“There was always one area of our marriage where we didn’t seem to have any problems. Far from it, in fact.”

It was hard to believe he was smiling. Tara might have been feeling weak-kneed and hot—looking at him made her ache for him in the most carnal way—but she still couldn’t believe his arrogance. Just because he knew she was no more immune to the sexual chemistry between them than he was, he had no right to think he was playing some kind of trump card.

“Sex isn’t a particularly sound reason on which to base a marriage,” she said huffily, wishing she didn’t sound like some prudish little virgin.

“I agree.” He flashed a deep bone-melting smile, a weapon clearly designed to elicit the most devastating response, and Tara clenched her thighs tightly together beneath her dress to stop them from shaking.

“But great sex—mind-blowing, knee-trembling, all-night-long, ‘we-don’t-need-to-sleep’ sex—now that’s another thing altogether. Wouldn’t you agree?”

For several years MAGGIE COX was a reluctant secretary who dreamed of becoming a published author. She can’t remember a time when she didn’t have her head in a book or wasn’t busy filling exercise books with stories. When she was ten years old her favorite English teacher told her, “If you don't become a writer, I’ll eat my hat!” But it was only after marrying the love of her life that she finally became convinced she might be able to achieve her dream. Now a self-confessed champion of dreamers everywhere, she urges everyone with a dream to go for it and never give up. Also a busy full-time mom, who tries constantly not to be so busy in what she laughingly calls her spare time, she loves to watch good drama or romantic movies, and eat chocolate!

The Marriage Renewal
Maggie Cox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my mom, Norah, who taught me to love books practically as soon as I could talk and who always believed that one day something really good would happen to me.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

THE baby had distracted her. The beautiful, tow-haired, drooling baby, who had sat opposite her on his mother’s lap, his gummy grin tying Tara’s heart into knots and consigning all her well-intentioned plans to enjoy a carefree, happy day off to oblivion. All because his name was Gabriel. By the time she got off the train at Liverpool Street, tears had been welling like a dam about to burst, and she’d had to dig frantically through her purse for change for the ladies’ toilet.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Tara dabbed at her streaked mascara, reapplied some blusher and sucked in several deep breaths to calm herself. It was five years ago…five years. So why hadn’t she got over it? It had just been bad luck that the baby on the train had shared his name with another beautiful baby boy…She was tired, that was all. Long overdue for a holiday. Back at her aunt’s antique shop, she had a drawer full of glossy brochures promising the destinations of a lifetime. Carefree, sun-kissed vistas that, if she ever got round to booking one, might remind her that she was just thirty years old, with a lot of life in front of her yet to have fun.

‘The V&A,’ she said out loud into the mirror, as if putting her resolve into words might give her the will and the desire to get there. She delved into her shoulder bag for a brush, quickly dragged it through her shoulder-length blonde hair, noted for the second time that day that her fringe was in dire need of a trim, then, straightening her shoulders, exited through a turnstile out into the familiar mêlée that was Liverpool Street Station. Twenty minutes later, revived by a take-away café latte, certain she was once more steering the ship, she headed determinedly down into the underground to board a tube and continue her journey to South Kensington.

Inside the museum it was almost unbearably close. Initially trying to shrug off the heat, Tara tried hard to concentrate on what she was looking at. Browsing some of the impressive historical-dress collection that spanned four centuries of European fashion—always her favourite place to start on a visit—she paused to remove her light denim jacket and comb her fingers through her hair. Her hand came away damp from her forehead. Then, worryingly, the room started to spin.

‘Oh, my God.’ Resting her head against one of the long glass cabinets, blinking at the blur of green and yellow that was some diminutive aristocrat’s ballgown, Tara prayed hard for the spinning sensation to stop. If only she’d roused herself a few minutes earlier that morning then she wouldn’t have had to fly out of the house to catch the early train—and she wouldn’t have left the house on an empty stomach. Coupled with the shock of hearing a name that haunted her from the past, it meant that her equilibrium was now paying the price.

‘Are you all right, dear?’ An elderly lady with skin that resembled soft, crumpled parchment delicately laid her hand on Tara’s shoulder. The faintest drift of lavender wafted beneath her nose. Touched by the kindness of a stranger, the younger woman opened her mouth to speak, to tell her concerned enquirer that she was perfectly fine; all she needed was to sit down for a couple of minutes then she’d be right as rain again—but the words just wouldn’t come. Inside her head Tara was frantically trying to assimilate the frightening sensation of hurtling towards the ground in a high-rise lift when suddenly her whole world tilted and she felt herself slide inelegantly to the floor.

‘Tara…Tara, wake up. Can you hear me?’

She knew that voice. Knew it intimately. It was like the stroke of velvet whispering over her skin or the first seductive swallow of good French brandy on an icy cold day. All her nerve endings exploded into vibrancy. First the baby—now this…his voice when she hadn’t heard it in over five long years… It had to be over-work, that was the only explanation.

Her heart was racing as her eyelids fluttered open. The high vaulted ceiling seemed miles away but that wasn’t the sight that consumed her body and soul. It was the intense blue gaze beneath the ridiculously long sweep of thick blond lashes staring down at her that had her riveted. Not to mention the deep indentation in the centre of a hard, chiselled jaw and the perfectly defined cheekbones in a masculine face so captivating someone ought to paint it—just to prove for posterity that male beauty like this existed…

‘Macsen.’

There was the briefest flinch in the side of his jaw in acknowledgement of his name but other than that Tara detected no discernible response. Disappointment, hurt, then confusion temporarily stalled her brain.

‘Do you know this young woman?’ It was the lady smelling of lavender. She was staring at the impressively built blond Adonis leaning over Tara as if she was going to demand some ID.

‘Yes, I know her,’ he replied in clipped tones tinged with the slightest Scandinavian accent. ‘She happens to be my wife.’

‘Oh. Well, I don’t think it was wise to let her wander around alone. She looks very peaky to me. Is she all right? Why don’t you help her sit up and give her some of this water?’ The woman helpfully produced a small bottle of mineral water from her voluminous bag.

‘I’m all right. Really.’ Struggling to a sitting position, Tara marvelled at her ability to be coherent when her heart was pushing against her ribcage as if it was about to burst. She’d fainted. That much was obvious. But where had Mac appeared from and what was he doing in the V&A? And of all the people who could have witnessed her embarrassing moment, why, oh, why did it have to be him? Apart from her elderly friend smelling of lavender, that was.

‘Have you eaten?’ Mac was already unscrewing the bottle of water, sliding his hand round the back of her head and guiding her lips towards it. Tara spluttered a little as the water filled her mouth and slid down her throat but it instantly made her feel better, more like herself.

‘What do you mean, have I eaten?’ Wiping her hand across her mouth, she was resigned to the fact that her lilac-coloured lipstick had probably been all but obliterated. Just because Mac’s impossibly blue eyes were mesmerising her as they had always had the power to do, she couldn’t really expect to look her best when she’d just passed out in front of him. But seeing him again was sweet agony to her beleaguered soul…

‘She has a habit of forgetting to eat,’ Mac confided aloud with what sounded suspiciously like resignation. ‘This isn’t the first time she’s fainted.’

‘She needs taking care of.’ The woman accepted the half-consumed bottle of water, screwed the top back on and returned it to her bag. ‘Why don’t you take her to the cafeteria and get her a sandwich?’

