Knight’s Possession
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

LAUREL placed the last paperback book on the display before ruefully draping the glittering length of silver and green tinsel so that it didn’t obscure the front cover of the new blockbuster of the reigning king of adventure stories. How could you make a bookstore window look Christmassy anyway? She had tried several weeks ago to give the window some of the festive appearance of the other shops along the street, but she had to admit it hadn’t been very successful, a few strategically sprayed bursts of artificial snow—that was going to be hell to get off when the time came!—a few decorations and sprigs of holly, did not make a Christmas display. Luckily books sold this time of year without that added incentive, and this delayed paperback would quickly be sold out before Christmas.

She sat back to admire the display, the person standing on the other side of the glass catching her gaze. Catching her gaze? Polly, her assistant, was leaping up and down in an effort to try and attract her attention!

Laurel frowned at her as Polly kept talking and frantically pointing, colour entering her cheeks as she saw they were attracting quite a crowd by their antics. She gave an embarrassed shrug, motioning to Polly to come inside and explain to her. She wanted people to look in the window, but not at her!

She crawled backwards on her hands and knees to the small door at the back of the window, ignoring the people who still gawked at her as she tried to manoeuvre out of the small space she had left for herself when she arranged the displays.

‘Laurel, your brother is here to see you,’ Polly told her breathlessly.

She narrowly avoided the display of hardbacks at the back of the window, cursing the publishing company for this late distribution of the paperback that had necessitated her disturbing the window. ‘It can’t be my brother,’ she dismissed curtly as she felt the floor beneath her foot, easing down on to its firmness with a sense of relief, closing the door behind her, feeling hot and bothered as she straightened the black skirt she wore, brushing off the thick material the fluff from the lemon window bedding she had been kneeling on.

‘Laurel, he says he’s your brother,’ her assistant insisted a little desperately.

‘And I told you—Oh!’ She broke off abruptly as she saw her ‘brother’ standing beside the flushed-faced Polly. She should have known it was him!

‘Steady,’ Reece put out strong hands to grasp her shoulders as she swayed precariously, slightly dizzy from her exertions in the window. ‘Here,’ he neatly plucked a piece of green tinsel from her blonde hair and held it out to her.

Laurel snatched it from his hand, at last knowing the reason for Polly’s antics outside the window; obviously the young girl had been trying to tell her about the tinsel in her hair. ‘Reece,’ she greeted tightly, blue eyes flashing as she turned to her assistant. ‘Shouldn’t one of us be seeing to the customers?’ she said pointedly.

Polly looked more flushed than ever, hastily making her excuses.

Laurel turned angrily back to Reece. ‘Why are you here?’ she demanded icily. ‘As you can see, I’m very busy,’ she added impatiently.

He nodded, looking around the crowded shop. ‘Business looks brisk.’

‘It is,’ she acknowledged tersely. ‘So I really don’t have any time to waste…?’

‘We can’t talk here——’

Her gaze sharpened. ‘Is it Amanda?’

‘Would you really care?’ Reece drawled derisively. ‘When was the last time you saw your mother? Two months ago, wasn’t it?’ He arched a dark brow.

Her mouth tightened. ‘I don’t believe my relationship with Amanda is any of your business,’ she told him coldly.

‘Or lack of it,’ he mocked, his firmly chiselled mouth twisting scornfully. ‘But, Laurel, I am your brother.’

‘You——’

‘Could we get out of here?’ His terse request showed he had tired of the game, scowling as a customer pushed past him on her way to the till. ‘I don’t want to discuss personal family business in this crowd. It’s almost one-thirty, don’t you have a lunch-break coming up?’

She gave him a contemptuous look. ‘It’s only a week to Christmas, our busiest time of the year, no one in a shop takes lunch-breaks,’ she derided. ‘Not if they want to take the money.’

‘And is that so important to you?’ His golden-brown eyes narrowed.

She gave a harsh laugh. ‘A banker asks me that? Without money you wouldn’t be in business.’

‘But the making of it isn’t more important to me than my family,’ he told her hardly. ‘And whether you like it or not you are part of that family.’

Laurel stiffened. ‘I don’t have a family,’ she dismissed harshly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me,’ she frowned worriedly as Polly began to look very harassed as she continued to take money at the till, ‘I really do have to get back to work.’

Reece grasped her arm as she would have walked away from him without a second glance. ‘And I really have to talk to you,’ he bit out. ‘I’ll come back once you’re closed this evening.’

It was a statement, not a request, and with a disinterested shrug Laurel walked away to take over from Polly. By the time she had the chance to glance up again Reece had gone.

Why had he come? She could easily have found that out if she had given him a few minutes of her time. But she hadn’t felt inclined to do that. Reece was a man who told people to ‘jump’ and didn’t even take the time to see if they did so; he knew that they would! But this was her shop, her living, and she didn’t ‘jump’ for anyone.

‘See you later tonight,’ Polly came into the office to say good night once the shop had closed for the day, Laurel sitting at her desk doing the books, the other woman lingering in the doorway.

And Laurel knew why she was lingering. The younger woman had been giving her curious looks all afternoon, obviously waiting for an explanation about Reece’s claim of being her brother. Laurel hadn’t given her one, and she didn’t give her one now either.

‘Fine,’ she gave a bright smile. ‘About eight.’

‘Yes,’ Polly confirmed absently. ‘Er——’

‘I’d better get finished here if I want to be ready on time,’ Laurel cut in firmly. ‘I have to go home and take a shower before I get ready for the party.’

Polly nodded, her disappointment showing in her deep brown eyes. ‘See you later, then.’

Laurel was vaguely aware of the bell on the door ringing as the other woman let herself out, a smile curving her lips as she thought of the dress she was going to wear that evening. It’s royal-blue colour deepened her eyes, made her short blonde hair look like gold, the straightness of the gown’s style emphasising her small uptilted breasts, narrow waist and hips. At only five feet in height she had always considered her figure too slender to be really alluring, but the silky dress showed what curves she did have to advantage. There wasn’t a lot she could do to enhance her gamin features, her face dominated by big blue eyes, her nose short and slightly snub, her mouth curving, her chin small and pointed. But the dress definitely made her look sexy. Giles was going to love it!

‘Very seasonal.’

