his affairs usually tended to be with older women.

Women who knew the score. Women in their early thirties, with established careers of their own, who were not looking for a permanent partner. Or, at least, that was what they always told him at the beginning. Three months down the line, when they started talking babies and houses, Dominic would be forced to end the relationship as gently as possible.

Settling down was simply not an option at this time in his life and he sometimes wondered whether it ever would be. For he had never known happiness or security in his own childhood and so had no idea how to create it.

He shifted his weight as he felt the uncomfortable heaviness of desire building up, but unfortunately there was nowhere to look at that moment, except at the source of that desire.

His eyes lingered reluctantly on the pure, clean sweep of her neck. Noted the way her simple blue T-shirt and denim mini-skirt flowed down over her slim, healthy curves. God, but she looked so young and so beautiful! And so impossibly innocent, too!

But innocent she could not be, he decided grimly—not from the way she had looked at him just now. He had surprised a wide-eyed look of pure invitation on her face. This happened to Dominic with such monotonous regularity that it usually left him cold, however beautiful the woman. And yet for some reason, with this woman, it was taking every bit of will-power he possessed not to succumb to it.

Romy had started to feel hot Tiny pinpricks of heat began to scratch irritatingly at her forehead, and surreptitiously she drew the back of her hand across it.

‘Perhaps we should sit down,’ he suggested.

She turned, suddenly aware of how close he was, the scent of him invading her nostrils like the sweetest perfume. ‘Wh-why?’

‘Because it’s hot and stressful in here.’ Very stressful, he thought ruefully as he watched the tiny pulse at her temple beat so frantically. ‘Confined space, and all that. Aren’t we supposed to conserve oxygen and energy in such a situation? I don’t want you fainting on me.’

Romy smiled. ‘Do I look like the fainting type?’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘You look...delicate, if you must know. Too pale with those shadows bruising your eyes—as if you haven’t been sleeping much lately.’

‘I’m sorry I asked!’ she joked, but she slid to the floor as he had suggested, and looked rather pointedly at the space beside her. ‘But if all you say is true, then shouldn’t you be joining me?’

As soon as Dominic saw her coltish young legs sprawled in front of her, he knew he had made a mistake. A big mistake. He tried to will the desire away, but by now it was in such an advanced state that it stubbornly refused to go.

And she was right; he really ought to join her. Standing was no help to his discomfort at all. From here he had a too tantalising view of what her breasts might be like if they were bare. Whenever she moved, the thin blue material of her T-shirt moved fractionally with her—so that he caught an occasional glimpse of the creamy flesh above the luscious swell of her breasts.

He reluctantly crouched down and arranged his long-legged frame in the cramped space with difficulty. And found that sitting beside her was the only sensibly way to stop him from staring at her more than was absolutely necessary.

‘Are you frightened?’ he asked her conversationally, in an effort to distract himself from the rapid rising and falling of her breasts as she tried her best to act unconcerned by his proximity.

‘I’m not sure,’ she hedged, because she found it difficult to lie, and in truth she was very frightened indeed—though more by the intensity of her body’s reaction to a man who was a complete stranger than by her entrapment.

She could feel the heat pricking her skin, the insistent peaking of her nipples beneath the gossamer-fine lace of the bra she wore. ‘Are you?’ she asked, more urgently than she had intended. ‘Frightened?’

He barely heard her. His thoughts were all taken up with the dewy appearance of her skin. He found himself mesmerised by the fine beads of sweat which were beginning to mist the magnolia-pale area beneath her neck. ‘Am I what?’ he asked her distractedly.

‘Frightened.’

He found himself mesmerised by her eyes now. Great big pixie eyes—as rich and dark as the most expensive chocolate. He leaned forward, unable to stop himself, and removed a non-existent speck of dust from her nose. He saw her begin to shiver violently, as though she was unable to control herself, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sensation of inevitability which was almost primitive in its intensity.

The air crackled; the silence was like thunder in their ears.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Fear is just about the last thing on my mind right now.’

’D-don’t.’ She stumbled over the word, even though he was no longer touching her, but the grey eyes were suddenly blazing into hers with a fervent silvery fire which thrilled her.