‘Thank you. I was just about to do that very thing.’ His tone deceptively charming, Mac bestowed one of his killer smiles on the older woman, which Tara knew just had to make her day, then brought his gaze slowly but deliberately back to her. As she swallowed hard, her heart skipped another beat.

‘I don’t want a sandwich.’ Old resentment surfaced and, scrambling to her feet, Tara dusted down her long denim skirt, green eyes shooting defiant, angry little sparks that couldn’t fail to tell him she didn’t welcome his intervention—no matter how apparently kind. He was taking charge again…just as he had always done. How dared he? Had he forgotten they hadn’t seen each other for five years? Did he think he could just walk back into her life and take up where he’d left off?

Of course he didn’t. Her heart sank. She was being utterly foolish and stupid. If he’d wanted to take up where they’d left off he would have contacted her long before this. Long before she’d built an impenetrable fortress round her heart to stave off further hurt or disappointment.

‘Well, take care, then…both of you.’ With a doting smile—the kind reserved for beloved grandchildren—the elderly lady left them.

Tara ran her tongue round the seam of her lips then stole a furtive glance at Mac. He towered over her, tall, broad-shouldered, athletically lean and commanding in that impossibly arrogant way he had that made her feel very much ‘the little woman,’ no matter how emancipated she told herself she was. He was wearing his hair a little longer than she remembered but it was still straight, blond and unbelievably sexy. Tactile. Just begging for her to run her fingers through it…

A small trickle of perspiration slid down her back between her shoulder blades.

‘What are you doing here?’ Caught off-balance, she knew her voice lacked the strength it had normally. It made her stiffen her resolve to somehow stay immune to this man.

A beguiling dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth as he straightened the cuffs of his suit jacket—his very expensive suit jacket. ‘Looking for you. What else?’

Mac watched her reluctantly eat her sandwich. She had that look on her face that said she was eating it under duress—not because it was good for her or because he thought she should. She was just as stubborn as he remembered, stubborn and…gorgeous. Simply ravishing in that fresh-faced English way, with her softly mussed blonde hair, milkmaid complexion and pretty green eyes like emeralds washed beneath a crystal-clear fountain.

He’d missed her. An odd little jump in the pit of his stomach attested to that. Suddenly unclear about his own intentions, he told himself to get a grip. All he had to do was tell her what he wanted and go. After which, he needed never set eyes on her again. Something in him baulked at that.

‘My aunt had no business telling you where to find me,’ Tara pouted, her plump lower lip sulky but undeniably appealing. ‘Anyway, how did you know where to look?’

Stirring his coffee, Mac took a careful sip before replying. ‘You always used to come here first, remember? You loved looking at the clothes.’

She did. And more often than not she’d dragged Mac round with her, promising she’d go to one of his boring business dinners with him if he’d just humour her in this, her favourite pastime.

Another bite of sandwich found its way to her mouth. The tuna and mayonnaise filling could have been wallpaper paste for all she knew. Her tastebuds had ceased to function while her stomach was mimicking the on-off cycle of a tumble-drier, all because Mac—the man she’d given her heart to all those years ago—was sitting opposite her as if he’d never been away. But there was no warmth in his expression as their gazes locked. Instead, he was unsmiling and detached, like one of those beautiful marble statues that graced some of these very halls, as distant from her now as he’d been during the last painful six months they’d been together. They were some of the longest, loneliest, hardest months of her life, she recalled. Months when they were barely even speaking to each other, when they’d both sought relief and refuge elsewhere. Mac in his work—which was all-consuming at the best of times—and Tara in her dancing.

‘Well, seeing as how you’ve gone to so much trouble to seek me out, you’d better tell me what you want.’ He wasn’t the only one who could project ‘detached’, she thought defiantly. The last thing she wanted him to conclude was that she was still missing him. But just seeing him again had brought so many long-buried emotions to the surface. Love, fear, bitterness and regret—feelings she’d tried so very hard to put behind her…and obviously failed miserably.

‘What do I want?’ A muscle ticked briefly in the side of a lean, clean-shaven jaw that Tara remembered felt like rough velvet when she pressed her cheek to it. He also wore the same aftershave, she noted. A timeless, classic, sexy male fragrance that she always associated with Mac. ‘I want a divorce, Tara. That’s what I want.’

Her musings were roughly halted.

‘You mean you want to get married again?’ She could think of no other reason he’d finally got round to asking for the one thing they’d both avoided for the past five years. She steeled herself. He didn’t reply straight away and, feeling her heartbeat throb loudly in her ears, Tara glanced round at the trickle of people moving in and out of the cafeteria, just to gain some precious time. Time when she could pretend he hadn’t made the demand she’d never wanted to hear.

‘I’ve met someone.’

Of course he had. Women were always drawn to Mac—like the proverbial bees to a honeypot. But he had always taken great pains to reassure Tara he only had eyes for her.

‘I’m just surprised you haven’t asked before now.’ Pushing away her plate with the barely touched sandwich on it, she bit her lip to stem the threatening onrush of tears. There was no way on God’s green earth that she was going to break down in front of him. He’d seen her at her lowest ebb and he’d walked away. Walked away…

Mac saw the colour drain from her face and wondered why. Their marriage had been over a long time ago, so she could hardly be shocked that he was finally drawing a line under it after all these years. In fact, he’d been more surprised that she hadn’t contacted him first. He was so sure that some nice young man would snap her up the moment she’d been free of him that almost every day for the first year after they’d parted he’d dreaded the phone ringing or picking up his mail. Just in case it was Tara asking him for a divorce.

‘There didn’t seem much point until now.’ He drew his fingers through his hair and Tara stared in shock at the slim platinum band he was still wearing. Why on earth hadn’t he taken it off? Then she glanced down at its twin glinting up at her from her own slender finger and quickly folded her hands in her lap.

‘So what’s she like?’ Don’t do this, Tara…don’t torture yourself. ‘Your intended? Some single-minded career woman, no doubt—equally addicted to work with a designer wardrobe?’

‘You should finish your sandwich. You don’t want to risk passing out again. I won’t be around next time to help you up.’

‘Wasn’t that the whole problem, Mac? You never were around when I needed you. Work always came first. Well, I hope it’s brought all the success you dreamed of. Clearly it has if that suit you’re wearing is any indication.’

‘I never denied I was ambitious. You knew that from the first. But I worked hard for both of us, Tara. I’m not the selfish bastard you seem so eager to tag me as.’

‘No. You were always generous, Macsen. With your money and your expensive gifts but not your time, as I recall.’

Silently he acknowledged the truth of her statement. God knew he’d regretted it when time after time he’d had to let her down—whether it was cancelling a dinner date, missing a long-planned theatre trip or sending her off on holiday alone because something important had come up at the last minute. That was the way of it in the advertising world. Everybody wanting something yesterday and unwilling to wait, because there was always another agency who would do it quicker or cheaper. He had worked hard to make his agency one of the best and most successful in the business. But he’d paid a high price. Some might say too high.

‘Why did you move out of London to live with your aunt?’

‘That’s none of your damn business!’

Mac’s gaze was steady. ‘She told me you’d given up teaching to help her in the shop. It’s a shame; you were always so passionate about your dancing.’