She turned sharply to the door at the sound of that mocking drawl, frowning at Reece as he leant against the door-frame. ‘How did you get in?’ she snapped.

He shrugged, strolling into the room. ‘Your assistant let me in on her way out.’

Laurel bristled resentfully, as she always did around this man. ‘I’m glad you approve of the decorations we have up in the shop,’ she answered his opening comment.

He picked up a book on French artists from her desk and began to flick through it. ‘I wasn’t referring to the decorations, I was talking about the way you were smiling gleefully as you counted the money you had made today.’ He paused at one of the pages in the book. ‘I prefer my women a little slimmer than this, but she certainly is a sexy lady.’

Laurel snatched the book out of his hands, looking down at the page he had lingered over; the black-eyed gypsy-looking woman stood naked in front of a mirror, her well-endowed body fully upstanding. ‘This has been put by for a customer,’ she explained its presence on her desk, closing the book with a firm snap.

‘Your Scrooge act is getting even more realistic,’ Reece mocked as he sat on the side of her desk, still wearing the dark business suit of this afternoon.

‘You have nothing to worry about,’ Laurel scorned. ‘You aren’t in the least like kind, affable Bob Cratchit. And I was smiling just now because I was thinking about my party tonight, not the money I’ve taken today.’

‘Ah yes, the party,’ Reece sobered. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

Laurel stiffened warily. ‘You weren’t invited.’

‘No,’ he acknowledged raspingly. ‘But Amanda and my father were. Eventually.’

Her head went back challengingly at the rebuke she sensed in his words. ‘Yes?’

‘To your engagement party.’ His eyes were narrowed. ‘To a man they haven’t even met.’

‘I’m over the age of consent,’ she snapped.

‘Well over,’ he agreed harshly. ‘But all the same, I would have thought courtesy would have meant you gave your own mother a little more notice of your engagement than this morning!’

She became flushed at the condemnation, still smarting because he had implied that she was old at only twenty-six! ‘I sent the invitation four days ago,’ she bit out. ‘I can’t be held responsible for the Christmas post delaying its arrival.’

‘Four days,’ Reece repeated icily. ‘And how long have you been planning the party?’

‘A couple of months. But——’

‘And when did the other invitations go out?’ he persisted harshly.

‘Six weeks ago. But, Reece, I don’t think any of this is——’

‘And when did Gilbraith’s family receive their invitations?’

‘They didn’t,’ she was able to tell him with satisfaction. ‘All of Giles’s family live in Scotland, and will be coming down for the wedding next summer. Which was the reason Giles and I decided to invite only friends to our engagement party. But then——’

‘Then you were belatedly attacked by feelings of guilt,’ Reece said with disgust. ‘And at the last minute decided to invite your mother after all.’

‘I didn’t feel in the least guilty,’ Laurel denied heatedly. ‘It must be obvious by now that my mother and I lead our own, completely different, lives. Giles and I just decided it might look a little odd if my mother weren’t there when everyone knows she lives in London, too.’

‘God, I’m glad Amanda doesn’t realise she was only invited so that you and your fiancé shouldn’t be asked any embarrassing questions!’ Anger made his eyes gleam more golden than brown. ‘She’s really excited about the invitation, thinks that the rift that has grown between the two of you is finally to be mended.’

He was even more handsome than usual when blazingly angry, his eyes like molten gold, his harsh features taking on the sharpness of a hawk; a long straight nose, high cheekbones, a firm mouth, and a square determined chin. But his anger didn’t only show in his face, his six foot plus frame was tense with anger too, the muscles in his chest and arms rigid. And with his dark, almost black, short-styled hair he looked as fierce as the devil himself.

But he didn’t frighten Laurel; very little did any more. ‘The relationship between Amanda and me is the same as it’s been for the last fifteen years; tense.’

‘Since she divorced your father. Divorce is always rough on the children involved, Laurel,’ he accepted gently. ‘But I doubt they would be any happier holding together two people who would rather be apart.’

‘And what would you know about it?’ she scorned. ‘Your parents were happy together, your father was devastated when your mother died.’

‘Yes, he was,’ he watched her with narrowed eyes. ‘And now he’s found happiness again with Amanda.’

‘It won’t last,’ she scorned. ‘It never does.’ Since her mother’s divorce from her father there had been another marriage and numerous relationships; Amanda had found happiness in none of them. There was no reason to suppose this latest marriage to Reece’s father, not quite a year in duration, would be any different to them.

‘It doesn’t seem to have soured you to the idea of marriage,’ Reece bit out.

Not marriage, perhaps, but to the idea of children, yes. She never intended to have any.

Her mother had married John Matthews twenty-seven years ago, Laurel born only a year later. And for eleven years she had been at the centre of that family, had adored her father. And then had come her parents’ divorce, her mother the one to tell her that the two of them had talked and decided Laurel should be left in her mother’s care. From being a happy, well-adjusted child she had suddenly been alone with Amanda, occasionally going to stay at her father’s flat. But it was never the same, a strain between them now that had never been there before. Then her father had been transferred to America by his firm, and even her occasional visits to him had stopped. Laurel had hated her father as much for that as she blamed her mother for the divorce.

Maybe if Dan hadn’t been taken from her, too, she may have been able to cope with the trauma, but he had gone, had become a stranger to her, no longer her adored Dan. He had visited her several years ago on his holiday from the oil rig he was working on at the time, but Laurel was sure the relief when the visit ended had been mutual. They still sent each other birthday and Christmas cards, but the spontaneous affection they had known was gone.

Giles respected her decision not to have children, didn’t want any himself, the two of them agreeing they didn’t need them in their marriage. She doubted she would have agreed to marry him if he hadn’t felt that way.

‘You know nothing of my engagement or what really happened in the past,’ she told Reece coldly. ‘So please don’t have the arrogance to assume you know anything about me.’

‘But I know quite a lot about you,’ he said softly. ‘Amanda is very proud of you.’

‘Amanda doesn’t really know me, either,’ she snapped.

‘She would like to.’

Laurel sighed. ‘This isn’t some old black-and-white film, and I’m too old for the happy ending. Amanda and I grew apart years ago, and I prefer it that way,’ she added hardly.

‘Scrooge is coming back,’ he gently mocked. ‘Don’t you know that Christmas is the time for forgiving and making up?’

