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      MILLS & BOON

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      Contents

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS one of those life-changing moments. For Esme, anyway. She opened the door and there he was. Not so different. Older, of course. Better-dressed, too, in dark suit and silk tie. But essentially the same.

      ‘Midge?’ He half smiled, uncertain whether it was her.

      She didn’t smile back. She was sick with shock. It was as if he’d just risen from the dead.

      ‘Jack Doyle.’ He identified himself.

      Quite unnecessary. A towering six feet two, dark-haired and grey-eyed, with razor-sharp cheekbones and a wicked smile, he wasn’t easy to forget.

      She struggled to collect her thoughts, only to find herself stammering. ‘I—I—I…’

      All her hard-won composure out of the window. A decade’s worth. Back to the gawky teenager, cursed with puppy fat and the awful nickname Midge.

      Speech proved impossible. Just as well or she might have said, Go away. I have a life now.

      And he wouldn’t have understood.

      He took advantage of her silence to do an inventory. Heavy-lidded grey eyes travelled from her coiled blonde hair and fine-boned face to her slim figure in an A-line dress, and back again.

      ‘Who would have thought it—little Midge all grown up?’ His voice was teasing rather than mocking.

      Midge knew that—no, Esme; that was her name—knew that, but it didn’t help. Still, it rescued her from incoherence.

      ‘No one calls me that now.’ She finally spoke and, looking down her nose, added, ‘May I help you?’

      Polite veneer barely masking condescension.

      He got it, of course. She’d expected him to. Doyle had always been quick on the uptake. Brilliantly so apart from when it concerned her sister, Arabella.

      ‘Scary,’ he commented.

      ‘What?’ she demanded, unable to help herself.

      He shook his head but a smile played on his mouth. He was laughing at something.

      She remembered that of old, too. Jack Doyle watching her family as if they were interesting curiosities, unable to comment because of their respective positions, but commenting all the same with the curve of his lips or the lift of a brow.

      ‘You haven’t changed!’ she accused.

      ‘You have,’ he accused in return. ‘Very lady of the manor.’

      Esme glowered but was unable to argue, considering she had just borrowed her mother’s airs and graces to try and put him down. Unsuccessfully.

      ‘Better than being mannerless,’ she threw back at length.

      He looked surprised, as well he might. He might have been the cook’s son, educated at the local county school, but Jack Doyle had always known how to behave.

      His eyes narrowed slightly before he responded, ‘Well, you’ll know how that feels soon. Being manorless yourselves, I mean.’

      So he’d heard. The manor was to be sold.

      ‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’

      ‘No.’

      She hadn’t thought so. More a cruel remark. That surprised her. She didn’t remember that side of him.

      ‘Is your mother about?’ he added. ‘Her ladyship, should I say?’

      ‘No, actually you shouldn’t,’ she corrected. ‘My mother remarried.’

      ‘Of course,’ he concluded, ‘and presumably lost the title. Poor old Rosie. That must have been traumatic for her.’

      It had been. In fact, her mother, Rosalind—who had never allowed anyone to call her Rosie in her life—had been very slow to take a second walk up the aisle. Only an ultimatum from her new husband had forced the issue.

      ‘Is she around?’ he asked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Arabella?’ he added casually.

      But Esme wasn’t fooled. Jack Doyle had never been casual where Arabella was concerned.

      ‘No, she’s in New York,’ Esme relayed, then, after a pause, ‘With her husband.’

      She watched for a reaction but there was none. Jack had always kept his emotions under wraps. Well, almost always.

      ‘She lives

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