‘Aunt Beth told you too much. And it’s typical that you instantly infer any decision I make about my life must naturally be a wrong one.’

‘Do I do that?’ Looking genuinely puzzled, Mac slowly shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant to imply at all. I was just surprised you’d given up something you so clearly loved.’

‘Yes, well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? So tell me, what made you decide to try again? At marriage, I mean? Last time we were together you yelled at me that it was the biggest mistake of your life.’

The pain in Tara’s throat was making it difficult to speak. He’d wounded her deeply with his cruel, angry words then walked out without giving her a chance to make things right. The following day he’d rung to say he was leaving. He’d come home that night to pack, then left her in pieces while he walked calmly out the door. A few days later he’d sent her a cheque for some outrageously large amount in a card with a Monet painting on the front—the one with the waterlilies—and she’d torn it up along with the cheque and thrown it in the bin.

‘I lost my father last year to cancer.’ Mac’s words were hesitant, measured, and Tara’s foolish heart turned over at the flash of pain in his deep blue eyes, but she’d never met his parents. Mac had always been too busy to arrange it. Another casualty of his drive to succeed. ‘Something like that…the death of a parent…makes you think about your own mortality. I’m thirty-eight years old, Tara, and I want a child. I want the chance to be a father.’

‘Is that right?’ Her words were barely above a whisper and Mac could see that she was visibly shaken. He frowned. A memory returned that jolted him. Clearly he should have chosen his words more carefully.

‘I’ve got to go.’ Gathering up her jacket from the spare chair between them, Tara got hurriedly to her feet. ‘I’ve just remembered I’ve got several things to do today. I can’t stay here chatting. You can have your divorce, Mac. You know where I live, so send the papers there and I’ll sign them. Good luck.’

‘Tara!’

He pursued her from the cafeteria into a long, echoing corridor with marble busts of grave historical dignitaries looking on and a shiny parquet floor. When he caught up with her, urgently spinning her round to face him, it distressed him intensely that she was crying. Two slow wet tracks trickled down her face onto her chin. Impatiently she scrubbed them away. ‘What is it? You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? What more do you want?’

‘I want to know why you’re crying.’ He held onto her arm when she would have tugged it free and felt it suddenly grow limp in his hand.

‘You said you wanted a child, that you wanted to be a father?’ Suddenly weary and angry and beyond caring that she was about to lay her soul bare for him to trample all over it, Tara lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I begged you to let me have a baby…do you remember that?’

Mac did. He remembered a night of the sweetest, most erotic lovemaking known to man—a night that had come about after another bitter argument, when their mutual desire and attraction was stronger than the anger that raged between them—and his beautiful green-eyed wife laying her head on his chest and asking him if he could guess what she wanted more than anything else in the world. Suddenly his chest was so tight he could hardly breathe.

‘I remember.’ Hot colour crept up his neck and he let go of her arm.

‘When we broke up I was pregnant.’

Her words sliced through him, knocking his world off its axis.

‘I didn’t— Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Why should I have? You left. Our marriage was over. You didn’t want a baby anyway. You didn’t know if you were cut out to be a father, wasn’t that what you said at the time? Work was too demanding, you were busy building up the business…“safeguarding” our future, that’s what you said. Didn’t that just turn out to be the biggest joke of all?’

‘Tara, I…’ Loosening his tie, Mac dragged his fingers shakily through the blunt-cut ends of his thick blond hair. ‘What happened?’

Fear clouded his impossibly blue eyes and just for a moment or two Tara considered softening the blow. She didn’t know how, but she would have done so if she could. Cruelty just wasn’t in her nature.

‘What happened?’ Her even white teeth bit briefly into her quivering lower lip. ‘The baby died in my womb at six months.’

‘Dear God!’ Mac’s exclamation was like a hissed breath. He moved away, shaking his head, staring down at the floor as if he didn’t want to hear any more. Couldn’t handle hearing any more.

‘The baby was a boy.’ Tara’s sorrowful green gaze sought him out, made him look at her. ‘We had a son, Macsen. A little baby boy.’ And with that, she ran down the shiny corridor, the heels of her sandals echoing like cannon fire in her ears as she frantically sought out the exit, her heart beating fit to burst.

‘Where shall we eat tonight, darling?’ Amelie Duvall finished putting the final careful touches to her make-up, took a brief inventory of her appearance in her classic ‘little black dress’ in one of the two mirrored wardrobes that banked the big scroll bed, then reached inside her black sequinned purse for some perfume. Spraying it liberally behind her ears, her knees, then behind her wrists, she returned the bottle to her purse then threw it onto the bed.

‘Macsen? I asked you a question. Were you even listening?’ Barefooted, the French girl padded out into the living room, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw Mac seated on the sofa, hunched over a glass of what she immediately guessed to be brandy. He’d removed his tie, his hair was dishevelled—as if he’d been ceaselessly running his fingers through it—and the expression on his stunningly handsome face was nothing short of grim.

‘But you are not even ready to go out.’ Amelie could not mask her disappointment. She loved the opportunity to dress up and go out to dinner with her handsome escort—knew without doubt that they made an eye-catching pair, her own dark beauty a perfect foil for his blond Viking good looks. Whatever had brought on this dark mood of his Amelie saw it as her mission to shake him out of it.

‘I don’t feel like going out to dinner tonight.’ Mac finally looked up at her, his gaze cursory—without pleasure—as if all his senses were deadened to her svelte Gallic beauty, then, tipping back his glass, drank down the remaining contents in one deep draught.

‘But you said on the phone—’

‘Forget what I said!’ Rising to his feet, he restlessly paced the room then went to stare out of the panoramic window at the lights of London winking all around him in the darkened sky.

‘Darling, what is the matter? Did something bad happen at work? A deal fell through, perhaps? Please put it behind you, chéri, tomorrow is another day. You will do better then.’

Sensing her moving behind him, Mac was unaccountably enraged. All of a sudden her expensive French perfume was too cloying—oppressive almost—and he wanted to tell her to just leave him the hell alone. But he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t resort to anger when what he needed to do was just come clean. Be honest. Stop this charade now before another relationship went to hell in a handbasket. It was bad enough that he was going to call the whole thing off. Since the moment he’d seen Tara today—even before she’d told him about the baby, his son—he knew in his heart he didn’t want to marry Amelie. Couldn’t marry her.

‘Look…I know we talked about the possibility of us getting married, but all things considered—I honestly don’t think it would work.’

‘You mean your wife would not agree to the divorce?’

It was typical of Amelie that she would immediately lay the blame for his decision on someone else.

Sighing, Mac continued to stare out of the window. He thought about the baby—the son he’d never known—about Tara willing to face a pregnancy she thought he wanted no part of, then losing the child in the most horrendous way… His stomach knotted painfully with sickness and regret. ‘My decision has nothing to do with that. I’d do anything to prevent you feeling hurt and disappointed, Amelie, but it’s better that we end things now than go through with a marriage that would be a complete fiction. I’m sure if you’re absolutely honest with yourself you don’t really want to marry me either.’ Slowly he turned away from the window to face her.

Her pretty elfin face with her wide doe-like brown eyes stared back at him as if he’d suddenly been inflicted with some desperate malady. ‘Of course I want to marry you. Are you crazy? I love you!’

‘Do you?’

She had the grace to colour a little. Mac responded with a sardonic little smile.