‘Reece, what’s your purpose for coming here?’ she asked wearily. ‘I can’t believe you just wanted to reprimand me for not sending Amanda her invitation earlier.’

‘No,’ he straightened. ‘My father is in New York, there’s no way he can get back in time for your party tonight. I’ve offered to accompany Amanda in his place, but I wanted to make sure you were agreeable to the idea first.’ He watched her with narrowed dark eyes. Devil’s eyes, one minute dark and brooding, the next shining like gold.

‘I wouldn’t have caused a scene, Reece, if that’s what you thought.’ Her mouth twisted derisively. ‘When I was a child I never knew which “uncle” would be at my birthday party!’

His mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘If you’re hoping to shock me, Laurel,’ he rasped, ‘I wouldn’t even bother to try. Amanda has been perfectly frank with us about her past relationships.’

‘And you and your father have forgiven her,’ she scorned bitterly. ‘Having lived through it all I don’t feel the same generosity!’

‘You’re a woman yourself now, Laurel,’ he spoke softly. ‘Can’t you see how anyone could have made the mistakes your mother did?’

‘Anyone as selfish as Amanda, yes,’ she acknowledged coldly. ‘Anyone who didn’t mind taking their happiness at the expense of innocent children!’ There were two bright red spots of colour in her cheeks.

Reece looked at her silently for several minutes, and then he gave a slight shake of his head. ‘Does Gilbraith know he’s marrying a block of ice?’ he finally asked contemptuously.

She met his gaze defiantly. ‘Giles knows exactly what he’s getting when he marries me!’

‘Your mother said you always used to feel so passionately about things, that you were a very intense little girl.’ He sounded as if he couldn’t believe that description had ever fitted her.

‘Everything I felt intensely about she took away from me.’ Fire made her eyes glitter angrily. ‘After she divorced my father we moved so many times that even my toys got left behind most of the time. Amanda said there wasn’t room for them.’ She remembered the hurt of often finding, after the latest move, that several more of her treasured toys had disappeared. In the end it had become so that she stopped becoming attached to anything.

‘Do you have any idea how hard things were for her after the divorce from your father?’ Reece asked impatiently. ‘It wasn’t easy for her——’

‘I’m sure that whatever Amanda has told you about that time sounded convincing,’ Laurel cut in dismissively. ‘But I was there, and I know what happened.’ She glanced down at the plain gold watch on her slender wrist. ‘By all means bring Amanda to the party tonight,’ she told him impatiently. ‘She looks young enough to be your wife anyway!’

‘She should, she’s only twelve years older than me,’ he rasped reprovingly.

‘And instead of looking the forty-nine that she is she looks at least ten years younger!’

‘Don’t tell me you resent her because of that, too?’ Reece scorned. ‘Is that why you haven’t introduced Gilbraith to your mother, because he might have found her the more attractive of the two of you?’

‘Why, you——’

‘Swine? Bastard?’ Reece easily caught her arm as her hand arced up to make contact with one lean cheek, using that hold to pull her up against the rigid hardness of his body. ‘You can show fire when you want to, can’t you?’ he grated as he looked into her furious face. ‘Is that the only fire you have, I wonder?’ he mused as his head lowered to hers.

Laurel was too stunned by the action to stop his mouth claiming hers. She was going to be an engaged woman in a few hours, they both knew it, and yet Reece held nothing back from the kiss, his lips moving gently over hers, temptingly, erotically, against her soft flesh, enticing her to respond as he sucked her bottom lip fully into his mouth.

She was shaking in reaction, leaning heavily into him, aware of the hard thud of his heart beneath her hand, the hardening of his thighs as he stirred in arousal. She moved up into him, her lips clinging to his now, his tongue moving gently along them but not venturing into the moist cavern beneath.

‘Show me you want me, Laurel,’ he urged raggedly, his lips on her throat now.

The mad trembling stopped as she looked up into Reece Harrington’s face. This wasn’t Giles, the man she was going to marry. ‘You’re wrong,’ she pushed away from him. ‘I don’t want you.’

He released her slowly, the gold in his eyes just as slowly changing back to a dark brooding brown. ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked huskily. ‘Maybe you should think again before committing yourself to an engagement.’

Her mouth twisted, fully in control of her emotions now. ‘I don’t need to think about anything, Giles is the man I intend to marry.’

‘Do you love him?’

‘I don’t have to——’

‘How can you love him and yet still kiss another man the way you did me?’ he derided hardly.

‘You kissed me,’ she corrected abruptly. ‘And one kiss from another man, expert as it may have been, doesn’t change the fact that Giles is the right man for me.’ In every way. Giles was handsome, charming, in love with her, and best of all, not interested in becoming a father.

Reece gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘I’ll see you tonight at your engagement party, then. And I won’t bother to tell Amanda she only got an invitation to stop there being any gossip about family rifts,’ he added contemptuously.

‘Tell her whatever you please,’ Laurel invited dismissively. ‘I’ve never held back from telling her the truth in the past.’

‘Then I think maybe a few of those times you should have done!’

She looked at him scornfully. ‘The way that you protect my mother is touching. Perhaps if you had been the first to meet her it might have been you that she married!’ she added challengingly.

He gave her a quelling look of disgust before turning and leaving, the tinkle of the bell over the door preceding its slam. Laurel sat down shakily, the scene much more traumatic than she would ever have let Reece Harrington guess, not the least of it being the unexpectedness of the kiss he had given her.

It had been because of her and Reece that their parents had met at all. Driving home from a friend’s one evening last winter her car had skidded on the wet road and she had smashed into the back of the car in front of her. Reece Harrington had been the driver of that car.

Reece had been uninjured but her legs and arms had been cut by the glass from the broken windscreen, and Reece had insisted on accompanying her to the hospital in the ambulance. None of her cuts were too serious, but the doctors decided to keep her in hospital for a couple of days in case of concussion or delayed shock. Reece had been marvellous, going to her flat to pick up some of her nightclothes and toiletries, telephoning her mother to let her know what had happened once he had established she was her nearest relative.

When he came to see her the next day he had missed meeting her mother by only a few minutes, and knowing Amanda as well as she did she had been glad of that. Once her mother got her claws into a man he didn’t usually escape until she wanted him to.

