The Baby Question
Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Copyright

PROLOGUE

LAURIE felt the first twinges of failure with dismay.

Not again, she thought despairingly. We can’t have failed again. I can’t have failed again.

An hour later she was curled up on the sofa with the dog at her side, a low, gnawing ache eating at her, waiting for the phone to ring, for Rob to ask how she was.

Meaning that, of course.

Oh, well, she’d get through it. She always did. Month after month she braved his disappointment—and the same old arguments. He’d had a test, which proved he was fine. Why didn’t she have a test? At least then they’d know what they were dealing with, and there was so much they could do these days. Why not give it a try?

Because she didn’t want to know it was her fault. She didn’t want to go down the route of IVF and all that palaver. She was only twenty-six, and they hadn’t been trying that long. There was plenty of time.

Wasn’t there?

But she couldn’t spend it like this. She couldn’t spend yet another month waiting with bated breath for failure to strike.

There must be something else she could do with her life. Something more productive, less soul-destroying than sitting around being serviced fruitlessly like a barren cow.

She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks with the back of an angry hand, and stood up, unravelling her long legs and wandering through to the study with the dog at her heels. She’d look on the Internet. Maybe that would offer some suggestions—and, if not, fiddling on the computer would at least pass the time.

She found a website address that looked interesting, and clicked on it, but it was boring and badly put together. The material was interesting enough, but the presentation was rubbish.

She found another, and another, and they were all the same. Then she found a brilliant one, easy to use, obvious, interesting.

And an idea dawned, edging over the horizon of her consciousness and flooding her with enthusiasm. But how?

She wanted it to be a secret, wanted to keep this to herself, so he didn’t laugh at her or tease her or patronise her. She wasn’t sure it would work—wasn’t sure she could do it, although she couldn’t be worse than some. But how? And where? She couldn’t use his computer, he’d notice she’d been at his desk and want to know why.

No, she needed her own machine, but where? An office somewhere? Too expensive and, anyway, there was the dog to consider. She needed her own study here. If only there was a room she could use that Rob never went into …

Then she remembered the attic.

CHAPTER ONE

LAURIE felt the first twinges of failure with dismay.

Not again, she thought despairingly. We can’t have failed again. I can’t have failed again.

An hour later she was curled up on the sofa with the dog at her side, a low, gnawing ache eating at her, waiting for the phone to ring, for Rob to ask how she was.

Meaning that, of course.

She couldn’t tell him again. She couldn’t go through that same old ritual—are you all right? Do you want me to come home? I’ll take you out for dinner tonight.

Why? To celebrate another wasted month?

She gave a humourless little laugh, just as the phone rang right on cue. She answered it on the second ring, injecting sparkle into her voice.

‘How are you?’ he asked without preamble. Pregnant yet?

‘Fine. How are you?’ she asked, ignoring the unspoken question. ‘How’s New York?’

‘Cold and tedious. I’m stuck here for another week or two—problems. Can you manage?’

She almost laughed aloud. ‘I expect so,’ she said drily. God knows she was getting enough practice these days; he was hardly ever at home.

‘I’ll come back for the weekend if you like.’

‘Why bother? Just press on and get home when you can,’ she said, trying not to sound too unwelcoming. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got the dog for company.’

A man with less ego would have been offended, she thought, but Rob just chuckled. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow. You take care, now.’

Take care, just in case she might be pregnant.

Well, she wasn’t—again.

She sighed and went up to the attic. Work called. She was over-run, too much to do, too little time. In the last year her secret business as a web designer had gone from nothing to an astonishing success. She worked from the moment Rob left the house to the moment he returned—well, a few moments before, if she could manage it, so she could slip into something elegant and create a little havoc in the kitchen so he’d think she’d been cooking all afternoon. It was amazing how many things she could produce now in less than half an hour.

She had no time to herself any longer, no time at all. Her friends had all but given up on her, because she kept fobbing them off with excuses, and one by one they’d drifted away. That was fine. She didn’t need time for anything except this, the challenge she’d created for herself. The other challenge, the one she kept failing to meet, was harder because it was out of her control. Out of Rob’s, too, and for the first time in his life he’d discovered something that money couldn’t buy.

Well, it could, in a way. It could pay for expensive testing in private clinics, and IVF and other treatments till the cows came home, but in the end it might still be the same answer.

And anyway, as busy as she was, perhaps it was just as well. She wasn’t sure how a baby would fit in, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted one.

She stopped, her fingers coming to rest with a bump on the keys of the computer. A line of Xs appeared in front of her, and she lifted her hands and dropped them in her lap, stunned.

She didn’t want a baby? Good grief. What a realisation. She thought about it, analysing the random thought that had dropped into her head as if from nowhere, and realised it was true. She didn’t—not now, and maybe not ever. Not yet, at least. Not like this, with all the hassle of taking her temperature and phoning him at the office and having him drive home—he’d even flown back from Paris one time, to make love to her—make love? Huh, that was a joke.

They hadn’t made real love in ages. More than a year. It had to be the right time, the right position—the right angle, for heaven’s sake!—to maximise her chances of conceiving.

Well, she couldn’t do it any more, and she wouldn’t. Another realisation dawned. Not only did she not want a baby, she didn’t want Rob’s baby. She didn’t want to be that tied to him, not now, when their marriage seemed to be a thing of habit rather than the joy it had been at first.

When had the gloss gone off? This year? Last?

When she’d failed to get pregnant immediately, she realised. A chill seemed to have crept in, a disappointment in each other, a sense of failure and perhaps reality. Their golden world had come to an end, and maybe there was nothing structural underneath to support them now.

She needed to think. Needed space and time to consider their relationship and their future—if they had such a thing. And she couldn’t do that here.

Reaching for the keyboard again, she scrubbed what she’d been doing for the past few minutes, found a property website and clicked on Scotland. She loved Scotland. She’d always loved it, ever since her childhood. Maybe she could think up there. Two estate agents came up. She chose the one in Inverness. It was further away than Edinburgh.

She jotted the phone number down on a Post-it note, then dialled with shaking fingers.

‘I’m in a hurry to move to Scotland,’ she told them. ‘I don’t need a mortgage—just somewhere small for me and the dog, with a home office if possible. Remote, if you can, and as cheap as possible but civilised. It must have heating and plumbing, though, and it needs a phone line.’

‘Do you want to buy or rent?’ the young lady asked. ‘Only we’ve got a property that’s just come on the books which sounds ideal, but they want to rent it just for a few months until they decide what to do.’

‘Furnished or unfurnished?’ Laurie asked, suddenly thinking of all the things she’d have to buy to equip a new home, and wondering if she was quite mad.