‘You love my money, chérie. You love what I can buy for you; clothes, jewellery, perfume…’ His nostrils flared a little, a memory coming out of nowhere that almost floored him. Tara’s scent—a subtle, flowery, honeysuckle and vanilla whisper that had driven him almost mindless with need. He had sensed it today, even as he told her he wanted a divorce, and hadn’t been able to ignore it. His body had hardened almost instantly. ‘This proposed marriage of ours wouldn’t really suit either of us. You are too young and too pretty to tie yourself down to one man and I…well, up until now my work has been my life. I don’t deny it’s important but now I’m ready for a family. I want to have children. I’m not interested in dining out at the best restaurants every night or flying out to New York or Paris on a whim just so that my girlfriend can shop. I want a home life. A proper home life.’

The French girl sniffed, prettily, with elegance—the way she did everything else. ‘You make me sound so shallow, Macsen. I am deeply hurt you do not want to marry me. I would give you babies—lots of them.’ But even as she said the words there was a discernible stiffening of her slender, gamine frame that spoke volumes to Mac. She detested the idea. He hadn’t brought up the subject before but now he knew without doubt he was doing the right thing by bringing the relationship to an end.

‘I understand you better than you think I do.’ He smiled again, pulling her into his arms, but the kiss he bestowed at the corner of her perfectly made-up mouth was nothing short of paternal. ‘Don’t worry, chérie. I won’t let you leave empty-handed. I will give you more than enough to tide you over until your next wealthy suitor comes along…’

CHAPTER TWO

‘TARA? What are you doing sitting here with all the lights out?’

Blinking at the sudden brightness that flooded the living room, Tara guiltily uncurled her legs from beneath her on the couch and pasted an automatic smile across her face. The slightest slip of the controlled mask she’d so carefully constructed to prevent Beth knowing how she really felt inside and her aunt would pounce on her weakness like a lion on a raw steak, demanding to know what she could do to put things right. Her help would be well-meaning, of course, but ultimately useless. This was one situation her ever-practical aunt definitely wouldn’t be able to fix.

‘I drifted off,’ she lied in answer to the older woman’s question. ‘I locked up downstairs, fixed dinner, then came in here to relax.’

‘Did you see Mac?’ Her aunt threw her keys down on the little antique table just inside the door and stood, arms akimbo, in that brisk, no-nonsense, ‘I’m in charge’ way she had that reminded Tara of one of those TV cops about to conduct an interrogation.

‘I saw him,’ she replied carefully, tucking some stray blonde strands behind her ear. ‘Why did you tell him where to find me?’

‘Because he was charming and polite and concerned, and because in my opinion it’s about time you two got some dialogue going—even if most of the blame lies squarely at his feet.’ Beth Delaney, tall, slim, fiftysomething redhead with Irish temper to match, slipped off the tailored navy jacket of her suit and arranged it carefully on the back of a polished Edwardian chair.

‘I haven’t heard from him in five years, Beth, so I think you must have misinterpreted the “concerned” part. And as for dialogue, don’t you think it’s a little late for that?’

‘It’s never too late to talk, my darling. Your situation is just too ridiculous for words. Married but not married…in the usual cohabiting sense, of course. The pair of you need to sort it out.’

Tara took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet. ‘It’s sorted. He’s asked me for a divorce.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment or two Beth looked simply stunned. Which had to be a first as far as Tara was concerned. No one, but no one ever caught her aunt off-guard. Sharp as a tack from the age of two—so the family mythology went. ‘And what did you say to that?’ Back in charge, Beth absently fingered the single strand of exquisite pearls round her neck.

Emotion tightened Tara’s throat. In her mind—the fevered jumble of thoughts that passed for logic—she told herself it was only natural Mac had found someone else. But a stubborn, hopeful, definitely illogical part of her had always clung to the tenuous belief that one day he might come back to her. As of today that belief had been cruelly swept away, like a lone leaf in the path of a cyclone.

‘I agreed, of course. What more was there to say?’

‘What more was there to…? I take it you told him about the baby?’

Dogged in the pursuit of truth, Beth didn’t flinch from asking the tough questions.

‘He’s met someone. He wants to get married again and start a family. In answer to your question, yes…I told him about the baby. In some respects I wish I hadn’t.’

Tearing her anguished gaze away from her aunt, Tara swept past her to the door. Some might call her a coward but right now she couldn’t take any more interrogation. All she wanted to do was unwind in a long, hot, scented bath and break her heart over Mac in private.

‘Why not? He deserves to know the agony he put you through!’

‘He was devastated, Beth. I saw it in his eyes. What’s the point of us both being in agony?’

For once, Beth did not know how to answer her niece. Making a little ‘tsking’ noise with her tongue, she retrieved her jacket then reached out a hand to gently smooth Tara’s fringe from her eyes.

‘You’re such a beautiful girl, my darling, you don’t deserve to be so dreadfully unhappy. At your tender age you should be having the time of your life instead of being stuck working in a fusty old antique shop with an old bird like me!’

Tara smiled, her heart swelling with affection for the aunt who hadn’t hesitated to offer her a place of refuge when Mac walked out on her. An aunt who’d given her not simply a home but a job too if she wanted it; who’d stood by her when times were at their toughest and held her hand all through that dreadful night in the hospital—weeping with her when Tara finally lost her precious babe.

‘You’re not old, Beth. Not in any way, shape or form. And as for having the time of my life, well…’ Colouring helplessly, Tara momentarily forgot her deep sorrow at unhappy memories she’d rather not dwell on. ‘I think I had that for the first two and a half years I was with Mac.’

‘The man’s a fool!’ the older woman declared in disgust. ‘I said it then and I’ll say it again now. I wonder if he has even the slightest clue just what he walked away from?’

Mac pulled over into a lay-by to study the map once again. Satisfied he was on the right track, he wound down his window to breathe in some fresh country air. It was nearly autumn and the Indian summer that had lasted well into the first week of September was at last showing real signs of abating. Leaves were already scattered beneath the hedgerows and there was the scent of wood-smoke in the air. There was also a refreshing drop in the temperature that right now Mac found he welcomed. The cool air helped him think straight and God knew he’d done some thinking over the past three nights. He had the bags under his eyes to prove it. Flipping open the glove compartment, he delved inside for a photograph—a dog-eared colour print of Tara standing outside the Tower of London that he’d snapped years ago when they’d first met. Laughing back at him into his camera lens, she looked completely ravishing with her soft blonde hair, sparkling green eyes and pretty summer dress that moulded itself to her lithe, slim body. Mac had hardly been able to take his eyes off her and she’d been so sweet, insisting on paying for lunch and treating him when they both knew he was easily the more solvent of the two. But he had soon discovered Tara was like that: generous and loving to a fault. And Mac had lapped it up, the attention and the loving, like a man who’d been living underground all his days until he’d met her. She’d brought light and joy and humour into his life, and the day he’d walked away from her had been the darkest of his life. Until she’d told him about the baby, that was…

The pain of that thought was like a knife ripping through his chest. Releasing a harsh, dizzying breath, Mac dropped the photograph onto the passenger seat beside him and started the ignition. There was a deep frown between his dark blond brows as he checked his mirror then navigated the silver Mercedes out onto the country road to continue his journey. If he’d calculated the distance just right, he should arrive in Tara’s little market town round about lunch-time. He’d check into his hotel, get some directions from the desk clerk and go in search of Beth Delaney’s antique shop, Memories are Made. Whether she liked it or not, Tara and he had some talking to do. He just hoped that she or her aunt wouldn’t simply slam the door shut in his face and deny him the opportunity.

