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Mum and Dad. You know how you thought your son was the most eligible bachelor in England? Well, guess what...?’

      He tried and failed to stop his lips from twitching, gratified to see she wasn’t going to let this beat her. Even so, he needed to keep this conversation on a practical level because this was a serious business they were dealing with.

      ‘We can’t hide from this, Emma, it’ll only make things worse.’

      She frowned at his admonishing tone. ‘You think I don’t know that? It took years for the papers to stop rehashing the story about my father’s debts. Any time high society or bankruptcy was mentioned in a story, they always seemed to find a way to drag his name and his “misdemeanours” into it.’

      She sighed and ran a hand through her rumpled hair, wincing as her fingers caught in the tangles.

      He stared at her in shock. ‘Really? I had no idea they’d gone after your family like that,’ he said, guilt tugging at his conscience. ‘I didn’t keep up with news in the UK once I’d moved to the States.’

      What he didn’t add was that after leaving England he’d shut himself off from anything that would remind him of her and embraced his new life in America instead. It seemed that by doing that he’d missed quite a lot more than he’d realised.

      ‘Look, why don’t you take a shower and I’ll go and find you some fresh clothes to put on,’ he suggested in an attempt to relieve the self-reproach now sinking through him. ‘I’m pretty sure Clare keeps a couple of outfits here for when she visits London—they’ll fit you, right? You were always a similar shape and height.’

      The grateful smile she gave him made his stomach twist. ‘That would be great. Yes, I’m sure Clare’s stuff would fit me fine. Don’t tell her I’ve borrowed it though, will you? She always hated me stealing her stuff.’ Her eyes glazed over as she seemed to recall something from the past. ‘I really do miss her, you know. I was an idiot to let our friendship fizzle out.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘But she reminded me too much of you,’ she blurted, her eyes glinting with tears.

      The painful honesty of her statement broke through the tension in his chest and he leant forward, making sure he had her full attention before he spoke. ‘You should tell her that yourself. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you, even after all this time.’

      Emma’s gaze flicked away and she nodded down at the table, clearly embarrassed that he’d seen her flash of weakness. ‘Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.’

      Standing up quickly, she clapped her hands together as if using the momentum to move herself. ‘Right. A shower.’

      He felt a sudden urge to do something to cheer her up. There was no need for them to be at each other’s throats after all—what was done was done. In fact, thinking about it practically, it would make the divorce proceedings easier to handle if they were on amicable terms.

      ‘When you come back down I’ll make you some breakfast. Bacon and eggs okay with you?’

      ‘You cook now?’ Her expression was so incredulous he couldn’t help but smile.

      ‘I’ve been known to dabble in the culinary arts.’

      She grinned back and he felt something lift a little in his chest.

      ‘Well, in that case, I’d love some artistic bacon and eggs.’

      ‘Great,’ he said, watching her walk away, exuding her usual elegance, despite her crumpled clothes.

      Out of nowhere, an acute awareness that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known—even with her hair a mess and a face clean of make-up—hit him right in the solar plexus, stealing his breath away.

      He thumped the table in frustration. How did she do this to him? Shake him up and make him lose his cool? No one else could, not even the bullying business people he’d battled with on a daily basis for the last few years.

      Ever since the day he’d met her she’d been able to addle his brain like this, by simply smiling in his direction. As a teenager he’d been angry with her for it at first and to his enduring shame he’d treated her appallingly, picking at her life choices, her manners, the boyfriends she chose. Particularly her boyfriends.

      The way she used to glide through life had bothered him on a visceral level. She was poised and prepossessing, and, according to his sister, the girl most likely to be voted the winner of any popularity contest at the eminent private girls’ school they’d both attended in Cambridge. She’d seemed to him at the time to accept her charmed position in life as if it was her God-given right. He, on the other hand, had always prided himself on being subversive, bucking the trends and eschewing the norm and the fact she epitomised what others considered to be the perfect woman frustrated him. He hadn’t wanted to be attracted to her. But he had been. Intensely and without reprieve.

      What would it be like to hold her in his arms again, he wondered now, to feel her soft, pliant body pressed up against his just one more time, to kiss those sultry lips and taste that distinctive sweetness he remembered so well?

      He pushed the thoughts from his mind.

      The last thing they both needed now was to slip back into their old ways.

      It could only end in disaster.

      * * *

      Even after a bracingly cool shower, Emma still felt prickly and hot with nervous tension.

      Being here, in such close proximity to Jack, was playing havoc with her composure.

      She knew it was necessary and practical to stay here today, but she had no idea how she was going to get through the day without doing or saying something she might regret—just as she had a few minutes ago in the kitchen when she’d blurted out why she’d deliberately cut contact with his sister.

      Not wanting to dwell on that misstep right now, she dried herself and put on the clothes Jack had found for her and left out on her bed while she was in the en-suite bathroom.

      The thought of him being in her room while she was naked next door gave her a twinge of nerves. He could so easily have come in when she was in there. Walked into the shower and joined her. If he’d wanted.

      But clearly he didn’t. And that was for the best.

      It would be ridiculous to even contemplate the idea of anything developing between them again.

      They’d be fools to think they could breach the chasm that had grown between them over the years. They were different people now. Wiser, older—harder, perhaps. More set in their ways. Certainly not young and carefree and full of excitement for the future as they had been right before they got married.

      Twisting the necklace that had her wedding ring looped through it—something she’d never taken off, not in all the years they’d been apart—she gave it a sharp tug, feeling it digging into the back of her neck, reminding herself that any connection they’d once had was lost now and that she’d do well to remember that.

      They would get a divorce and that would be the end of it. Then they could move on with their lives.

      Trying to ignore the tension in her chest that this thought triggered, she turned on her heel and went downstairs to eat the breakfast Jack had promised her.

      Passing through the hallway, she noticed that the handset had been left off the phone and it occurred to her that the press must have started calling by now to try and find out who she was and to hound them for details about their clandestine marriage.

      It seemed Jack’s plan was to ignore them for as long as possible.

      Just as she thought this, the doorbell rang and continued to ring as if someone was leaning on it, determined not to stop until someone answered the door.

      Damn press. They’d been the same way right after her father’s death, hounding her and her mother for weeks, trying to get titillating sound bites or pictures that they could use in their repellent

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