Reece had telephoned the next morning, explaining he wouldn’t be able to get in to see her that afternoon because of a business meeting, but he had asked his father to come instead and would come himself that evening. She had protested against the need for his father to visit her when he was probably as busy a man as Reece himself was. But Reece had been adamant. The gentleness and warm charm she had associated with Reece had revealed a will of iron at that moment.

Robert Harrington was an older, just as charming, and just as steely, version of his son. She had known by the expression on her mother’s face when he entered the hospital room that his days as a single man were numbered. They were married within the month, and Reece Harrington had become her stepbrother. Laurel had avoided all of them during the following year whenever she could.

The small band played in one corner of the room, the delicious buffet was arranged in another; the private reception room at this leading hotel filled with friends of Laurel and Giles. To be truthful most of them were Laurel’s friends, the people Giles had invited only acquaintances from the firm he worked for. He had only been in London for about eighteen months and so had not made a lot of friends of his own. But he got on with most of Laurel’s friends, and had made them his own.

He was late. One of the people he worked with had told her they thought he might still be working, that he had been when she left. Laurel had tried calling, but as most of the building had already closed down for the night the switchboard was also closed down. Still, she wasn’t too concerned just yet; the party wasn’t really due to start until eight o’clock, although almost everyone seemed to have arrived already.

The management of the hotel had made a nice job of decorating the room, and a lovely iced cake stood in the middle of the buffet table, ‘Happy Engagement’ written on it stop. She even had the ring in her handbag, having picked it up from the jewellers on her way to work this morning, it having needed to be made smaller. It was Giles’ grandmother’s ring, a ruby surrounded by large diamonds, and although Laurel found the setting a little old-fashioned she had been honoured when Giles told her it had belonged to his grandmother.

But where was he? It was getting dangerously close to eight o’clock, and he still hadn’t arrived.

‘You look lovely, darling.’

She turned in time to be enveloped in the heady perfume her mother wore, receiving a brief hug. If she looked lovely, then her mother looked radiantly beautiful! Amanda was as petite as she, her golden hair slightly longer and softer in style, the make-up perfect on her beautiful face, the black dress she wore clinging to her slightly fuller curves. They could have been mistaken for sisters, with Amanda only the slightly older, much more glamorously beautiful one.

‘You do look lovely, Laurel.’ A hint of spicy cologne pervaded her nostrils as Reece, his black evening suit tailored to him perfectly, bent to lightly brush her lips with his. ‘Where is your elusive fiancé?’ he drawled, brows arched.

Her mouth still tingled from the contact with his, her cheeks flushed, a feverish glitter to her eyes. ‘I hope you enjoy the party,’ she murmured politely. ‘Please go and get yourself a drink.’ She vaguely pointed in the direction of the bar behind them.

Broodingly dark eyes studied her for long timeless minutes before Reece calmly interrupted Amanda’s light chatter. ‘Martini?’ He took her arm and led her over to the bar, both quickly swallowed up in the crowd, although Reece stood slightly taller than most of the men in the room.

Laurel was getting irritated now. Where was Giles? Surely he didn’t have to work this late, tonight, of all nights? The announcement of their engagement was due to be made at eight-fifteen; if Giles didn’t arrive soon she was going to have to delay it.

‘Miss Matthews?’

She turned sharply to the waiter that hovered at her elbow. ‘Yes?’ she invited worriedly.

‘This note has just been delivered for you.’ He thrust the small envelope into her hand before hastily making his exit.

Laurel frowned as she slit open the envelope. She and Giles had received many cards of congratulations since she had told people of their forthcoming engagement; but this didn’t look like one of them.

All colour drained from her cheeks as she read the short message written inside, her hands shaking so badly that she didn’t have the strength to protest when the note was taken out of her hands, Reece reading it quickly.

‘The bastard!’ He looked up at her anxiously, his arm going about her waist as she would have swayed.

‘He gave no indication,’ she mumbled into Reece’s chest. ‘Said nothing when I saw him two days ago. Oh God!’ She looked up at him with pained eyes. ‘What am I going to do with all these people? And then there’s the presents and cards that will have to be returned,’ she groaned. ‘I——’

‘Laurel, do you trust me?’ he prompted intently.

She looked up into the golden-brown eyes, unable to look away. ‘Yes,’ she answered dazedly, knowing she did trust him.

‘Then let me handle this,’ he told her.

‘But——’

‘Laurel, let me,’ he insisted tersely.

She searched the harshness of his face, the determination of his mouth and chin. ‘Yes,’ she accepted dully. ‘You do what you think best.’

He squeezed her arm reassuringly before turning and making his way to the microphone, silencing the music as he stepped forward to speak. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he greeted warmly. ‘I’m glad you could all make it tonight. I hope none of you will be too disappointed when I tell you there has been one little change in the proceedings.’ The silence in the room was deathly now as everyone waited expectantly.

Laurel groaned with humiliation, dropping down into a chair as her guests remained mesmerised by what Reece was saying. A ‘little change’, he called it; she would have described Giles defection completely differently! He had changed his mind, he had written. Couldn’t go through with it, he had added. And just as an afterthought, Could he have his grandmother’s ring back!

As soon as Reece had told everyone the engagement was off she was going to hide herself in her flat for the next twelve hours until necessity meant she had to come out to open the shop in the morning!

‘With the fascinating enchantment of all women, Laurel has changed her mind,’ Reece continued amiably.

She appreciated his help, but as she was the one at the party it was obvious she wasn’t the one to have changed her mind!

‘Much as she likes and respects Giles she has decided, for the sake of their happiness, that she can’t marry him,’ Reece went on.

She could sense the pitying looks directed at her even as she bent her head so that she shouldn’t actually see them, knew everyone must have guessed at the truth by now.

‘I hope you’ll all understand when I tell you that Laurel has realised she can’t marry Giles because it’s me she loves, and that she has accepted my request that she become my wife,’ Reece announced proudly.

Laurel’s head shot back disbelievingly. He couldn’t really have said that!

CHAPTER TWO

SHE knew he had as people surged forward to offer their congratulations.

‘He’s beautiful, darling.’ Heather, one of her more outrageously outspoken friends, eyed Reece covetously as he left the microphone to cross the room to Laurel’s side. ‘I’d change my mind, too, if he asked me.’ She gave the man who had accompanied her to the party a disparaging look before walking off.

‘Gorgeous,’ Polly agreed as she bent to kiss her cheek. ‘And I fell for the “brother” routine this afternoon,’ she grimaced.