‘You can badger me all you like, Mac Simmonsen, but I have absolutely no intention of telling you where Tara is. I made the mistake of doing that only a few days ago and she’s been a different girl since you and she met up again. She took a long time to get over you…losing the baby—’

‘God dammit, Beth! Why didn’t someone tell me she was pregnant? As her husband, I had a right to know!’ Glad that the little antique shop was helpfully empty of customers, Mac knew his temper was on a dangerously short rein. He could accept he’d been in the wrong. He wasn’t so arrogant that he blamed Tara for keeping her pregnancy to herself—not when he’d walked out—not when he’d been the one who’d asserted he wasn’t ready for fatherhood. But he did hold her family responsible for being so damned self-righteous that they couldn’t even contact him on her behalf…especially in her hour of need.

Beth Delaney bristled. Her long topaz earrings shook alarmingly as she crossed her arms in front of her thin chest and squared up to the impressively built male in his perfect designer suit with blue eyes that would dazzle a less immune woman at twenty paces. But Beth prided herself on being stronger than that. Her beloved niece’s well-being was her priority and no amount of hectoring or pleading would shake her conviction that right now Tara should keep well away from this man. Not that she could imagine the proud, self-contained, Mac Simmonsen pleading for anything.

‘Let me remind you that you relinquished all your rights as a husband when you coldly and unfeelingly walked out on my niece as if she was less than nothing to you! You put your business and your ambition way above your relationship, and that’s a fact. It’s just a shame you deceived Tara by marrying her in the first place!’

‘Deceived her?’ His handsome brow furrowing, Mac’s heart thudded heavily inside his chest.

‘Yes, deceived her!’ Beth reiterated angrily. ‘You didn’t want a wife! You must have known you weren’t interested in a real marriage when your work so obviously came first. You deceived Tara by telling her you were doing it for her. She’s a trusting soul, Mac. She believed every word you told her. No matter how many times you let her down—and believe me, I know there were many because she cried on the phone to me—she would still end up giving you the benefit of the doubt. “One day he won’t have to work so hard,” she’d tell me. “One day Mac and I will be able to have a real holiday together somewhere wonderful.” She worshipped the ground you walked on and what did you do to her?’ Beth paused to inhale a deeply outraged breath. ‘You walked away without so much as giving her a chance at a reconciliation. I’m not privy to all the details of what went wrong between you both, but the fact is you broke her heart. And when she lost that much loved, much longed-for baby of hers…you broke it all over again. I really think it’s best for all concerned that you just turn around and leave. After all, it is what you do best, isn’t it?’

He told himself he deserved the tongue-lashing Beth had given him but, even so, anger welled up inside his chest because she’d made his walking out on Tara seem so premeditated and cold when the truth was it was anything but. He’d anguished over his decision for days and days, unable to bear the sight of his lovely wife looking so desperately unhappy. At the time, Mac hadn’t had a clue how to put things right between them—they had seemed to want different things and the gap between them had grown wider. The demands of his business had swallowed up most of his time—too much—a fact he now bitterly regretted. He should have paid more attention to his wife; shouldn’t have left her alone for most of their married life. Somehow he’d fooled himself that she’d wait until he’d secured them the future he wanted for them; fooled himself that she’d understand why it wasn’t practical for them to have children right then. One day he’d make it up to her, he’d promised himself. One day he’d give her everything she ever wanted… Well, he’d made his fortune but he’d lost the woman he’d loved—lost her long before he finally walked through the door and never looked back.

‘Marriage doesn’t come with an instruction manual, you know?’ Sighing deeply, Mac glanced at Beth and speared his fingers frustratedly through his hair. ‘I made a mess of things. I know that. Trouble is…we stopped communicating.’ A self-deprecating little crease appeared between his brows. Something inside Beth melted a little.

‘I stopped listening,’ he continued. ‘It’s just a wonder that Tara stayed around as long as she did. As for the baby…’ Those deep blue eyes of his that could be as icy as a Scandinavian winter shimmered with a vivid flash of pain. ‘Did she think I’d abandon her when I found out she was pregnant?’

Beth examined the two gold rings on her fingers and shook her head. ‘Perhaps she worried you might think she was trying to trap you into staying. I don’t know, Mac, but, knowing Tara as I do, I’d say that had something to do with it. She tells me you want a divorce—that you’re going to remarry?’

‘No.’ Mac stared past Beth at the row of grandfather clocks that were unanimously chiming the hour in a cacophony of bells and gongs. ‘Amelie and I broke up.’

‘I see.’

‘She wasn’t the right woman for me.’

‘So what are you doing here, Mac? Why do you want to see Tara?’

‘Is she seeing anyone right now?’ He couldn’t help himself. He just had to ask the one question that had been bothering him since he’d seen her at the museum. There was no way a beautiful girl like Tara would have spent the last five years alone—but it still made him feel sick with jealousy to think of her with someone else.

‘There’s never been a shortage of interested young men lining up at the door to ask her out. What do you think, Mac?’

He was afraid to think, truth to tell. There was so much he didn’t know about the girl he’d married. So much water under the bridge that stood between them. He could only guess at the kind of person she was now. All he had to go on was memory—and hope…there was always hope. A dimple appearing at the corner of his attractive mouth, he allowed himself a brief smile before replying. ‘I think the male population of this town would have to be blind not to be interested in Tara. But you haven’t answered my question, Beth. Is she in a serious relationship?’

‘Is that why you’re here, Mac? To try and win her back?’ Cocking her head to one side, Beth considered the silent tussle going on behind those riveting blue eyes.

He laid his hand on the smooth, burnished surface of a ponderous Victorian dining table just to his left, in front of Beth’s desk. ‘You have some nice things here,’ he commented, glancing around. It was amazing to him just how many antiques one could cram into such a relatively small space. Then he thought of Tara working here, in that same small space, day after day—when she should be dancing, maybe teaching in a school of her own. Once upon a time that had been her dream and Mac had vowed to himself he would help manifest it. He frowned as he remembered. ‘We need to talk. That much I do know. What time will she be back?’

Beth flipped open the big red diary on her desk but her gaze was deliberately vague. ‘She won’t be back until this evening. She’s gone out for the day. Said she wasn’t sure what time she’d be home. Perhaps you could come back another day?’

‘No.’ He was unequivocal about that. What he had to say to Tara couldn’t wait. It was already five years overdue. ‘Here’s where I’m staying.’ Retrieving a small business card from his jacket pocket, he laid it on top of the diary. ‘I’ve taken a month’s leave. I’m not in a hurry to go back to London if that’s what you’re wondering. Please tell Tara I called and I’d like to see her. Will you do that for me, Beth?’

He seemed so sincere, in earnest, that the older woman relented. She prayed she was doing the right thing.

‘I’ll tell her, Mac—but I can’t promise she’ll be in touch. You might just have to live with the fact that she might not ever want to speak to you again.’

‘Just give her the message—that’s all I ask. I’ll be seeing you Beth…and thanks.’