‘Oh, furnished,’ the agent told her. ‘It’s fully equipped and really lovely—two bedrooms, although at the moment you’d only have the use of one because they’ve put a lot of personal stuff in the second, but there’s a room over the garage you could use as an office. They’ve gone to France and won’t be back unless things don’t work out, but it won’t be very expensive even if they do sell it, not that far north. The only thing is, there’s no guarantee it’ll come up for sale.’

‘That’s no problem. It would help me now, at least. How far north?’ she asked, her curiosity aroused.

‘About an hour from here—near where Madonna was married. Near Tain, on the Dornock Firth. It’s got wonderful distant sea and mountain views, if you don’t mind the isolation.’

Mind? Just then she’d die for it. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said instantly. ‘When could I move?’ Excitement was fizzing in her like champagne, the bubbles forming on the walls of her veins and tingling through them, bringing her to life.

‘You haven’t even seen the details!’ the lady exclaimed, but Laurie had heard enough.

‘What’s it called?’ she asked.

‘Little Gluich.’ She spelt it, and Laurie wrote it on the Post-it note next to the agent’s number and stuck it on the wall over her desk.

‘Can you fax me all the details?’ she asked then, and within two hours it was set up, and she’d arranged to call in for the keys in two days’ time.

All she had to do now was get there …

The house was empty.

Odd, how he knew that the moment he set foot over the threshold. The dog was missing, of course. That was a bit of a giveaway.

She must be walking him. At four-thirty, just barely into February? It was dark, or it would be soon. Not really safe on the roads. She’d probably gone over the fields instead, but it was very wet. In fact, he thought, remembering his drive home, it was pouring with rain.

She must be mad.

Unless she’d just found out she wasn’t pregnant again. That made her do crazy things sometimes. Oh, lord, not again, he thought heavily. Poor Laurie.

He put the kettle on. She’d want tea when she got in. Tea and sympathy. Hell. He wasn’t very good with the sympathy thing. He never seemed to hit the right note. In the meantime, he’d go and change out of his suit and put on something more relaxed. He’d been in a suit day in, day out for days. Weeks. Years?

The bedroom was very tidy. He’d obviously been away too long, he thought, unless Mrs Prewett had been today. Friday—or was it Thursday? He couldn’t remember, and he wasn’t sure now which days their cleaning lady came. He didn’t think he could even remember what she looked like.

He scrubbed a hand tiredly through his hair and dropped onto the edge of the bed to pull off his shoes. Where was Laurie? It was dark now, the fingers of night creeping across the sky. Surely she wasn’t walking the dog still? It would be dangerous in the wet and inky blackness.

He stood up and crossed to the window, peering down into the garden, but he couldn’t see a thing. Could she have taken shelter in the summer house?

Unlikely. She would surely have run back to the house if she’d been caught in the rain.

Maybe she was in but hadn’t heard him. The garage? No, he’d put his car away on the way in, and the electric zapper for the door also turned on the interior lights. He would have seen her, and anyway, why on earth would she be lurking in there in the dark, for heaven’s sake? Besides, there was the dog. If he was here, he would have barked by now.

Unless she was at the vet with him, or staying with a friend. Maybe that was it. Maybe she’d been lonely and thought he wasn’t coming back yet. He’d said he wasn’t, in the end.

No. Her car was in the garage, what was he thinking about? She didn’t go anywhere on foot, except to walk the dog, because there was nowhere to go that was near enough.

So where was she?

He changed quickly and went downstairs, still puzzled. She should have left him a note, for heaven’s sake.

Even though she wasn’t expecting him? ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he muttered, conscious of a gnawing disappointment that she wasn’t here to greet him. So much for surprising her!

Then common sense reared its mocking head, and he rang her mobile number.

He got the message service, and irritation edged into concern. He left a message, trying to sound casual.

‘Darling, I’m home. Just wondered where you are. Ring me.’

He hung up, feeling a little aimless and lost. She was always here when he came home, and the house was dead and empty without her. He’d make tea. Maybe she’d be home by the time it was brewed. She might have gone out in a friend’s car—perhaps to walk dogs together, and then back to the friend’s for tea? They were probably out of range of the phone.

In Hertfordshire?

He paced to the window, glowering out into the impenetrable blackness of the wet night. It was truly foul out there. What if she was lying somewhere hurt?

Oh, God. Panic surged through him, and he pulled on his dogwalking coat and some wellies and went out into the garden, noting as he did that her coat and boots were missing. He called her as he tromped over the sodden grass, scanning round with the torch he’d taken with him. It hardly penetrated the gloom, and he didn’t know where to start. The garden was more of a mini-wilderness, ten acres, many of them rough and wild and boggy, with lots of places where she could be lying out of sight.

The woodland? Oh, lord, the lake?

He crushed the panic and told himself not to over-react, and concentrated on calling the dog, over and over again, but there was nothing. After an hour he gave up and went back inside, ready to phone the police, and that was when he spotted the note.

It was stuck on the front of the fridge door, held by a magnet, and he pulled it off and opened the envelope with fingers numb with cold and wet.

‘I’ve gone away for a while. I need to think. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll ring. Laurie. PS. I have the dog.’

Rob stared at the paper, stunned. Gone away? To think? Think? About what, for God’s sake?

The baby, he thought with a wave of sadness. The baby they couldn’t seem to have. Oh, Laurie.

A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed it, hard. Where had she gone? What was she doing? She shouldn’t be alone—

The phone rang, and he snatched it up and barked, ‘Hello?’

‘Rob, it’s me. I just got your message. I didn’t realise you were coming home yet.’

He stabbed a hand through his wet hair. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he snapped, his relief releasing his anger. ‘I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been out in the rain and the dark scouring the garden with a torch—I’ve only just found your note. How come you haven’t got the car—and what do you mean, think?’

‘I’ve got another car.’

‘What?’ He sat down abruptly, stunned. ‘What do you mean, you’ve got another car? That one’s almost new!’

‘I know. This is mine.’

Mine. Something about that word rang alarm bells in his head and he stared at the phone cautiously. ‘The other one’s yours.’

‘Not in the same way. I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I’m all right. I’ll be in touch.’ There was a soft click, and the burr of the dialling tone sounded in his ear.

‘Laurie? Laurie, damn you, don’t do this to me!’ he yelled, and slammed the phone down, frustrated by his impotence.

Where was she? What was she doing?

Thinking.

What the hell did that mean, when it was at home? He phoned her again, and bombarded her with text messages, but to no avail. He was met by a relentless silence that nearly drove him crazy.

