LITMIR.BIZ

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Grieving nearly three years for someone who told his lover what pet names he called me!’

      ‘You’re not the first person to have your trust betrayed.’ Jake’s voice was infuriatingly calm, close to off-hand. ‘It happens to everyone.’

      ‘To you?’ she demanded.

      He shrugged. ‘Of course.’

      Suddenly aflame with reviving anger, she said intensely, ‘I’m not going to put myself in such a position again. Never!’

      Jake glanced across and saw the savage, almost wild determination on her face as she wrenched off the wedding ring and wound down the window. He didn’t stop her when she flung the ring through the window. Fresh air whipped around them, carrying the scent of grass and manuka balsam and the faint, salty tang of the sea.

      ‘There,’ she said intensely. ‘It’s over. All I want to do now is forget.’

      Brows slightly raised, Jake drove on.

      A few miles down the road she said, ‘Turn right at the next turn-off. I live—’

      ‘I know where you live—in a townhouse beside the harbour on Whangaparoa Peninsula,’ he told her curtly.

      Later she might wonder how he knew her address, but at the moment she couldn’t summon up the energy.

      But he wouldn’t let her sink into the stupor she craved. Coolly persistent, he asked, ‘What are your plans?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said dully. She looked around as though in an unknown landscape. ‘Stay at home, I suppose. Regroup…’

      ‘Did you live there with him?’

      ‘Who? Oh, Michael. Yes.’ Stupid—she’d been so stupid! ‘I don’t want to go back there,’ she admitted with painful honesty.

      ‘You could come with me,’ he suggested casually. ‘I own a beach house not too far away—it’s completely isolated. I’m going there tonight for a few days before I leave New Zealand. You can come if you want to.’

      She made a jerky movement, then clamped her hands together in her lap. ‘I couldn’t impose,’ she said in her stiffest tone.

      His laughter was low and cynical. ‘You mean, you think I might try to seduce you. Naturally, after you’ve had such a huge shock, that’s exactly what I’d do. You don’t have much of an opinion of me, but, for the record, you won’t have to sleep with me.’

      Scarlet-faced, she muttered, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

      Her head drooped sideways. Racked by an exhaustion of the spirit, by waves of tiredness that slowed her brain and made her unable to think sensibly, she muttered, ‘I’ll be fine. It was kind of you to offer, though. Thank you.’

      But when the car drew to a halt outside her house a pleasant and determined young woman, with cameraman and sound recorder in tow, was waiting for her in the street. One or two neighbours were already outside, watching.

      Strong face angry, Jake swore beneath his breath. ‘Do you want to turn around and get out of here?’

      ‘Where would I go?’ she asked, her voice so thin and apprehensive it horrified her. She dragged in a breath and said between her teeth, ‘No, I will not run away.’

      ‘Good,’ he responded smoothly, pulling in behind the television company van. ‘Give them that arrogant stare and walk right over the top of them. Wait in the car until I let you out, and from then on I’ll be just behind you.’

      Clinging to that promise, Aline straightened her shoulders and disciplined her face as she got out of the car.

      ‘Mrs Connor?’ the journalist asked after a rapid, appreciative glance at Jake. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you—?’

      ‘No, thank you,’ Aline said, appalled by the cold reptilian scud of fear down her spine. She saw the camera focus and had to hide an impulse to scuttle inside to safety.

      ‘It won’t take a moment—it’s about Stuart Freely’s biography of your husband.’ The woman gave a persuasive smile. ‘We thought you might like to make some comments.’

      ‘You heard Ms Connor,’ Jake said briefly. ‘She doesn’t want to comment.’

      Smirched and sickened by the determined interest she saw in the woman’s face, Aline unlocked the door and walked inside.

      ‘It must be a quiet weekend for news,’ she said bitterly as Jake closed the door behind him.

      ‘Change your mind and come with me. The uproar will die down in a week or so—the media will soon find something else to feed on.’

      ‘You’re very kind,’ she said, fear mingling with a restless longing, ‘but it would be cowardly—’

      ‘Cowardly? To stop them putting you in a pillory to entertain an audience?’ Each scornful word cut through the armour of aloofness she’d erected. ‘Come up with a better excuse than that, Aline.’

      Aline looked around the sitting room she and Michael had furnished with so much care, so much pleasure. Black anger and despair gripped her. The thought of spending one more moment in this shrine to a lie was beyond bearing.

      At least in Jake’s abrasive company she wouldn’t wallow in self-pity, imagining Michael and Lauren in each other’s arms, hearing him whisper his love to another woman…

      ‘All right, I’ll come,’ she said, weakly surrendering.

      ‘Get some clothes,’ Jake commanded. He took a mobile phone from his pocket and began to punch in numbers. She watched as he held it to his mouth, his keen raptor’s eyes fixed on her. ‘Sally?’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of jobs for you, both urgent—’

      Aline ran up the stairs and flung clothes from her wardrobe into a weekend bag. Feverishly but automatically, she stuffed cosmetics and toiletries on top, grabbed a pair of shoes, and changed from her silk suit into black trousers and a polo-necked T-shirt the same colour. After pushing the long sleeves up to her elbows, she slung a black linen shirt around her shoulders in case it got cold on the boat.

      Abruptly her energy drained away; she stood for a long moment, staring blankly around. Michael smiled at her from the dressing table. Eyes filling with tears at the loss of a lovely dream, she walked over and put the photograph face down in the drawer. One day perhaps she would accept that to have loved him was worth it; all she could feel now was outrage and humiliation—and an angry, unexpected sympathy for Lauren, because Michael had betrayed them both.

      ‘Have you finished up there?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said promptly, and came out of the room. Behind her, jerked by her ungentle hand, the door closed with a small crash.

      Six foot three of virile, compelling male, Jake waited at the foot of the stairs, the autocratic angles of his bronze profile gilded by the late-afternoon sun. Tawny lights glimmered in his black hair and a cynical smile hardened his mouth.

      He was the ultimate challenge, she thought, stabbed by an urgent, primitive response—a challenge she wasn’t up to.

      ‘Do you need help with that bag?’ he asked briskly.

      Heat burned along her cheekbones. ‘No, thank you,’ she said, lifting it and walking down the stairs. Instinct warned her that by going with Jake she was setting out on an unknown journey into perilous seas, a journey with no map and no compass. And she was a very weary wayfarer.

      Perhaps her mental and emotional exhaustion showed in her face, for Jake took the bag from her and asked in a different voice, ‘Do you have a back door?’

      ‘Through there.’ She indicated the direction. ‘It leads into the garage, and then into an access alley.’

      ‘Good.’ His smile twisted as he glanced at her. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever

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