With a little jangle of the doorbell, he closed the door behind him and strode away down the street. Beth picked up the gold-embossed business card he’d left on the desk with the name of the best hotel in town on it and for a moment or two clutched it speculatively to her chest. ‘Oh, Tara,’ she sighed.

‘It was a great movie, wasn’t it?’

Hating to burst his bubble, though action movies with buildings and people being blown up at every turn really weren’t her thing, Tara grinned ruefully at the handsome young man who’d taken her to the cinema. Raj Singh was the adored son of Sanjay and Binnie—proprietors of her local newsagents—and from time to time Tara and he would date, although their association was on a unanimous friendship-only footing—which suited them both. After Mac, Tara just didn’t do deep, meaningful relationships any more, and Raj was promised to a girl of his parents’ choosing in an arranged marriage. The wedding would take place in three months’ time at Christmas, when the whole family would decamp to Kerala on the Indian subcontinent for a traditional Indian ceremony. For a young man as westernised as Raj, Tara was enormously impressed that when it came to the question of marriage, he was willing to bow to the more traditional wishes of his family.

‘It wasn’t in the same league as Gone with the Wind,’ she teased, ‘but it was OK.’

‘Gone with the wind?’ Completely bewildered, Raj scratched his head.

“‘Frankly, my dear—I don’t give a damn.”’ Ring any bells?’ Tara’s mouth quirked in a smile. ‘Obviously not. It was my mother’s favourite film. I was named after the house that featured in the story.’

‘Tara was the name of a house?’

‘Forget it. Let’s go and get a pizza, shall we?’

‘Why do you get to choose what we eat? You know I’d prefer a burger!’

‘I let you choose the film, didn’t I?’ she shouted at him over her shoulder.

‘You are one bossy woman, you know that?’ Raj hurried to keep up with the slender blonde spitfire as she pushed her way through the busy throng of humanity spilling into Leicester Square and hoped to God that his promised new wife would have just half as much spark. The last thing he wanted was some submissive little wallflower with no opinions other than her husband’s.

‘Pizza, then home,’ he said firmly, knowing Tara would completely ignore the assumed authority in his voice. ‘I promised your aunt I wouldn’t get you back too late.’

Tara stopped dead in her tracks and swung round to face him, hands on hips. ‘Well, more fool you, Raj Singh, because I want to go dancing!’

‘You do?’

‘I do.’ And, although she was smiling and determined to have a good time, inside Tara’s heart was aching because Mac had never—not even once—taken her to a nightclub to dance.

‘I think that just about covers everything. If you can think of anything else, call me. You’ve got my number.’ His business concluded, Mac replaced the receiver on its rest and swung his long legs onto the bed. Picking up the hardbacked book beside him on the nightstand, he flicked to the page he’d turned down at the corner then, adjusting the stack of pillows behind his head, proceeded to read where he’d left off earlier.

Five minutes later, having read the same two sentences at least ten times, Mac dropped the book beside him on the counterpane and with a harsh sound of exasperation dragged both hands back and forth through his thick blond hair. Unused to having time on his hands, time when he should be relaxing and enjoying himself, he concluded it was a sad state of affairs when a man didn’t even remember how to participate in either of those two very necessary states. He was so used to working twelve-to fourteen-hour days, his body seemed to have lost the ability to relax when he wanted it to. Getting up, he strode over to the old-fashioned sash window, lifted the forest-green drape and glanced out at the deserted street below. The row of Tudor-fronted shops reminded him how historical this little town was. How appealing to the out-of-town visitor or tourist from abroad. But it was mid-afternoon and as quiet as the grave…too quiet. How did Tara stand it? Wasn’t there anything about London she missed? Apart from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Sadler’s Wells, that was? The capital city could be an unforgiving mistress with its noise, traffic jams and pollution, but Mac had to admit he loved it—missed it when he wasn’t there. In the early days of their marriage, Tara had often talked about wanting to move to the country and Mac had put her off, promising to discuss it ‘some time in the future’ when he wasn’t so busy—when the demands of his steadily growing business were perhaps less. He’d get someone in to run the agency for him, he’d told her—then it wouldn’t matter that he didn’t live close by; he could keep in touch by phone or fax, just show up for the important stuff. His ambition had been like a drug, he acknowledged now, shame churning his insides. He’d let it blind him to the fact that his wife had needs too, and more often than not he wasn’t meeting them. He shut his eyes at the memory. On the nightstand, the trill of the telephone mercifully jolted him.

‘Yes?’

‘Mr Simmonsen? I have a Mrs Simmonsen down here in the lobby to see you.’

A vein throbbed in his temple. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. He’d begun to think she wasn’t going to get in touch after all, as Beth had speculated she might not. All day he’d resisted the impulse to make his way back to the shop and see if she was there—find out if she was deliberately avoiding contact. Not that he’d let a little obstacle like that get in his way—there was far too much at stake for that…

‘Tell her I’ll be right down.’

As he descended the thickly carpeted staircase to the floor below, Mac straightened his tie, rubbed a hand round his recently shaven jaw, and mused that it was surely a good sign that Tara was still using his name when she could have so easily reverted to her maiden name. Even though they weren’t actually divorced, who could have blamed her under the circumstances? But, that aside, he couldn’t deny the throb of pleasure that pulsed through him at the sight of her sitting on the big cream sofa in the lobby. She was wearing light blue jeans with a crisp white blouse and she’d folded her tan-coloured jacket across her lap. She looked fresh-faced and pretty and when she trained her wary green gaze his way Mac knew an almost irresistible desire to get her alone, in the most intimate situation he could think of.

She got to her feet as he drew level, and her scent drifted round him, stirring memories strictly of the bedroom variety.

‘I got your message. I can’t stay long—I’m helping Beth with a stock inventory. What is it, Mac? What was so urgent that you couldn’t just tell me on the phone?’

Going for broke, he squared his shoulders. ‘I’ve decided I don’t want a divorce after all,’ he replied evenly.

‘You don’t?’ Big as saucers, Tara’s green eyes were visibly apprehensive. ‘Then…then what do you want?’

‘I want you, Tara…back in my life. I want us to have a proper marriage.’

CHAPTER THREE

TARA heard what Mac said but wondered crazily if she’d imagined it. All the way to his hotel she’d been frantic with nerves; terrified but excited at the thought of seeing him again—acknowledging that their unexpected encounter in the museum had stirred up so many hopes and dreams that she really should have let go of long ago. Especially after what had happened… But now, staring up into a fathomless blue gaze that clearly had no intention of letting her off the hook—not even for a second—she clutched her jacket to her chest and remembered that the only feelings she should have towards him were ambivalent at best—hostile at worst.

‘Is this some kind of bad joke? Because if it is, I really don’t appreciate it. One minute you’re telling me you’ve met someone and you want a divorce, the next… What’s going on, Mac?’

He told himself to take it easy, not to push so hard or he’d more than likely frighten her away for good. His insides clenched at the thought. Now that he’d seen her again he knew what he was doing was right. It was actually a shock to him that he’d survived so long without her. Maybe not so much survived as existed. How could he have contemplated for even a second marrying someone like Amelie? The French girl didn’t even let her guard down in bed; she was far too obsessed with her appearance, too controlled to get low down and dirty, too…too cold. Mac only had to glance at the hectic colour seeping into Tara’s cheeks to remember how warm his wife had been in that department—an erotic revelation of passion and fire.