He paced round all evening, throwing together a scratch meal of bacon and eggs—about the only thing he could cook—and channel-hopped for a while, but the television couldn’t hold his interest, so he had a hot shower and got ready for bed, but he was wide awake because it was still only five in the evening New York time, so he went into the study and went through some paperwork that was waiting for him.

And all the time he could see Laurie’s face, a pale, perfect oval framed by that glorious soft, thick, shiny hair the colour of dark, moist peat. Her eyes were hazel, but when she was angry they fired gold and green sparks, and when she was aroused they went a wonderful soft smudgy green, and her mouth would yield to his touch, her lips swelling slightly and becoming rosy from his kisses, and afterwards her smile would be gentle and mellow and loving—

He frowned. She hadn’t looked like that for a while. It had all lost its spontaneity, and the sparkle seemed to have gone out of their relationship.

What relationship? Apparently they didn’t have one any more, he thought bitterly, slamming down the report unread. Damn her, where was she?

He left the study, prowling round the house, his temper fraying at the edges. He made a drink—just tea, he’d had too much alcohol and coffee in the past few days and he was feeling jaded and rough around the edges.

If only he could sleep, but there was no way. Between Laurie and the jet lag, he was stuffed. Maybe a long, hot soak in the bath would help. He went upstairs, and as he turned off the landing light a chink of light under the attic door caught his eye.

Someone must have left the light on—Laurie, probably, searching for a suitcase. He opened the door at the bottom of the narrow little stairs and reached for the switch, but the stream of gold came from further up. He nearly didn’t bother, but something prompted him to go up.

There were three rooms up there, cluttered and untouched. The whole floor was filled with a load of old junk, really, things they’d bought and outgrown the need for, old family things they didn’t have the heart to throw out. He hadn’t been up here in months—years, probably. He never needed to.

But someone had, because everything had been cleared out of one of the rooms, and it was almost empty.

Empty, except for a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet and a telephone—and a dangling flex with a bare, glowing bulb on the end.

He stared round, utterly confused, and slowly crossed to the chair, running his fingers thoughtfully over the back of it. It was his old desk chair, too upright to sit at for long, but ideal for working at the computer. Better than the one he had now, in fact, although not as good looking.

Still, that wasn’t everything.

He looked around at the room, puzzled. It looked like an empty office after a business had moved out. Odd scraps of paper here and there, barren and lifeless, the heart gone out of it.

He sat down and went through the desk drawers, but they were empty. The filing cabinet?

Also empty. He checked the bin, but all there was in it was a bit of stamp edging and an old envelope with a frank mark on it—a frank of a firm in Scotland.

William Guthrie Estate Agents, Inverness.

Estate agents? Why was she corresponding with estate agents?

Unless it was a clue to her whereabouts—

He tore the place apart, searching every nook and cranny again, and then pulled the desk out from the wall. Nothing. Then, behind the filing cabinet, he saw a sheet of paper.

His hand wouldn’t fit, so he grasped the cabinet and shifted it, then plucked the paper from its hiding place. It was dusty and wrinkled, handwritten, a mass of jottings and calculations of figures. Figures that looked like the turnover of a business. Figures that made him blink.

Laurie’s business?

Doing what? Maybe she was working as a homefinder? Hence the letter from the estate agents. No. She’d never earn that much.

He glanced at the back of the desk, and there, suspended halfway down the back of it, hanging by a corner, was a yellow sticky note. He peeled it off, and sat down on the desk thoughtfully.

William Guthrie, it read, and a number, and jotted below were the words ‘Little Gluich’.

A house? Had she for God’s sake bought a house in Inverness?

With what?

He looked again at the figures on the sheet of paper, and shook his head slowly. With that, maybe. With her apparently very healthy income. Unless she was renting.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes past midnight. Almost nine hours to kill before he could reasonably ring the estate agents and find out what the hell was going on.

If they’d tell him, of course, which was by no means a foregone conclusion. He’d have to play the guileless, rather daffy husband, and just see how much he could get out of them. He’d play it by ear.

Unless, of course, he made a personal visit. He glanced at his watch again. He wouldn’t sleep, not a chance, and by the time he’d phoned Luton and booked a flight, driven over there and hung around, then hired a car at the other end and driven to Inverness, it would be nearly as quick to drive.

He took the little yellow note and the envelope and the calculations, flicked off the lights and went into his room, tipping his suitcase out ruthlessly on the bed and repacking. He’d need wash things, a towel perhaps, and thick, warm clothes. Nothing too formal, and nothing much. He didn’t intend to be there long.

He left the house before twelve-thirty, wondering whether he was chasing about the countryside after a total red herring, but he couldn’t just sit there and twiddle his thumbs. He needed to see her, and he needed to see her now.

He hit the almost deserted Al within minutes, and headed north, pulling over at Scotch Corner for coffee at five, then pressing on again. It got much slower in the rush hour, and he reached the outskirts of Edinburgh and stopped briefly for a late breakfast, stocking up on enough coffee to keep him awake and making Inverness by one.

He parked the car in a multi-storey and asked someone the way to the estate agents, then wound his way through the streets until he found it.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the window as he entered the office. He looked shattered, his eyes red-rimmed, his mouth a grim line. Good grief. If he didn’t lighten up, they’d think he was an axe-murderer! He forced his shoulders to relax as he pushed the door open and went in.

The office was almost deserted. A young woman sitting behind a desk looked up with a friendly smile. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?’

He dropped into the chair opposite her and treated her to his most persuasive confused-little-boy grin. ‘I hope so. I’ve driven all the way here from London to join my wife, and I can’t find the directions she left me. They must have fallen out of the car door pocket when I stopped for breakfast. She’s just taken on a property from you—at least, I hope it was you. Your name rings a bell. I hope I won’t have to trawl round all the agents.’

He dragged a hand through his hair and tried to look as if everything was against him. Not hard, under the circumstances.

‘What was the name, sir?’ she asked him, and his heart thumped with anticipation. So far, so good. She hadn’t told him it was confidential information and sent him packing, at least.

‘Ferguson. She moved very recently—the last couple of days. I feel such an idiot for losing the directions—I’ll blame it on the jet lag. I’ve just got back from New York,’ he explained with a rueful smile. Maybe she’d fall for the exhaustion theory and feel sorry for him.

Or not. She was shaking her head. ‘Ferguson—that doesn’t ring a bell, sir, I’m sorry.’

He thought rapidly. ‘How about her maiden name? She sometimes uses it for business,’ he lied wildly. ‘Laurie Taylor. I think the property’s called Little something.’

The woman’s face cleared. ‘Oh, yes, of course, Ms Taylor. She picked up the keys of Little Gluich yesterday morning. I couldn’t forget her—she had a dog with her, a real teddybear.’