‘He’s a lucky man.’ David, Polly’s husband, hugged her warmly.

‘Behave yourself,’ Polly glared at him. ‘If I don’t hit you Reece might, and he looks a powerful man to me.’

‘Darling!’ her mother kissed her, smiling happily. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

It was a surprise, but she doubted she would ever think of it as lovely! Why on earth had Reece told these people such a lie and landed them in this mess?

He was in front of her now, his arm about her waist as he pulled her to her feet and held her at his side, the heat of his hand seeming to burn through the silky material. Laurel stood by him numbly as he charmingly accepted the congratulations still coming their way.

She felt devastated by Giles’s betrayal, knew he had to realise what an embarrassing position he would put her in by not turning up at the party they had been arranging for months. She felt alternately like sitting down and crying like a hurt child or punching him in the face! If she ever saw him again. Oh yes, she would see him again; he had said he would call around tomorrow once the shop had closed to collect the ring. If he thought she was handing that over to him as well he was in for a shock!

‘Darling?’

She looked up at Reece with blank eyes, too lost in thoughts of what a fool she had been to have kept up with the conversation.

He frowned as he saw the bewilderment in her eyes, his mouth firming before he bent his head to quickly claim her lips with his. Laurel gasped as she realised what he was about to do, her parted lips seeming like an invitation to the people watching them. It wasn’t an exploratory kiss like the one he had given her earlier at the shop; this time he demanded, and took when she didn’t freely give. His arrogant demand made her even more angry than she already was, kissing him back as roughly, her mouth swollen and bruised when he finally drew back, her eyes bright and feverish.

‘When two combustible substances meet…’ David murmured admiringly.

The indulgently amused laughter of their onlookers broke the tension, Laurel turning hastily away from the humour Reece tried to share with her. ‘Please, everyone, there’s plenty of food and drink,’ she invited. ‘We’re here to have a good time.’

‘We’ll start the dancing off.’ Reece pulled her back into his arms as the band began to play a slow haunting melody, moving gracefully to the music as he moulded Laurel to him from breast to thigh. His face nuzzled in her hair as he bent down to her. ‘Are you all right now?’ he finally asked softly.

‘You said you would handle it,’ she choked.

‘And you told me to do what I thought best,’ he reminded huskily, giving every impression of a newly engaged man, slowly caressing her as they danced. ‘If I had told them the truth you would now know the pity and embarrassment of having to return their gifts to them.’

‘And instead I’m now the envy of several of my friends,’ she said disgustedly, knowing that as far as Heather was concerned her boyfriend of the last few months came a very poor second to Reece.

He looked down at her with amused eyes. ‘Which ones?’ he teased.

Her nails dug into his neck where he had put her arms about him. ‘Behave yourself!’ she frowned.

‘I’d rather have you fighting me than see that defeated look in your eyes when you read Gilbraith’s letter,’ he said seriously.

‘I wasn’t defeated,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I was angry. I still am.’

‘Good,’ Reece nodded admiringly.

‘At you, too.’ She glared at him. ‘You——’ Reece stopped her tirade by once again putting his mouth on hers.

‘Will you stop doing that!’ She wrenched away from him.

‘Careful.’ The warmth of his smile didn’t waver for an instant. ‘We have an audience,’ he added pleasantly, once again holding her lightly against him.

Laurel turned sharply to look about them, feeling the colour darken her cheeks as she realised they were the only two people dancing, her friends standing around the dance floor watching them indulgently. She quickly turned back to Reece. ‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘This is awful!’

‘Smile when you say that.’ His lips moved lightly across her cheek to the edge of her mouth.

‘Reece, I feel as if I’m caught in a nightmare and can’t wake up!’ She trembled.

He laughed softly as he straightened. ‘That’s the first time any woman has described kissing me as a nightmare! I’m obviously not finding the experience of being your fiancé as unsettling as you are.’

‘Why did you do it?’ she groaned.

‘Cheer up,’ he told her lightly. ‘It will only be for a few weeks.’

‘A few weeks!’ she repeated aghast. ‘Reece, we can’t possibly——’

‘Of course we can,’ he dismissed her objections. ‘I’m quite enjoying myself, actually,’ he grinned.

Anger darkened her eyes, making them look bigger than ever. ‘I’m not!’ she snapped.

‘I can see that,’ he said amiably. ‘I don’t have to be the consolation prize, you know.’

She frowned. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Well, we are engaged. It seems a pity to waste the opportunity——’

‘The opportunity doesn’t arise,’ she told him firmly, abruptly ending the dance. ‘Ask my mother to dance, Polly is getting a little frantic,’ she added scornfully, several other couples dancing with them now, David and Amanda one of them, David obviously enthralled by her mother.

Reece frowned down at her. ‘Amanda can’t help her beauty and warmth.’

‘Can’t she?’ Laurel said brittlely. ‘Don’t tell me you are another one, Reece?’ she derided the fallibility of men falling for a beautiful face and sexy body, oblivious of the woman inside the body.

‘I like your mother very much,’ he told her firmly. ‘In fact, sometimes I wonder how she could be your mother!’ he reproved.

She drew in an angry breath. ‘Believe me, there’s no doubt about that, I checked it out myself years ago!’

‘Laurel——’

‘I have to go and powder my nose!’ She walked away from him, her head held high, looking at no one, although she knew people were watching her. My God, no one believed for a minute that this engagement to Reece was a real one!

That wasn’t so surprising. She had made no secret of the fact that she was marrying Giles for anything but love. She was fond of him, he was charming and pleasant to be around, made no demands on her that she wasn’t prepared to give.

None of the people that really knew her would ever believe she had chosen arrogant, sensually attractive Reece Harrington in his place!

Then she would just have to make them believe it, make them think she had been so overwhelmed with love for Reece that for once she had thrown caution to the wind and given in to an impulse, that of marrying Reece. When the engagement was broken that would only reaffirm the claim she had always made that a relationship should be founded on liking and respect rather than the painful emotion of love.

But that would never be with Giles now. Even if he should get over his attack of nerves and change his mind and ask to come back she would never let him. He had forfeited any right to her affection by the humiliating blow he had dealt her tonight. If it hadn’t been for Reece…

Reece. She had known from the moment he helped her from her wrecked car that he was a dangerous man to be around, that any woman that became involved with him would have to give her soul as well as her heart and body.

