www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ALLISON RUSHBY

      Having failed at becoming a ballerina with pierced ears (her childhood dream), Allison Rushby instead began a writing career as a journalism student at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Within a few months she had slunk sideways into studying Russian. By the end of her degree she had learned two very important things: that she didn’t want to be a journalist; and that there are hundreds of types of vodka (and they’re all pretty good).

      A number of years spent freelancing for numerous wedding magazines (‘Getting on with your draconian mother-in-law made simple!’, ‘A 400-guest reception for $2.95 per head!’) almost sent her crazy. After much whining about how hard it would be, she began her first novel. That is, her husband (then boyfriend) told her to shut up, sit down and get typing (there may, or may not, have been threats of severing digits with rusty scalpels if she didn’t, but it’s okay, he’s a doctor).

      These days, Allison writes full-time, mostly with her cat, Violet, on her lap. Oh, and she keeps up her education by sampling new kinds of vodka on a regular basis.

      You can read more about Allison at www.allisonrushby.com.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Firstly, I’d like to praise the Goddesses for managing to put Karin Stoecker in the right place at the right time, and Tess for e-mailing to tell me that she was. It’s nice to know that good things do come out of gossip!

      Thanks to Karin, Sam Bell and Margaret Marbury, along with the gals of the RDI NYC team, for showing me a good time worldwide. Strangely enough, all the restaurants I went to served excellent gelati and I was left wondering if my dessert reputation had preceded me.

      :-) to all my Web-site buddies who read this novel in e-serial form and had the good manners to beg for each new installment.

      Danken Sie Gott for Heidi and Thomas who (I hope I got that right!) speak German. Also to Jeff Zalkind of www.worldofcrap.com fame for his “Learn to Swear in German!” page, which came in very handy because Heidi and Thomas aren’t rude-on-command kind of people.

      Nibble, nibble to the literate guinea pigs. Again.

      But, mostly, hurrah for David. For just hanging in there.

      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 Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter One

      I’ve got approximately forty minutes to spare in the airport lounge, even after I’ve done the obligatory pick up and put down everything in the newsagent thing, and the ‘Ooohhh it’s lovely, but I can’t afford it, duty-free or not’ faux shop. With nothing else left to poke and prod, I find the nearest café and order a skinny latte. I’m sitting, stirring the sugar into my napkin-ringed glass on autopilot, when I hear the announcement reverberate around the airport.

      ‘Could passenger Mr Jasper Ash please notify the nearest Qantas desk of his whereabouts?’ the voice booms. ‘Mr Jasper Ash—please go directly to the nearest Qantas desk.’

      Do not pass go, do not collect $200, I think absentmindedly.

      And then the name they’re calling sinks in.

      Jasper Ash.

      I stand up suddenly, to see if I can spot him. I can’t. Of course I can’t. It’s a big airport, and from the sound of that announcement he’s probably not here anyway. The other people in the café look at me as I frantically search the faces walking past. When I sit back down again I realise why they’re staring—jumping up so fast, I’ve spilled most of my coffee in my saucer and it’s run over and formed a puddle on the table.

      Jasper Ash.

      Now there’s a flashback.

      ‘Jasper Ash,’ I say the name to myself quietly, as if mouthing the words will somehow make this all seem more real.

      It’s a name I haven’t said, or heard anyone else say, for some time. Mainly because it’s a name that doesn’t get a lot of use any more. Not now that he’s got a new one, that is. A new name. A new name for a new life.

      I wonder for a moment whether it’s actually even him—the Jasper Ash I know. But then have to admit to myself that it probably is. It isn’t exactly a common name. And it’s pretty likely he’d travel under it—being his real name, it’d be the one on his passport. It’s not unlikely he’d be in an airport, either. I’m sure he does a lot of travelling these days.

      A waitress comes over to wipe down my table for me, and I order another skinny latte as most of the old one’s now retreating to the kitchen in her soggy sponge. While I’m waiting for it to arrive, I can’t help but think back to the days of Jasper Ash.

      We met—it must be almost three years ago now—because he was looking for a new place to live. He was going steadily crazy where he was at the time. The guys he’d been living with—all engineering students—were too noisy for him and constantly gave him ten kinds of crap about studying voice and piano at the Conservatorium. He told me once, later on, that when he read my ad in the classifieds of the Saturday papers he couldn’t believe his luck. A cheap share on trendy, hip and young Magnolia Avenue, complete with a river view? Right near the best shops, the best restaurants and within walking distance of the Conservatorium? He’d thought it was simply too good to be true.

      Still, Jasper being Jasper, he didn’t ring early about the room, and it would’ve been almost three o’clock in the afternoon when he turned up on my doorstep already over half an hour late. I was actually surprised to see that he’d made it to the door. Half the people who’d made appointments to check out the room that day hadn’t even turned up. Well, that’s probably not quite true. Most likely they’d turned up, parked, seen the place and driven away at high speed. I’d expected that, though, because 36 Magnolia Avenue—Magnolia Lodge, to its residents—was a little, um, different from the rest of Magnolia Avenue.

      Different. I laugh to myself with a small snort now, making the people seated at the few tables around me in the café look over again. Magnolia Lodge, different. That’s the understatement of the new millennium.

      The thing was, the rest of Magnolia Avenue consisted of trendy little townhouses with big wooden decks, cosy braziers, remote garages and low-maintenance courtyards. Scattered in between these were dinky little cafés and shops that only ever sold one kind of thing—designer products for pampered pets, frozen life-on-the-go takeaway gourmet meals, five hundred kinds of scented candles, and so