He pulled a wry face. ‘That’s right—Midas—our golden retriever. He’s a bit friendly, I’m afraid.’

She laughed, mellowing, and Rob realised with grim satisfaction that she was falling for his charm. Just give me the directions, he thought desperately, before someone with more sense of client confidentiality emerges from the woodwork and everything grinds to a halt.

‘No problem, Mr Ferguson,’ she said with a smile, and he felt relief course through him. ‘I think we’ve still got a copy of the details we prepared, they’ll have the directions on. Here. It’s a lovely little property—really cosy. I hope you find it all right. Give us a ring if not and speak to Mr Guthrie when he comes back from his lunch break.’

She handed him a set of details from the filing cabinet and smiled again, her face dimpling. She was a sweetheart—totally out of order giving him the information, but a sweetheart for all that. He could have hugged her, but thought better of it.

‘You’re a lifesaver,’ he told her. ‘I tried to ring but I couldn’t get her on the mobile, and I don’t even know if she’s got the phone connected at the house. All that fell out of the door with the directions.’

He smiled again, treating her to the full wattage, and she went pink and dimpled again. The phone rang, and with an apologetic smile she turned to answer it. He made his escape, heading back to the car park with a geographical instinct honed over years of visiting strange places, then slid behind the wheel and opened the slim folder containing the information he was after.

It looked charming, he thought. A little croft house, white-painted, snuggled down in a crease in the hillside with a glimpse of the sea in the distance. No wonder it had appealed to her. He wondered what Little Gluich meant. Nothing, probably.

He read the directions, located it on his road atlas and pulled out of the car park. Just one more hour, and he’d be with her.

He wound his way north, crossing an estuary on a bridge—the Firth of something. Cromarty? Moray? One or the other. Cromarty, he thought. He’d done Moray on the way out of Inverness. He saw seals swimming off the shore and more basking on rocks near the wreck of a ship, then turned north again onto a little road that headed over the hills towards Tain.

And there it was, or at least there the turning was. He couldn’t see the house from the road, there was a kink in the hill, but he turned down the track and winced as his car grounded on the stony grassy hummock in the middle.

Tough. He lurched and bumped his way down, and round a little bend, and there it was, a thin plume of smoke curling from the chimney in welcome. A car was outside—nothing flashy, nothing like the BMW in the garage at home, but hers, as she’d put it.

He felt a flutter in his chest as the adrenaline kicked in. Fight or flight?

He’d never backed away from anything in his life, and he wasn’t starting now. He wanted his wife back, and he was going to have her.

All he had to do was talk her into it …

CHAPTER TWO

SHE heard the car before she saw it, grinding slowly down the track towards the house and disturbing the peace and tranquillity of her little hideaway.

A neighbour, come to welcome her? The postman?

From her vantage point in the office over the garage, she peered down at the drive a little warily. ‘Who is it, Midas?’ she asked, her voice instinctively lowered, and the dog whined and stood up on his back legs, his front paws on the windowsill, and watched with her.

The ghostly silver bonnet of Rob’s Mercedes nosed through the gateway, its headlights gleaming dully in the fading light, and her heart sank as the car crunched over the gravel and came to rest beside her much more modest Ford.

How on earth had he found her? She’d been so careful, cleared everything away without trace, or so she’d thought. Even the attic she’d left spotless—hadn’t she? There must have been something lying around, some little clue. Blast. She’d always known he’d find her in the end, because he didn’t give up on anything, but she had hoped for a few more days—maybe even weeks—to sort her thoughts out.

And now he was here. Still, maybe he’d ring the bell and go away if she didn’t show herself. Her heart pounding, she sank back away from the window and grabbed the dog’s collar, pulling him down beside her. He whined in protest and tried to jump up again, but she hung on tight.

‘Midas, no,’ she whispered. ‘Be quiet, there’s a good boy.’

He whined again, recognising the sound of the car, and she wrapped her hand round his muzzle and stroked him with the other hand, trying to calm him. ‘Good boy. Hush now. Maybe he’ll go away.’

She snorted softly under her breath. Not a chance, and the dog knew it. Just in case, though, he was determined to bark a greeting, and she had to hang on to his muzzle and pet him constantly to keep him quiet. Still, at least she hadn’t got the lights on in the office, although the glow from the computer was probably visible. She reached out a hand and switched off the monitor, and her little office sank into gloom. Heavens, it was later than she’d realised, but she’d been so busy.

Edging up to the window, she peered down onto the drive and watched.

Rob got out of the car and straightened, then looked around, his eyes narrowed, scanning for clues. First he checked out her car, then he went over to the cottage and knocked on the door before turning the handle and going in.

Damn him! she thought, fuming. How dare he just walk into her house! She crossed to the other side of the room, peeping through the roof-light to get a better view.

She could see him going from room to room, flicking lights on, prowling. She imagined him fingering the things left by the owners, things he’d never seen before. She’d hardly been here long enough to put her stamp on anything except the bedroom and bathroom. Everywhere else was just as she’d found it, because she’d brought practically nothing with her yesterday except the contents of her office, a few clothes and the dog.

She’d wanted to get away from her old life, have a fresh start, and now he was all over it, touching it, imprinting himself on it so it would no longer be hers alone, the safe haven she’d wanted it to be.

Safe haven? What was she thinking about? He was hardly dangerous! She made it sound like he was a serial killer instead of her husband of five years. She must be going crazy. But even so, she felt somehow violated.

No. That was too strong. Invaded, then.

She watched him moving around, doing his tour of inspection. It didn’t take long. There were only the two rooms downstairs, one at each end, and the stairs running from side to side with the bathroom behind them. Above were two bedrooms, hers and the store, and a big cupboard full of all sorts.

Surely to goodness he couldn’t be much longer, she thought, the adrenaline surging through her body and making her heart race.

He wasn’t. He emerged from the front door, shrugging down inside his coat collar against the bitter wind, and she moved back a little from the window, her heart pounding with suspense. Maybe he’d think he’d come to the wrong house and would go away.

Or not.

He looked up at the window, his eyes seeming to fix on her face, and even from this distance she could see their piercing cobalt blue. She shrank back into the shadows, getting a better grip on the wiggling dog.

He could hear his master coming, hear the crunch of footsteps on the stones and the squeak of the handle as the door opened at the bottom of the stairs. A blast of icy air invaded their cosy little hideaway and Midas whimpered and squirmed in her hands.

The stairs creaked under a firm, steady tread, and Rob’s head appeared over the top step, his eyes assessing.

