www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Lorna and Karl and their prem babies,

       Daniel and Rebecca, who inspired this story and

       provided so much personal information. My thanks also

       to Heidi for asking them all the right questions!

      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

      CHAPTER ONE

      WAS her husband having an affair?

      Pale with horror, Helen stood motionless in the hall, so shocked that she didn’t notice the mud oozing from her sopping wet suit or the dirty puddle of water that was soaking into the new carpet.

      Slowly she closed the front door, her appalled eyes fixed on the very pink, very minimal pair of briefs, resting on the first step of the stairs. She felt too scared to move, in case other intimate items of underwear decorated the rest of the stairs, which disappeared from view in a curving sweep of highly polished oak.

      Helen’s heart pounded. The briefs were very feminine, and definitely not hers. It was the sort of underwear worn by well-endowed women on the front of saucy magazines. Somehow it had fetched up in her home. But how?

      Grey eyes wide, she stared blankly at the ridiculous fringe that decorated the scrap of silky material. Who could own something so uncomfortable and impractical? And what was it doing there in the first place?

      Suspicions crowded in on her. Too many things were adding up. She found herself almost incapable of breathing at all. Each gasp of air only increased the choking, bruised sensation in her chest.

      Heck, she felt awful. With a small moan, she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the nausea and weakness of the flu which had plagued her all morning.

      Cocking her head on one side, she listened nervously for the tell-tale sounds of an orgy—or female giggles at the very least. Yet with the builders absent for the next two weeks, there was nothing to be heard except the torrential rain, mercilessly battering away at the porch roof. Was this silence good or bad?

      Helen shivered and raised a shaking hand to pluck the saturated clothes away from her body. It wasn’t the flu that was making her feel so wretched, but a sense of dread. It was sending icy fingers crawling over her skin and chilling her to the marrow.

      The facts were beginning to frighten her. One. A sexually active female had dropped those briefs. Helen bit her lip, realising why she’d come to that conclusion. She wasn’t sexually active. She and Dan were so exhausted from working so hard that they rarely saw one another, let alone found time for making love. And so she wore practical underwear, cotton knickers not men’s magazine stuff.

      Two. She’d been struggling to put on her wellington boots in the car—a Must Have item with all the rain they’d had that June—when she’d seen that the curtains of the master bedroom had been drawn, even though it was the middle of the day.

      She’d been so startled by this that she’d jumped out in disbelief, leaving her umbrella on the passenger seat. The torrential rain had beaten down on her unprotected head while she’d stood looking at the window like an idiot, trying to understand what was going on.

      Burglars! she’d thought. And then she’d grinned wryly at her wild imagination because surely burglars wouldn’t bother to draw the curtains in one room only while they ransacked the house.

      That had led her to fact three. Just one other person had a key to the house. Her husband. Almost in slow motion, she’d turned to look at the barn, where Dan usually parked his car. It was a relief to see it there, rather than a burglars’ getaway van with a burly type in a balaclava riding shotgun.

      Then she’d realised that Dan must have come home because he’d caught the same flu bug that had laid her low. That was why she had rushed to the house, recklessly scrambling over the huge lumps of soil that had been churned up by the builders’ trucks and lorries during the renovations.

      Her haste to comfort him had made her careless and she’d fallen flat on her face in the mud, cursing the day they’d moved into the country. Nothing new there. But of course she’d hauled herself up, anxious to provide a bit of TLC, dreaming of cuddles by the fire and nose-blowing in unison.

      Huh! He probably didn’t have flu at all! Her eyes glowed with resentful anger. Perhaps something else was laying him low! Someone else.

      She winced, a rush of emotion bringing tears to her eyes. She loved Dan. Adored everything about him. As usual, she was jumping to dramatic conclusions when there was probably an innocent explanation.

      But… Female knickers on the stairs. Her husband home. Curtains drawn. It all seemed horribly damning.

      A scouring fear washed through her and she felt her legs begin to shake uncontrollably. With a trembling hand she pushed back her hair, smoothing its muddy strands back till it stopped dripping down her face and blurring her vision. She had to investigate.

      Hardly aware she was still wearing her muddy boots, she stumbled over to the foot of the stairs and grabbed blindly at the newel post to prevent herself from sinking to the floor in a boneless heap.

      Tears dammed up in her throat, choking her. She felt so shocked and weak that she could hardly collect her thoughts to make sense of what was happening.

      But she knew there must be a rational explanation. He wouldn’t betray her, not Dan. She racked her brains desperately.

      Perhaps he was ill. And some time before he’d felt really sick and had come home, he’d bought some sexy underwear to spice up their non-existent sex life, and had accidentally dropped something from his shopping foray as he’d staggered up the stairs to bed.

      Her brain stalled, her headache intensifying, and she waited for a moment of dizziness to pass. Illness was so debilitating. She had crawled back from London after nearly fainting on the way to work. The trip had been draining: a long walk, two tubes, an hour’s journey on the