‘It’s not a joke, Tara. Amelie and I broke up.’

A sharp spasm of jealousy coiled through her at the mention of his girlfriend’s name. Before she had a name the woman had been a hazy nothing in her mind. ‘Amelie’ made her flesh and blood, real, and that hurt.

‘So what am I? Any port in a storm?’

‘Of course not.’ He looked offended. Too bad, Tara thought wildly, when he didn’t seem to care what he did to hurt her.

‘We got along once upon a time,’ Mac continued, sliding a hand into a pocket of his dark blue suit. ‘Is it so crazy to imagine we might get along again?’

‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ Inside her chest, Tara’s heart was beating double time. Of all the reasons Mac could have given for why he wanted to meet up with her, a reconciliation was the furthest—the last thing in the whole wide world she could have imagined. What was behind it, she wondered, and why was he torturing her like this when the mere sight of him was tying her insides into some kind of intricate macramé?

‘So serious I’ve taken a month’s leave of absence.’

‘Well, that must be a first! Are you sure they can spare you, Mac? I always thought you were so indispensable.’

To her surprise, a self-deprecating little grin hijacked his perfect mouth. ‘So did I. Obviously that’s not the case. Fortunately I have some good people working for me—people I can trust to do a good job. I really have no worries about being absent for a month.’

‘And what will you do with all that free time, Mac?’ Tara asked, tucking a stray blonde strand behind her ear. ‘Maybe some therapy might be a good idea?’

‘Therapy?’

‘For your workaholism…or are you still in denial?’

He could hear the hurt in her voice, the anger behind the bitter accusation, and regret twisted through Mac at the pain he must have caused her when time after time he’d put his working commitments before his relationship. Sighing heavily, he glanced round at the reception desk, at the interested glances they were getting from the smartly dressed brunette who sat behind it, who suddenly pretended to be looking at some paperwork.

‘We can’t talk here. Can we go somewhere?’

‘Where do you suggest? Aunt Beth’s shop? Your hotel room perhaps?’ Her green-eyed gaze disdainful, Tara unfolded her tan jacket and slipped it on. Flipping her hair out from behind the collar, she bit down on her lip to stop it from quivering. ‘You’ll get over your break-up with your girlfriend. I’m sure you could charm her into patching things up—you always did have a way with women, didn’t you, Mac?’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘Perhaps you weren’t always working when you said you were. Perhaps you were seeing someone else when you walked out on me that night…’

Mac saw red. He had never cheated on Tara, nor felt any desire to. Sure, women came on to him, he wasn’t blind—but neither was he promiscuous, and when he’d told Tara he had to work late at the office, well, that was exactly what he was doing.

‘First you accuse me of workaholism—a label I’m quite willing to entertain, by the way, because it’s probably true—but you go too far accusing me of having affairs with other women. What would have been my motive? You were always more than enough woman for me, Tara—don’t pretend you can’t remember…’

Coupled with his words, one glance from that suddenly heated blue gaze made Tara feel a surge of desire so strong that her knees nearly buckled beneath her. ‘Well, I’ve changed! I’m not—I’m not interested in that side of things any more.’ She blushed furiously, wanting the floor to open up and swallow her when Mac grinned knowingly and nodded. ‘I have other more important things to think about,’ she blustered on, ‘I have a fulfilling job working for Aunt Beth, I have—’

‘Why did you give up your dancing, by the way?’

Because right then the answer seemed to mysteriously evade her, Tara folded her arms across her chest and fixed Mac with an angry glare.

‘That’s none of your damn business! I’m a free agent now, remember? I don’t have to explain anything to you. After five years I—’

‘You’re still my wife.’ His voice was deadly serious—possessive, almost. Tara felt a little shiver dance down her spine.

‘Well, we can soon remedy that. You’ve got some time off—why don’t we find ourselves a solicitor and get some papers drawn up? Unless you’ve already done so, that is?’

‘I told you before, Tara, and my assertion still stands. I don’t want a divorce. I want a reconciliation. Understandably, you’ll want some time to consider my wishes, but, as you rightly say, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands at the moment so I can give you my full, undivided attention. Why don’t we start by having dinner together tonight?’

‘I can’t. I’ve got a date.’ As she tossed her head, Tara’s green eyes sparkled with triumph.

‘A date?’

‘With a man.’

‘You’re seeing someone?’ The muscle in the side of Mac’s impossibly beautiful cheekbone twitched tellingly.

‘Is that so hard to believe?’

Mac glanced down at his watch, straightened his cuff then smiled beguilingly. Tara held her breath as every cell in her body seemed to throb and tingle.

‘I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer. Cancel your date. Tell your “friend” that you’re having dinner with your husband.’

‘I will not!’

‘Then give me his telephone number—I’ll do it for you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Then I’ll talk to Beth—perhaps she’ll supply it for me?’

‘Beth wouldn’t do that. Look, Mac, this whole thing is completely crazy! We’ve been apart for too long. We’re not the same people we were when we broke up—’ Anguished, Tara breathed deeply, staring desperately down at the soft green carpet beneath their feet. When she was more composed, she lifted her head to look at him pleadingly. ‘Go back to London. Ring Amelie. Believe me, Mac, a reconciliation between us just wouldn’t work.’

‘What if I said I wanted us to try for another baby?’

With a gasp of disbelief, Tara turned and stumbled out of the hotel.

Mac got into his Mercedes and drove. He didn’t know where he was going, nor did he particularly care. All he knew was that he needed to breathe, needed to think, needed to get his head straight about Tara. He should never have said what he had about the baby—that much was clear. Besides, he’d gone at it like a bull at a gate and, unprepared, Tara had turned tail and run. Blaming her wasn’t even an option, Mac thought as he negotiated a suddenly sharp curve in the road—he was the one who had acted like a selfish idiot. Right now she was probably wondering what the hell he was playing at. ‘All right,’ he said out loud, pressing a button on the dash for some music. ‘I want her back. I don’t care what I have to do to get her back. I want to make babies—lots of them. I want us to live happily ever after in a place of her choice… I want—’ The words of the song that was playing on the radio suddenly penetrated his brain and halted the eager flow of words with bittersweet irony. ‘It’s too late, baby,’ crooned the singer. Mac eased his foot off the accelerator and cursed harshly beneath his breath.

Switching off the offending record, he stared through the windscreen at the surrounding countryside with little pleasure. Give him the city any day, he thought irritably. At least he knew how to operate in the city. The countryside was too quiet, too…green, too—well, it made him introspective and right now Mac didn’t know if that was a particularly good thing. He couldn’t honestly say he liked what he was finding out about himself. Thirty-eight years old, owner and director of one of London’s most successful advertising agencies, it was true—but that was where the success story ended. In every other respect he felt like a failure. He was a self-confessed workaholic who up until now lived to work. He’d walked out on his wife of three years because he’d put ambition before love and in five years had made no contact with her because he knew that walking out on her when she had desperately wanted to make a go of things—when she had needed him most—was pretty damn unforgivable. Even more so since he’d found out about the baby…

Half an hour later, emotionally drained and weary of his own incessant thoughts, Mac pulled over into a place signposted as an area of outstanding natural beauty, got out of the car and walked. Around him there was an infinite sea of rolling green, to his left a densely wooded area that with the sun glinting off it looked like a sentinel in the distance, and above him the bluest sky known to man. As he walked, his expensive Italian-made shoes cutting a swathe through the grass, the sun on his back, Mac surprisingly sensed some kind of peace descending on him. Shucking off his jacket and pulling off his tie, he continued to walk without looking back. A reluctant country-lover at best, he had to admit a grudging pleasure at this impromptu little foray into unknown territory.