‘Hello, Laurie,’ he said, and the dog, displaying a singular lack of judgement, hurled himself out of her arms and hit him in mid chest.

He staggered back, righted himself against the wall and ruffled the dog’s fur affectionately while Laurie tried to quell the thundering of her heart and compose herself to deal with him without hysterics.

‘Hello, mutt,’ he said, pushing the dog down out of the way and climbing the last few stairs. He looked around, his eyes like twin blue lasers scanning the sophisticated computer equipment, the notes pinned up on the wall, the collection of mugs by the keyboard.

‘Nice little place you’ve got here,’ he said blandly, but it didn’t fool her for a second. She wondered what the chances were of her hustling him out before it was too late.

Huh. It was already too late. She sat down in front of the computer, blocking his view of her desk, or trying to.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and not give in to the anger building in her. Why couldn’t he have just left her alone? He knew she was all right, she’d only just spoken to him less than twenty-four hours ago! Why come here to persecute her?

‘Interesting set-up,’ he said, ignoring her question and continuing his inspection of her pinboard. ‘What’s the business?’

‘Mine,’ she said, not willing to share even the nature of her business with him, never mind the intimate details he’d try and winkle out of her. ‘It’s mine, and it’s private. I repeat, what are you doing here, Rob?’

His eyes met hers, red rimmed with exhaustion but determined, the blue of his irises touched with flint. ‘I would have thought it was obvious what I was doing here. I’ve come to take you home,’ he said softly, and her traitorous heart kicked against her ribs.

She snorted. ‘Not a chance. I told you, I want to think.’

‘You can think at home.’

‘No, I can’t. I just want this time to myself. You should have rung, you’ve had a wasted journey. I’ve got nothing to say to you at the moment, and I want you out of here. This is my house, my office, my life.’

‘And you’re my wife.’

‘Am I?’ she asked bluntly, and he recoiled a fraction, as if she’d struck a painful blow. Good, she thought, ruthlessly crushing her guilt. She was fed up with him taking her for granted. She stood up, gathering the cups together and standing waiting by the top of the stairs. She gestured for him to go down, but he just smiled and took her chair at the desk, turning on the monitor and tapping keys on her computer and opening files, flicking through her personal business with ridiculous ease and a casual disregard for her privacy.

‘Leave it alone! That’s nothing to do with you,’ she fumed, ready to dump the dregs of the cups on his head, and he spun round in the chair and fixed her with those piercing eyes.

‘You’re a web designer,’ he said slowly.

‘Ten out of ten. Out.’

He unfolded himself from the desk and stepped closer, looking down into her face searchingly. ‘There was no need for you to leave. You could have told me you wanted to do it,’ he said, his voice seductive, almost convincing.

‘I wanted it to be mine,’ she said, and he gave a tiny huff of laughter.

‘Mine again. You seem to be using that word a lot. Whatever happened to ours?’

‘Yours, you mean.’

His eyes narrowed and he searched her face, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s eating you, Laurie, but we’ll talk about it when you come home.’

‘I’m not coming home,’ she repeated emphatically, but he just smiled.

‘Oh, I think you are.’

That was it. She lost it. Without another thought, she dumped the contents of the mugs on his head and stomped off down the stairs, leaving him swearing under his breath and brushing ineffectually at his clothes. A smile tugged at her mouth, but she suppressed it. It was a childish thing to have done, but he’d provoked her beyond endurance, and she wasn’t going to laugh it off. God forbid he should think she wasn’t serious about this. She was done being dictated to.

He was right behind her, his temper barely under control, and she felt a tiny frisson of anticipation. She hadn’t seen him really angry for ages, but she knew she could trust him not to hurt her, and right then she was spoiling for a fight.

She marched over to the cottage, just half a stride ahead of him, and he was through the door behind her before she had time to slam it in his face.

‘It won’t work, Laurie,’ he said grimly, following her into the kitchen with the dog at his heels. ‘I’m not going without you.’

‘Well, I’m not going, and you’re not staying, so it’s going to be a bit tricky, really, isn’t it?’

‘I mean it,’ he said, his voice taut with determination, all that earlier gentle coaxing gone, banished no doubt by the coffee dregs in his hair and the cold bite of the wind and her failure to succumb to his authority. ‘I’m not just walking away from this,’ he went on. ‘You’re my wife, and if you think you can just run off like this without talking about it, you’re mistaken.’

‘I hardly ran off.’

‘No? Then why didn’t you tell me where you were going, and what you were doing? And what the hell is this business you’ve been running in the attic of my house without telling me? How long’s it been going on?’

‘Our house, I think, and don’t you mean asking your permission?’ she snapped, whirling on him, her temper finally frayed beyond endurance. ‘Don’t you mean what the hell was I doing sneaking around behind your back daring to have a life?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he retorted. ‘Of course you can have a life.’

‘Just so long as it includes playing hostess to your incredibly boring business acquaintances with monotonous regularity, and dressing up in pretty clothes to be the elegant little social butterfly I’m expected to be. God forbid I should wear jeans.’

‘You can wear jeans.’

‘Versace jeans,’ she snorted, whirling away again to dump the mugs in the sink before she hurled them at him. ‘Not ordinary jeans from the discount shop on the corner.’

‘You’ve never worn jeans like that! You don’t even like jeans,’ he protested, and she felt a pang of guilt. He was quite right, she hadn’t ever bought cheap jeans, or any cheap clothes in fact, and she wouldn’t want to. She just wanted the right to, that was all.

She turned back to the sink, washing the mugs for something to do that didn’t involve screaming with frustration.

He signed, a harsh exhalation filled with the same frustration and irritation that she was feeling. I must be getting to him, she thought in satisfaction. There’s a miracle.

She turned round, just as he hooked out a chair from the table and dropped wearily into it. His eyes were tired and red-rimmed, his face was drawn, and she remembered he’d been travelling now for over twenty-four hours.

He didn’t have to come up here after me, she reminded herself. It was his choice. Then a little dribble of stale coffee trickled off his hair and down his temple and dripped onto his coat, and she felt a twinge of guilt. It was a lovely navy cashmere coat, only a few weeks old and hideously expensive, and the splash of coffee over one shoulder and down the front did nothing to enhance it. Her guilt prompted a partial climb-down.

‘I’ll make you tea, then you can go,’ she conceded.

She waited for a second, but instead of repeating his intention to stay he merely settled back, folded his arms across his chest and smiled.

Rats. He looked so sexy when he did that, sexy enough to distract her—but only for a moment. She reminded herself of all the reasons why she was here—his autocratic behaviour, his expectations of her, the time he spent away from home when she was left holding the fort.