But she had no intention of becoming involved with him, merely of letting him continue to pretend to be her fiancé. And she was about to start pretending to be his fiancée.

He was standing near the bar talking to Amanda, Polly and David when she entered the room, setting her shoulders determinedly as she walked over to his side. ‘I hope I wasn’t gone too long, darling.’ She stretched up to kiss him, even the high heels on her shoes meaning she still had to go a long way to reach his lips. ‘I missed you,’ she told him throatily.

Humour glinted in his eyes as he quickly masked his surprise at this sudden change in her. ‘I missed you too, darling.’ He teased her lips with his own as he curved her body up into his. ‘Five minutes is too long to be apart,’ he murmured mockingly.

‘Wait until you’ve been married almost five years,’ David derided. ‘Then you would be glad of five minutes to yourself!’

‘That’s all the thanks I get after becoming his child-bride at only nineteen, giving him all of my youth!’ Polly gave him a playful punch on the arm, the couple more in love now than they had ever been, and looking it.

‘What about my youth?’ he teasingly complained. ‘Have you seen how many grey hairs I have on my chest now?’

‘Six,’ his wife taunted. ‘I counted them last night. Afterwards.’

David gave Laurel and Reece an abashed smile. ‘She only treats me this way because she knows I lust after her body!’

Reece laughed softly. ‘I know the feeling!’ He looked warmly down at Laurel.

And she had thought her acting was good! If only a ‘slightly slimmer’ version of the woman he had looked at in the book illustration earlier this evening was his taste for a bed-partner then she fell far short of the required inches. What she had was all in proportion, but those proportions were minimum. Nevertheless, Reece managed to look as if he really couldn’t wait to get her into bed with him later this evening.

And secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t going to happen Laurel played the part of besotted fiancée for the rest of the evening. She was so convincing that as she and Reece languorously danced the night away she could feel the hard desire of his taut thighs against her stomach!

But none of her friends looked at her curiously any more, and even Giles’s work-mates looked convinced by her act, Laurel having assured them they had no need to leave, most of them convinced that Giles had been working this evening as a way of compensation for his broken engagement. They had assured Laurel he didn’t look too broken-hearted, and that they were sure he would quickly recover from his disappointment. Somehow that didn’t make Laurel feel better at all!

But her friends seemed to accept that, like the rest of them, she had fallen into the love-trap, that all her avowals in the past that it would never happen to her had fallen by the wayside when confronted with Reece Harrington. She was content to let them think that, knew it would only make her opinion more right when her engagement to Reece floundered.

‘I can’t tell you how happy I am for you both,’ her mother told them warmly, Reece insisting on driving them both home after the party had broken up after one o’clock in the morning, driving Amanda home first, even though Laurel had argued that he would only have to drive back again after taking her home. Reece had been adamant. ‘Robert is going to be so surprised when he gets home tomorrow,’ she added lightly. ‘You could have let me in on the secret before the party, Reece,’ she chided her stepson indulgently.

‘Amanda——’

‘Laurel had to talk to Giles first.’ Reece’s warning look in the driving mirror as Laurel sat in the back of the car effectively silenced her, her mother sitting beside Reece in the sleek silver sports model Jaguar. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair for us to tell anyone else until she had had a chance to explain to him.’

‘No,’ her mother conceded, turning to smile at Laurel. ‘When is the wedding to be, darling?’

‘Give us time to catch our breaths, Amanda,’ Reece derided lightly. ‘We only realised this evening that we’re in love.’

Amanda’s eyes widened in the semi-light of the streetlamped streets. ‘When you went to the shop to see Laurel about my invitation?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded.

‘Goodness, Reece, you’re an even faster worker than your father,’ Amanda chuckled. ‘At least he waited a week after we met before proposing.’

‘But I’ve already known Laurel for a year,’ Reece reminded.

‘And suddenly realised you were in love with her when you knew she was going to marry another man! That’s so romantic,’ Amanda sighed happily. ‘Do you realise that once you and Reece are married, Laurel, that our last names will once again be the same?’

This time she ignored the warning look in the mirror, her mouth twisting derisively. ‘And it’s certainly been a long time since that happened,’ she rasped.

‘Has it?’ Amanda frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose it has,’ she nodded slowly. ‘You could have taken Frank’s name——’

‘I didn’t want it,’ she dismissed sharply, having disliked her mother’s second husband intensely.

‘No,’ Amanda grimaced. ‘You and Frank never did get on.’

She had never felt the need to tell her mother the reason she disliked Frank Shepherd so much, of the advances he always made to her whenever she came home from the expensive boarding-school they had sent her to after their marriage. She had been on the edge of sixteen at the time, just budding into womanhood, a late developer physically, and Frank had obviously found the way that she was developing extremely erotic.

‘Frank was a——’

‘We’ll get straight off if you don’t mind, Amanda,’ Reece cut in tightly as he stopped the Jaguar outside the impressive Harrington home, several lights glowing welcomingly inside the house. ‘Laurel has to open the shop in the morning.’

‘Of course, darling.’ Amanda got out of the car as Reece opened the door for her, turning to push the seat forward so that Laurel could get out. ‘I’m sure you want to sit next to Reece,’ she said knowingly.

As Laurel had been the one to insist her mother be the one to sit next to him on the drive here that assumption was completely erroneous. She reluctantly climbed out of the back of the car, receiving a hug from her mother before getting into the front passenger seat.

‘The two of you must come to dinner tomorrow evening,’ Amanda invited eagerly. ‘Robert will insist,’ she added firmly as Laurel seemed about to refuse.

‘And as Dad’s even more arrogant than I am we might as well give in gracefully,’ Reece accepted lightly. ‘About seven-thirty, okay, Laurel?’

‘Fine,’ she agreed drily, staring out the front window as Reece walked her mother into the house.

‘What did he do to you?’

Laurel turned to give Reece a startled look, the question coming out of the blue after they had driven in silence for the last ten minutes. ‘Giles?’ she frowned her puzzlement. ‘You read the letter——’

‘Not Gilbraith,’ Reece dismissed harshly. ‘Frank Shepherd!’

Her breathing suddenly became ragged. ‘I rarely saw him, I was away at school a lot.’