‘Don’t what?’ he queried, so neutrally that the question seemed to pose no threat. ‘Don’t marvel at your exquisite beauty—when not to do so would be a crime? Or don’t kiss you—when we both know that’s what you want more than anything else in the world right now?’ His voice deepened to a husky caress. ‘What we both want,’ he finished.

‘You—can’t,’ Romy breathed in thrilled disbelief.

‘You can’t just come out and say things like that!’

‘Oh, I think I can,’ he contradicted her, with a glittering and arrogant confidence which renewed the racing of her heart.

And then the lights went out.

Instinct made her leap into his arms, and instinct made him clasp her tightly against his chest. And when instinct had been replaced by reason, and Romy tried to move away from him, he refused to let her go, his mouth irresistibly drawn to the scented silk of her hair.

‘My prayers have just been answered,’ he murmured softly against a blonde satin strand.

Mine, too, thought Romy guiltily.

‘It’s all right,’ he murmured soothingly as he felt her heart beat out a loud tattoo which thudded intimately against his own chest. ‘They’ll come looking for us soon. They’re bound to find us.’

But she didn’t want them to find them; that was the trouble. She had discovered her own little piece of heaven on earth, as far removed from reality and understanding as heaven itself, and oh, nothing could have made Romy stop him from holding her the way he was holding her right then.

‘Now, what were we talking about when the lights went out?’ he whispered.

Afterwards Romy would attempt to justify what had happened next. She would tell herself that it had been her first close encounter with an experienced man who was able to seduce her with just the right mixture of desire and restraint.

She would also try to convince herself that it had been curiosity. And pre-wedding nerves. She had never kissed another man apart from her fiance and what harm would one kiss do? A brief moment of madness before the lifelong commitment which was marriage was perfectly natural.

In the strange, private world of the broken-down lift events took on an unreal quality. There in the warm darkness it was all too easy to give in to this elemental desire without any feeling of shame.

‘This,’ she whispered back, and raised her face to his.

Her mouth tasted of toothpaste, and a faint scent of rain-washed meadows clung to her skin and her hair. To Dominic, she tasted and smelt so clean and so pure and so fresh. She was like a long shower at the end of a grimy day’s work in the city. A refreshing drink after being parched for so long.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, he silently remonstrated with himself. Is it abstinence which is making you so fanciful? Because you haven’t had a woman for over a year? But then he felt her lips parting beneath his, and an overwhelming rush of desire made him give a small, tortured moan as he deepened the kiss.

Romy had meant only to kiss him, but a need far stronger than her good intentions soon had her threading her fingers luxuriously through his thick dark hair, gasping with a kind of compliant greed as his fingers drifted over the taut, straining mounds of her breasts.

‘You shouldn’t!’ she gasped, the words wrung reluctantly from her lips.

‘I know, but you’d kill me if I stopped, wouldn’t you?’

Say no, said some remote section of her mind which was still thinking logically. Go on, say it...say it! ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes, I would kill you!’

He laughed, but a little unsteadily, as though the strength of her desire had startled him. Her passion seemed so at odds with her blonde, scrubbed innocence. Unless the innocence was a sham, he thought reluctantly...

He let his mouth slowly drift along the gentle curve of her jaw, anointing her with tiny, feather-light kisses which seemed to incite her even more. Her head fell back helplessly, so that her breasts were offered up to his mouth with a kind of wanton abandon.

Romy was on fire as he peeled the T-shirt up her torso until her pert breasts in the lacy bra were revealed. She felt the cool rush of air to her heated skin as he freed the front fastening of the bra and impatiently pushed the filmy fabric aside.

And when he began to suckle her the pleasure was almost as unbearable as the frustration she felt, knowing that she must call a halt to this madness.

In a minute, she promised herself. I’ll stop him in a minute.

But he pulled her roughly against him and she felt her body writhing against the hard pressure of his. Frantically, their mouths collided, their kisses fiery and passionate as they both fruitlessly attempted to derive the ultimate satisfaction from kissing alone.

If there had been enough room to turn her over onto her back and take her right there and then, then Dominic suspected that he would have done. As it was, he knew that he must be the one to call a halt to things. And quickly.

He drew a long, shuddering breath. ‘If we don’t stop,’ he warned her huskily, ‘you know what’s going to happen?’

The sound of his voice should have brought Romy back to her senses, but it did no such thing. She felt as though she had wandered unawares into an enchanted place, which she had no desire to leave.

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