‘Any messages?’

The dark-haired receptionist glanced up at the gorgeous blond Viking who’d strolled through the doors of the select little hotel and almost choked on her biscuit. Flushing scarlet with embarrassment, she blinked wide-eyed into Mac’s amused blue gaze.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Simmonsen, I was just having my tea. Been enjoying the fresh air, have you?’

His immaculate white shirt was undone casually at the collar, his suit jacket thrown loosely across his arm, and intriguingly there were a couple of blades of grass in his mussed hair. Eileen Dunne felt one of her tropical moments coming on. With the back of her hand she fanned herself.

‘It really is beautiful around here,’ Mac replied, smiling, the dimple in his chin devastatingly in evidence.

Slack-jawed, Eileen cleared her throat. ‘We have a lot of visitors who just come for the peace and quiet,’ she managed before blushing furiously again.

‘I can see why. So…no messages, then?’ Preparing to move towards the staircase, Mac doubted there were but thought there was no harm in checking.

‘There is one.’ Eileen turned round to the row of little boxes behind her on the wall to retrieve a folded piece of paper from one of them. ‘It’s from someone named Tara. I hope you can read my writing. If not, I can tell you what she said.’

Staring at the opened scrap of paper, Mac felt a crazy leap of hope in his chest at what he read.

Mac.

If your offer of dinner still stands, I’ll meet you at your hotel at eight.

Tara.

‘Thanks.’ Slipping the note into his back pocket, he treated the awestruck Eileen to another drop-dead gorgeous smile then took the staircase up to his room two steps at a time.

‘Thank you…’ Eileen grinned at his back before taking another ravenous bite of her biscuit.

‘Hey! What’s all this, then? Going somewhere special?’ Popping her head round the door of her niece’s bedroom at just after seven that evening, Beth Delaney smiled at the colourful heap of clothing on the bed. Tara was standing in front of an open wardrobe, dressed in one of those floaty Indian cotton summer dresses that made her look as if she’d just stepped out of the pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—especially as her feet were bare. Her soft blonde hair was newly washed and dried and her pretty face was flushed from the recent heat of the hair-dryer.

‘I’m meeting Mac for dinner.’ Thinking it was best not to turn around just then to gauge her aunt’s expression, Tara gazed unseeingly at the contents of her wardrobe, not certain about the dress she had chosen.

‘You are?’

‘I am.’

‘What’s brought all this on? I thought you swore you were never going to see him again when you ran into the shop this afternoon? Did he or did he not make you cry?’

Tara turned slowly to face her aunt. The older woman’s expression was bewildered and concerned. She sighed. Right now Tara was feeling more stunned than if a brick had been dropped on her head from a great height. ‘I want us to try for another baby,’ Mac had said, as cool as a cucumber—while in contrast she’d felt as if her heart would pound clear out of her chest.

‘I’m feeling very emotional right now. I don’t rightly know what’s going on with me and Mac. If nothing else, we have some unfinished business to discuss. That’s why we’re having dinner together.’

‘Does this “unfinished business” concern the pair of you getting a divorce?’ Beth asked.

Turning back to her vague perusal of the contents of her wardrobe, Tara sighed again. ‘Probably.’

‘Probably?’

‘You may as well say it, Beth. You think I’m a fool for agreeing to see him again. You think he’s up to no good. You think he’s going to break my heart. Well, I’ve got news for you—he can’t do it again because it hasn’t been mended in the interim, so I’m perfectly safe from that particular affliction!’ Her eyes filling with tears, Tara dashed them impatiently away with the heel of her hand. It was probably a huge mistake to see Mac again but she had to know what was going on with him—why he was professing to want to take up where they’d left off; why he had said what he had about trying for another baby. Until she knew, the turmoil in her head would give her no peace.

‘The man’s already caused you more hurt than I can bear. You gave up everything when he walked out, your dancing, socialising, living, for God’s sake! Everyday things that gave you pleasure. You gave it all up because of Mac—because you were in pain and hurting. I’m not saying he’s a bad person, Tara. He clearly isn’t. But he is a driven man. A man addicted to work. A man like Mac doesn’t know how to make a relationship work—more to the point, he doesn’t have the time to make it work. Go and have dinner with him. Tell him you want a divorce and you want it now, then let him go and get on with your life! And if that means leaving here and going somewhere you can teach dance—then so be it!’

Her normally pale cheeks flushed with the passion of her words, Beth abruptly turned and exited the room.

Heart pounding, Tara dropped down onto the bed, silently acknowledging the truth of what her aunt had said. When all was said and done, she trusted Beth. When her mother had died ten years ago and her father had remarried and moved away, Beth had willingly taken over the roles of mother, sister and friend. Clearly, Beth’s affection for her ran deep. As far as Tara knew she couldn’t make the same claim for Mac.

She hadn’t eaten a thing. For several excruciating seconds more Mac watched her push her food round her plate, then, leaning forward, deliberately stilled the hand that held her fork with his own. ‘I think you’re meant to put the food onto the fork then put it into your mouth.’

Startled by his touch, by his bold blue eyes burning into hers, Tara felt her mouth drop open. Needing no more reaction than that, Mac stabbed some mange-tout with her fork and lifted it to her lips.

‘You’ve got it,’ he said softly as she helplessly began to chew. ‘Now, tell me why you’re not eating. I hope you’re not doing anything stupid like trying to lose weight.’

She flinched at his censure and the ache in her throat made it almost impossible to swallow the meagre mouthful Mac had dropped into her mouth. Glancing round at the other diners in the intimately lit French restaurant, Tara wished she could feel as carefree and happy as most of them appeared to be. Laughing and talking with their companions, clearly out to enjoy themselves, they were all a million miles away from the tense, apprehensive little picture she knew she must make sitting opposite Mac.

‘Of course I’m not dieting. The meal is delicious, I’m just—’

‘Just?’ A golden eyebrow quirked up towards the silky lock of hair that flopped sexily onto his forehead.

‘I find it difficult to eat when I’m not relaxed—when I’m worried or tense.’

‘I remember.’ He said it as though the memory caused him pain. Touching his pristine white napkin to his lips, Mac leant back in his seat to study her. ‘I’m sorry I’ve contributed to you not being relaxed but I’m not playing games here, Tara. I want us to get back together again, and this time to make it work.’

‘You make it sound like a project you’ve got in mind. Is that going to be your approach, Mac? Treat me as if I’m one of your accounts? What are you going to do—allot me a certain amount of time to achieve the goal that you want? I might have guessed work would come into the equation at some point.’ Bitterly, she pushed her plate away, raised her glass of wine to her lips and drank deeply. As the alcohol shot to her brain, she felt vindicated in her anger. Why should he sit there looking so damned cool and arrogant while her emotions were swirling around inside her like some mini-cyclone? Did he really expect her to welcome him back with open arms after what he’d done?

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