‘And when you weren’t?’ he persisted grimly.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know——’

‘Laurel, don’t lie to me; I could clearly see your face in the driving-mirror.’ His hands tightly gripped the steering-wheel, his body rigid. ‘What did the bastard do to you?’ he asked again.

She swallowed hard, moistening stiff lips. ‘Amanda was only married to him for a year——’

‘Laurel,’ Reece cut in with controlled violence. ‘I could see the disgust in your face, a remembered fear in your eyes. Darling, tell me,’ he encouraged throatily. ‘It will be all right.’

She sighed. ‘He didn’t really do anything,’ she shook her head. ‘Not really.’

‘Then tell me!’

‘He… it was just talk, mainly! About my body.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I was just developing breasts.’ She swallowed again. ‘And he—he was offensive, Reece, that’s all,’ she dismissed impatiently.

‘Did he touch you?’

She gasped at the bluntness of the query, glad of the semi-darkness to hide her flushed cheeks. ‘Only once or twice,’ she admitted in a pained voice. ‘Look, Reece, I don’t——’

‘Do you know why Amanda divorced him?’ Reece asked harshly.

Laurel shrugged uninterestedly. ‘She told me they had realised they weren’t suited to each other.’

He nodded. ‘That was part of it. She stayed with him to try and give you a stable life, the education you deserved. I’m sure that if she had any idea what he was doing to you——’

‘I didn’t tell her then, and I don’t want her to know now,’ Laurel gave him a warning glare. ‘I don’t blame her for it, Frank was careful always to be the loving stepfather whenever my mother was around.’

‘She had quite an unhappy time with him too, although it isn’t up to me to discuss that with you. What a damned mess!’ he ground out. ‘Has—did the experience put you off making love?’

‘No,’ she answered abruptly. How could she be put off something she had never been on! She had been prepared to be a wife to Giles, but he hadn’t been all that interested in the physical side of their relationship either, had never tried to make love to her fully. It had been something else about him that she liked and approved of.

‘Thank God,’ Reece sighed his relief at her answer.

‘Why didn’t you let me tell Amanda the engagement wasn’t a real one?’ she abruptly changed the subject.

‘I didn’t think you would want to be the object of her pity any more than you did anyone else’s,’ he rasped. ‘Less so than most!’

She blushed at the truth of that. ‘Thank you. I—I don’t think I said this earlier, but——’

‘You didn’t,’ he mocked.

Laurel glared at him. ‘You have no idea what I’m going to say!’

‘I don’t?’ He raised innocent brows. ‘I thought you were going to thank me for becoming your fiancé and so rescuing you from an awkward situation.’

‘I was,’ she snapped.

‘Well?’ he prompted as no gratitude was forthcoming.

‘I said I was; I changed my mind!’

Reece began to laugh softly. ‘Laurel, has anyone told you that you’re adorable?’

No one ever had. She hadn’t been a pretty child, a late developing adolescent, was now a capable lady rather than a sexy one. ‘Not lately,’ she drawled. ‘Although I’m glad you find me so amusing,’ she added with obvious sarcasm.

He sobered instantly. ‘I’m not laughing at you, Laurel, I’m laughing at your humour. I like it.’

‘It isn’t something I’m renowned for,’ she scorned drily.

‘That’s why it’s all the more refreshing when it does surface.’ He began to frown. ‘What are you going to do about Giles?’

She managed to keep up with his change of thought this time, glad the subject of her unhappy experience with Frank Shepherd had been forgotten. She had never forgotten it, was surprised she had told Reece about it. But then he seemed to bring out a lot of reactions from her that weren’t strictly normal for Laurel Matthews. ‘I don’t think I have to do anything about Giles; he seems to have already done it.’

‘So it’s over between the two of you, just like that?’ he said disbelievingly.

‘It would seem so,’ she nodded abruptly, still raw from the betrayal.

‘No loose ends to tie up? No broken heart to be mended?’

‘My heart is my affair,’ she snapped. ‘And there aren’t any loose ends that I can see,’ she frowned.

‘What about the ring he asked for?’

‘If he wants it he’ll have to come and get it,’ she bit out tightly, thinking of the unfinished business with Giles that she didn’t want to discuss with Reece.

‘Tomorrow evening,’ Reece nodded slowly. ‘I’ll make sure I’m there.’

‘Why?’ Her eyes widened indignantly.

‘Because I don’t think you should be alone with him!’

She gave a scornful laugh. ‘Reece, until a few hours ago I was going to marry the man; he won’t harm me,’ she dismissed assuredly.

‘That isn’t the reason I don’t want you to be alone with him.’ He shook his head, his mouth firm.

‘Then why——’ She paled at the look in his eyes as he parked the car outside her home before turning in his seat to look at her. ‘Reece, this engagement isn’t real! It’s just a face-saver for me until we can break off our engagement.’

‘I know that,’ he nodded. ‘And so will Gilbraith if I’m not with you tomorrow.’

‘He won’t know we’re even engaged,’ she protested.

‘Some of the people there tonight were his colleagues,’ Reece reminded tautly. ‘One of them is probably telephoning him right now with the news that you announced your engagement to me. The whole charade will have been a waste of time if he discovers it isn’t real. And then we’re both going to look twice as foolish.’

He was right, of course, it didn’t take a genius to work it out. And why not let Giles think his defection had affected her so little she had immediately become engaged to a man who was twice the man he would ever be? If Reece were agreeable, and he obviously was, why not?

‘He said he would be over once I’ve closed the shop for the night, that’s about six-thirty,’ she told Reece abruptly.

‘Fine,’ he nodded. ‘I’ll be there.’

And Laurel knew that Giles would be at the shop by six so that gave her half an hour to talk to him alone!

Reece got out of the car to open the door for her. ‘I’ll walk you inside.’

She didn’t argue, knowing that it would have no effect if she did; Reece would do exactly what he wanted to do. He held her elbow on the way up in the lift, taking the key from her hand to unlock the door to go in and switch on the lights before she entered.

‘How do you think I manage every other evening?’ she mocked his protective action, throwing her bag down into a chair.

‘Alone,’ he bit out grimly. ‘Why didn’t you accept the invitation to move in with us?’

Her mouth twisted. ‘Because I’m a grown woman, not a child. I run my own business and my own life. I have no intention of moving back in with my mother,’ she derided.