Holding the baby? She shuddered to think what would have happened if she’d conceived. Would he have come home at all, without the need to attempt to impregnate her at regular intervals?

No, there was no way she was going back to him. Not yet, at least, and maybe not ever.

Even if he did have the sexiest eyes she’d ever seen. She’d fallen for them years ago. She wasn’t falling for them again.

Oh, no …

She was a web designer. He was amazed, although he shouldn’t have been. If he’d given it a moment’s thought, he would have realised that sitting at home with only the dog for company while she waited to see if she was pregnant wouldn’t be enough for her. She was too bright, far too bright and full of imagination and life and restless invention.

In the past two years since she’d given up work and settled down to wait for the baby that hadn’t come, she’d redone the house from end to end, got Midas from a rescue centre and turned him from a cowering, gangly pup into a bright and confident dog who was her devoted companion, and sorted out the grounds of the house with the help of an army of skilled gardeners and landscapers.

That accomplished, he must have been crazy to imagine she would then settle down to wait for maternity to catch up with her.

Not Laurie. Of course she’d needed something to do.

But to do it in secret, without sharing it with him—that rankled. Hurt, in fact, he thought in surprise. He wondered when things had started to go wrong, and realised with shock that he hadn’t even noticed that they had until now, when he’d thought about it and remembered what it used to be like between them.

Things had gone wrong, though, or she wouldn’t be here now, hundreds of miles from home, making him tea before she threw him out on his ear. Well, tough. He wasn’t going, not till this was sorted out, and it looked like the weather was playing right into his hands.

A quick glance at the window showed that night had fallen while they’d been talking, the clouds so thick and full they’d snuffed out the last of the daylight.

He stood up and swished the little curtains shut at the single window, blocking out the view of the snowflakes that were starting to whirl against the glass. In an hour, with any luck, it would be falling too thick and fast to allow him to venture out, so he’d have to stay.

They might be snowed in for days …

He felt his body stir. He’d missed her. It had been a couple of weeks since he’d seen her last, and a little making up would be fun. Hiding a smile of satisfaction, he settled back in the chair, picked up the mug of tea she pushed towards him and prepared to wait her out.

It infuriated her when he did that.

Sat there, with his tea propped on his belt buckle, a patient look on his face, and said nothing.

She hated silence. She always had, and he knew it. Of all the things he did that got her mad, this was the worst.

She promised herself she wouldn’t rise, not this time. Picking up her own tea, she changed the subject from her to him. ‘How was New York?’ she asked, as if they were sitting in their own kitchen and she hadn’t just walked out on him and moved to the other end of the British Isles.

He didn’t twitch an eyebrow, to his credit, but then he was a very successful businessman and used to hiding his reactions.

‘Cold, dull. I missed you.’

If only that were true, she thought sadly, remembering the times he’d gone away at first and how glad she’d been to have him back—how eagerly she’d welcomed him.

But recently …

‘How’s Mike?’ she asked, enquiring after the New York partner who handled most of the North American business, and refusing to rise to the bait.

‘All right. He asked how you were.’

‘And what did you tell him?’

He smiled, a slight hitch of one side of his mouth, not really a smile so much as a grimace. ‘I told him you were fine,’ he said softly.

She looked away. She couldn’t face down those piercing, all-seeing eyes. He was too good at boardroom games. She should know. She’d played them with him only a few years ago, before she’d ‘retired’ from active involvement in his business ventures and settled back to wait for the baby.

She sighed and sipped her tea, wishing he would go away and knowing full well he wouldn’t, not at least without a promise from her to come home—a promise she couldn’t make. ‘When did you get back?’ she asked, wondering about his jet lag and if he’d had any sleep.

‘Yesterday afternoon. I was home just after four.’ The unspoken reproach hung in the air and irritated her into retaliation.

‘I didn’t know you were coming back yesterday.’

‘No, of course not,’ he said, and then continued with mild reproach. ‘Not that you were there to take my call—’

‘I don’t have to be there twenty-four hours a day,’ she reminded him sharply, and his eyebrow quirked up in response.

‘Of course you don’t,’ he said soothingly. ‘But you know my mobile number, and I do think that you could perhaps have done more than leave a note before you walked out on our relationship.’

There was no attempt now to hide the reproach, his voice hardening and showing, for the first time, his true feelings. Good. She could deal with that. She couldn’t deal with the bland, expressionless board-room persona he’d been conveying for the past few minutes. And if he was angry, then maybe he cared, and maybe, just maybe, there was hope for them.

‘I didn’t walk out on our relationship, I just wanted a little space,’ she reminded him.

‘I would have given you space if you’d asked for it. You could have said so. You know you only have to ask for anything.’

‘Maybe I didn’t want to ask. Maybe I’m sick of asking for everything.’

‘Sick of sharing?’

‘We don’t share,’ she told him flatly. ‘We hardly share anything any more. I’m amazed you noticed I wasn’t there—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course I noticed.’

‘Yes, you would have had to pour your own drink, make your own supper. Poor little lamb.’

He growled under his breath, and she buried her nose in her mug and ignored him.

‘You could have said something, discussed it with me,’ he went on, hammering home the point.

‘And have you brush it aside? Or trivialise it? Patronise me with another of your “you don’t want to do that” lectures? I didn’t want that, Rob. I wanted to think—to have time to work out in my own mind just how I feel about us, before it’s too late.’

Too late?’

‘Yes, too late. Before we become locked together irretrievably into parenthood. I want to be sure I want your baby before I conceive, and at the moment I’m not sure—not sure at all, about any of it.’

‘I take it you’re not pregnant, then, again,’ he said cautiously, putting her hackles up.

‘No, I’m not damn well pregnant. I don’t get pregnant, remember, so all this might be academic anyway—’

‘And the business?’ he said smoothly, moving on without drawing breath. ‘How long have you been running that? A year? Eighteen months?’

‘Nearly a year.’

‘A year. You’ve been running it for a year—successfully, by all indications—and yet you didn’t think to mention it.’

She had. Over and over again, she’d nearly told him, but it had never seemed like the right time.

‘You’re always too busy, or away, or we’re entertaining. There’s never been a good time,’ she told him. ‘We never have time to talk.’

‘In a year?’

She sighed shortly. ‘Rob, you’ve been away—and when you’ve been home—’ All he’d done was try and get her pregnant. But she couldn’t say that, so she shrugged and shook her head and gave up. Not Rob, though. He didn’t give up.

He settled back and folded his arms and gave her a level look. ‘I’m not too busy now. You want to talk about it, tell me about it now. I’ve got nothing else to do.’

‘Yes, you have. You’re going,’ she told him, standing up and taking his half-full cup from his hand and tipping it into the sink.

That brow arched again. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Tough.’

‘It is. Look out of the window. I’m going nowhere.’

She opened the curtain and pressed her face to the glass, but all she could see was swirling white. Snow, for heavens sake! That was all she needed.

‘It’s just a little flurry. It’ll pass,’ she said with more confidence than she felt. ‘You’ll easily get to the village. There’s a bed and breakfast there. You can stay there for the night and set off back to London tomorrow.’

She snapped on the outside light, yanked open the front door and a blast of snow and arctic wind drove her back into the house. She slammed the door with difficulty and turned to lean on it, frustration threatening to overwhelm her. There was no way he could drive in that. She couldn’t see anything except a wall of white. Even finding the car would be a nightmare.

Oh, damn, she thought. They had no choice—he could die out there, and whatever was wrong with their relationship, she didn’t hate him that much—if at all.

‘All right, you can stay,’ she said grudgingly, then added with as much firmness as she could muster, ‘but you’ll have to sleep in the sitting room, you aren’t sharing with me.’

He gave a soft snort. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he reasoned. ‘We’re married. We’ve slept together for five years. What difference can one more night make?’

Plenty to me, she thought, knowing her own weakness for his charm and knowing quite well that he’d turn it up full to get her back, if that was what he wanted. He’d seduce her—win her round, talk her into going back. No, it was too dangerous to let him that near.

‘Either you sleep in the sitting room, or you go,’ she said flatly, avoiding answering his question.

‘Fine,’ he said, and she did a mental double take. It wasn’t like him to back down so uncharacteristically fast—if at all! He settled back into the chair and folded his arms. ‘Any more tea?’

His eyes were wide and innocent, but she knew better. There was nothing innocent about Rob—never had been, never would be. She didn’t trust him not to use that charm ruthlessly just the moment it suited him, but she was stuck. There was nowhere to go, no escape. They were trapped together, and it was going to take a massive effort of will not to allow herself to succumb.

But she was going to do it. Come hell or high water, she was going to do it, and that was that.

End of conversation.

Somehow …!

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS bitterly cold. It took Rob five minutes to find the car, collect his case and mobile phone and get back into the cottage, after making a detour at Laurie’s request to shut down her computer and lock the garage and set the alarm.

She was going to do it herself, but he’d overruled her on that one. There was no way he was letting her go out there in the teeth of the blizzard that was raging all around them, and for one rather disturbing minute he himself hadn’t been able to find his way back to the cottage. He’d wondered in an oddly detached way if he was destined to perish out there on the barren Scottish hillside, but then the snow had eased and he’d seen the dull gleam of the outside light, and he’d realised he’d been going the wrong way.

So easily done in the confusing swirl of snow, but a mistake that could have proved fatal under other circumstances, he thought. He felt a dawning respect for the wild and tempestuous elements and the men that braved them on a daily basis. Quite where such a blizzard had come from he couldn’t imagine, but it had, apparently out of nowhere, and it was threatening to tear the roof off the house.

He turned the handle on the door, to have it almost snatched out of his hand by the wind. He shut it by throwing his weight against it, and as he stood inside it and listened to the raging storm outside, he wondered why on earth people chose to mount polar expeditions. Mad, the lot of them, he thought, brushing the snow off his shoulders and tousling his hair to shake the wet out of it.

‘Here, let me take that,’ Laurie said, peeling his coat off his back and flapping it firmly. ‘Come into the sitting room—the fire’s lit and I’ve revved it up a bit. I’ll make you a hot drink.’

He didn’t argue. It was rather nice being waited on by her, although not entirely necessary. It made him feel a bit like one of the old hunter-gatherers, being welcomed home by his mate at the end of a hunting expedition—except that he’d only gone fifty feet to the car and back, and his quarry had been a very cooperative suitcase.

The mate was a bit grudging, too. Ah, well.

He chuckled wearily under his breath. The jet lag must be getting to him, addling his brain. He sat down in front of the fire, stretched out his legs towards the warmth and sighed with contentment. So good. Warm. Comfortable. Peaceful.

Within seconds he was asleep.

That was where Laurie found him, two minutes later, when she came back in with two cups of tea and some cake on a tray.

She set it down silently, then curled up in the chair by the side of the fire with her tea and watched him sleep. He looked exhausted, she realised. Exhausted and thinner, run to a frazzle. He was doing too much. He’d been doing too much for more than a year, but he wouldn’t even discuss it.

He did what was necessary, that was all, he said. Nothing more, nothing less. End of discussion.

It was funny, they used to discuss things a lot, but just recently she felt he’d been stonewalling her. Maybe it was just her imagination. Maybe he was just too busy to talk, and too tired to bother.

Too tired to do anything—except a hasty flurry of activity every few weeks, in a vain attempt to get her pregnant.

She felt the hot sting of tears behind her eyes, and blinked them away. They’d lost so much. They’d been so happy at first, happy and full of life and enthusiasm. Nothing had been too much trouble, too much effort, too much of a challenge.

They’d talked and argued and made up, laughed and cried together, shared everything.

And now—now they had nothing except the spectre of failure in their most personal lives, and jet lag. She rested her head on the back of the chair and gave a quiet sigh. She’d needed this time out so much. She hadn’t realised how much until she’d agreed to take the cottage, and she’d felt a huge weight off her shoulders.

Freedom, she’d thought. Freedom from unspoken criticism, from failure, from Rob’s expectations of her as a hostess, from her friends’ expectations of her as a shopping companion and marriage counsellor—that was the funny one, she thought.

Andy asking her for advice on her marriage, when her own marriage was in such disarray.

Something splashed on her hand—a tear, she realised in surprise. She blinked and sniffed, but another one fell to join the first, and another, so she just lay there with her head against the back of the chair and let them fall.

She cried silently. She’d grown used to doing it while Rob slept, it was nothing new to her, but she didn’t usually do it with the lights on so he could see her if he woke.

Still, there was no danger he’d wake now. He was exhausted, and even he didn’t catch up with his sleep that quickly. She closed her eyes, rested her hand on the dog’s shaggy head at her knee and waited for the tears to stop. They would in the end. They always did.

She’d been crying.

He lay there, sprawled out on the sofa, and watched her without moving. There were tears drying on her cheeks, long salty tracks down the pale, smooth skin, and he felt his heart contract.

Oh, Laurie. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but he didn’t know how, or even if he could. What could he say that would make any difference?

Nothing. It was probably him she was crying about—or them, at least. He felt sick. How long had she felt like this, so sad inside that she could sit and cry silently while he slept?