‘If that’s a dig at me I have my own wing of the house,’ he drawled.

‘You still live with your father and my mother, take your meals with them,’ she dismissed.

He looked at her unblinkingly. ‘I’m not about to justify myself to you,’ he told her coldly. ‘I live there because it’s my home. Now come here——’

‘What…’

‘You deliberately moved provocatively against me on the dance floor tonight.’ His arms moved about her tightly as he effortlessly moulded her body to his. ‘Now it’s time to pay up on those promises.’

‘Reece…’

‘I’ve discovered the fire in you, Laurel,’ he grated. ‘And I intend to burn in it!’

His words made her feel on fire, never having been the recipient of such earthy compliments before. He had kissed her this evening several times, with varying degrees of emotion, she couldn’t help but feel curious now about how it would be to be kissed by him with sensual intensity.

The kiss began as a slow exploration, but as the warmth spread through her body and she moved searchingly against him the kiss became subtly different, demanding, arousing; Laurel’s hands moving restlessly over the warmth of his back beneath the evening jacket.

She had never felt in the least curious about any man’s body, found Giles’s light lovemaking only mildly interesting. But she was more than just curious about Reece’s body, could imagine how magnificent he would look naked, her senses heightened because of her imaginings.

She gasped as the warmth of his hand closed over the material of her dress, on the mound of her breast. ‘No, I——’

‘Small, but perfect,’ he told her huskily.

‘Small is right,’ she agreed bitterly, pushing his hand away.

He looked down at her with honey-warm eyes. ‘But perfect,’ he insisted gruffly. ‘Don’t you have any idea how sexy you are?’

She avoided his eyes. ‘Frank said——’

‘Forget that bastard!’ he grated. ‘What did Gilbraith say?’ His eyes were narrowed.

Laurel shrugged evasively. ‘He isn’t—wasn’t, a very sensual man,’ she dismissed.

‘I am,’ Reece told her softly. ‘Very sensual. And I’ve wanted you from the moment I first saw you, in every way there is and ever has been.’

‘When you first saw me I was slumped over the steering-wheel of my car covered in blood,’ she scorned the claim.

His steady gaze held hers. ‘And I wanted you.’

‘That sort of want is just a bodily function. And I’m not into the Kama Sutra,’ she scorned.

‘I said in every way there is,’ he insisted intently. ‘Not every position. It isn’t just sex I want from you. Laurel, I——’

‘Would you please go now?’ She turned away, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her. ‘It’s been a traumatic evening; I’d like to be alone now.’

‘Laurel——’

‘Please go, Reece,’ she sighed wearily.

‘Okay,’ he rasped. ‘I will. It’s too soon for you, I realise that, but you didn’t love Gilbraith, Laurel. It’s only your pride that has been injured, and once you get over that I——’

‘Our engagement will be broken and we can get on with our respective lives,’ she interrupted curtly. ‘I’m grateful for your help, and a few moments ago I may even have felt a little sexual curiosity concerning you, but that’s all it was.’

‘Was it?’ His eyes were narrowed.

‘Yes, it was,’ she answered calmly.

He looked at her silently for several seconds, and then he slowly nodded. ‘I’ll be there about six-thirty tomorrow.’

‘Yes.’ She accompanied him towards the door.

‘I don’t… Good God, what do you have all these locks for?’ He eyed the four locks on the inside of her door disbelievingly. ‘This isn’t New York, you know!’

Laurel shrugged. ‘There have been several burglaries in the building the last few months; these locks are just a precaution.’

Reece frowned darkly. ‘Burglaries? I don’t like the sound——’

‘No one asked you to like or dislike it,’ she snapped irritably. ‘I’ve taken care of myself since I was sixteen years old, I certainly don’t need some strong arrogant man trying to throw his undoubtable weight about in my life now!’

‘I hope you weren’t implying that I’m fat,’ he said indignantly.

He was a big man, about two hundred pounds, possibly a little less, but he was in no way fat, just pure muscle and sinew and deep copper-tone flesh. ‘Maybe a little,’ she mocked. ‘Maybe you don’t get enough exercise.’

His eyes widened, gold flames in the dark brown depths. ‘I’m hoping to improve that in the near future.’

Laurel couldn’t prevent the blush coming to her cheeks at the intended innuendo. ‘Reece,’ she began warningly, disconcerted by the sudden grin he gave, deep grooves etched beside his mouth and eyes, an endearing dimple appearing in one cheek. ‘What is it?’ she demanded suspiciously.

‘Am I really strong and arrogant?’

She frowned. ‘It’s nothing to feel proud of, arrogance isn’t a virtue.’

‘It is when it’s combined with strength,’ he said with satisfaction.

Laurel was about to argue with him, and then thought better of it; she wanted him to leave tonight, not get into an argument about his virtues—or lack of them. ‘If you say so,’ she conceded abruptly.

He raised dark brows, grimacing. ‘You want me to leave, right?’

‘That is the general idea.’ She stood her ground firmly as she waited at the door.

‘Don’t forget to fasten the lock—all of them!—after I leave.’ His hand gently cupped one side of her face. ‘I don’t like to think of you alone here when someone is known to be burglarising the place.’

‘It’s a wicked world we live in,’ she taunted drily.

His mouth quirked. ‘Just tell me if I’m being too over-protective,’ he mocked.

She knew he was teasing, but she gave him a serious answer. ‘I don’t want, or need, anyone to protect me.’

‘You were going to marry Gilbraith,’ he pointed out reasoningly.

‘It would have been a partnership, not the usual male-dominated marriage,’ she dismissed.

It was to have been much more than just a marriage partnership, she and Giles had been going to be business partners, too; had already started to do so after Giles had questioned her trust in him to help her. A couple of months ago, since they had begun arranging their engagement party, she had agreed to let him handle some of the bills, had even made arrangements at the bank so that he could sign the cheques for those bills. Two days ago she had received another reminder for one of those bills. She hadn’t been concerned at the time, had put the confusion down to the Christmas post. Now she wasn’t so sure.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE didn’t know how she could have fallen for such a trick. She had grown up around the users her mother seemed to constantly be involved with, had always been amazed when her mother didn’t see through them, most of them staying around for a couple of months, taking what they could, before moving on to another lovely woman in need of friendship and a little love.

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