Had she done it before, maybe in their big, high bed in the lovely house he’d thought was their home? Had he slept beside her, oblivious to her misery?

And yet he still didn’t know what he’d done, or what was wrong. Until today he would have said she was crying because she couldn’t conceive, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Was she having an affair? It was possible. Maybe her failure to conceive was deliberate. Perhaps she was on the Pill, or maybe her reluctance to have any tests was because she was happy as things were and didn’t want a child.

She’d said something about that in the kitchen. He hadn’t really taken it in at the time. He’d thought she was just trying to console herself, but maybe she really meant it. Maybe she didn’t want a child—or at least, not his.

It was a sobering thought. He lay there and let it sink in, slowly absorbing the implications. It seemed there was far more to her unscheduled disappearance than a simple flounce or a cry for attention. She really seemed to have deep, fundamental doubts about their relationship, and he realised he was going to have to listen to her, to talk it through rather than simply cajole her into returning home. For the first time he felt a seed of doubt that he would win her back, and something deep inside him clenched with fear.

He watched her sleep, the tears slowly drying on her cheeks, her hand hanging over the edge of the chair above the dog’s head. He was lying against the front of the chair, his nose on his paws, as if he’d just sunk down there from sitting under her hand. His eyes were closed, but Rob knew he was alert. One move from her and he’d be up.

He was her devoted slave, and Rob felt an irrational pang of jealousy. Not that he’d want to be her devoted slave, far from it, but he wouldn’t mind going back to the lively and productive partnership they’d had before.

She’d been so vital and alive, so funny, so sharp and quick-witted. He supposed she still was, but the vital spark seemed to have gone, extinguished by something he didn’t really understand.

He remembered the first time he’d met her, at Julia and Charlie’s wedding. He’d been Charlie’s best man, and she’d been the chief bridesmaid. He’d felt his heart kick then, seeing her behind Julia, and then during the reception he’d talked to her and got to know her a little, and discovered that not only was she very beautiful, she was also clever.

She had a mind, a sharp and incisive mind and the verbal ability to go with it, and they’d wrangled about everything from fashion to the state of the stock market.

‘So what do you do for a living?’ he’d asked, and she’d laughed wryly.

‘At the moment I’m temping in an office, but my secretarial skills are slight and that’s a bit of problem in the job I’m covering, so it won’t last long, but I have to eat and run my car and pay off my uni debts, so I can’t afford to be picky. I’m looking around, though, waiting for the right thing to come up. I’d like a job with a bit of responsibility—something to get my teeth into. I’m just bored to death at the moment.’

Without pausing to analyse his motives, he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, then handed her one of his cards. ‘Here. Ring me. There might be something—I don’t know what, but we’ve always got room for good people. I’ll have a chat with my Human Resources team. Come in and see us.’

She looked at the card, plucked at the sides of her pretty, floaty bridesmaid’s dress with a smile and then tucked the card down the low front of her bodice, into her bra. He caught sight of a peep of pale ivory lace against pale ivory breast, and hot blood surged in his veins.

‘I knew having boobs would come in useful one day,’ she said with a throaty chuckle, and he had to shut his eyes and count to ten. He could think of all sorts of uses for her soft, full, ripe breasts, and tucking business cards into them was way down the list.

Unless he was doing the tucking …

The next time he saw her was a week later, and she was dressed in a demure business suit with a high-necked blouse, but he could still see the firm, ripe swell of her breasts in his mind and he had to force himself to concentrate on interviewing her.

Within moments he’d forgotten about her body and was fascinated by her mind, instead. They talked about the business, about investment analysis and the stock market and maintaining the right sort of client base, and he was amazed. Most of the women he knew of her age would have been totally out of their depth, or bored to death.

Not Laurie Taylor. She had views and opinions, and she wasn’t frightened to express them. They argued, they tore holes in each other’s arguments, and in the end they agreed to differ.

For a moment, then, her confidence had seemed to falter, as if by disagreeing with him she thought she’d blown the interview, but then he’d smiled and held out his hand.

‘Welcome to the team—if you’ll come?’

‘You mean you want me, after all that?’ she’d said, surprise in her voice and her eyes, and he’d smiled back.

Oh, yes, he thought, I want you. Do I want you!

‘You’re too good to pass up,’ he said. ‘I like the way you think.’

‘But you don’t agree with me.’

He smiled again. ‘But I can argue with you, and you don’t take offence. That’s very useful—helps me maintain a wider perspective. I think we need a new post. I’ll have an assistant—it’s probably about time. How much do you want?’

She laughed softly. ‘How much do you think I’m worth?’

He thought of a figure and doubled it, and she blinked.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Absolutely.’ She gulped and nodded, and he just hoped she was worth it.

She was. By the end of the first week he wondered how he’d coped without her. By the end of the first month, their relationship had become more personal. Their wrangling over business issues had taken on the quality of a challenge—almost a game—and the stakes were rising.

One day, after a particularly long-running argument proved her right and him wrong, she crowed with delight and danced round the office, and he was suddenly, shockingly aroused.

‘OK,’ he said, retreating behind his desk for the sake of modesty. ‘I’ll concede—’

‘Concede? You’re mad! I’ve won—’

‘I’ll concede,’ he repeated with a slow smile, ‘on condition you have dinner with me. A sort of forfeit.’

She cocked her head on one side, hands on hips, sassy and luscious. ‘I thought you paid the forfeit if you lost.’

‘You do,’ he said, thinking quickly. ‘I lost. I have to pay.’

Her head tilted the other way. ‘I’ll want a good dinner—not just any old place.’

He gave a rueful laugh. ‘I never doubted it for a moment,’ he murmured. ‘So—are we on?’

She pretended to think for a moment, one luminous pink fingertip pressed against her pursed lips, then she sparkled and laughed. ‘We’re on,’ she said, and perched on the edge of the desk unconsciously revealing a great length of thigh. ‘So—where are we going?’

‘Don’t know yet. Dress up.’

‘Long? Short?’

‘Long,’ he said, knowing he wouldn’t get through the evening if he had to look at her legs, but his clever ruse didn’t work, because her gown was slit to the thigh and her sparkly, slinky tights were nearly the death of him.

‘Just do me one favour,’ he said as the waiter left them contemplating the menu. ‘Let’s not talk about work. I really, really don’t want to fight.’

She grinned. ‘OK. We’ll talk about you. How did you get to know Charlie?’ she asked, and so he told her about his childhood at boarding school, and then asked her about her childhood and was rewarded by tales of scrapes and close shaves, all the naughty little things that children did, but recounted with such mischief in her eyes at the memory that he just knew it was all still bubbling up inside her.

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