PROLOGUE

      AS FERN saw Nick walk into the kitchen, her stomach muscles tensed.

      She had heard him arrive from upstairs, had witnessed the impatience with which he had slewed the car to a halt and climbed out, slamming the door, and then glancing up at the house.

      She had stepped back from the window then, an automatic and very betraying gesture, pausing as she caught sight of herself in her dressing-table mirror. She looked strained and tired, her eyes empty and lifeless… as empty and lifeless as her marriage to Nick?

      Abruptly she had turned away from the mirror and hurried downstairs.

      It was her own fault that Nick was in a bad mood, of course. She should not have raised the subject of how much time he was spending working last night. He had always hated her ‘interfering in his life’, as he called it. She had learned early on in her marriage that Nick loathed any form of restraint, even the mildest hint of criticism.

      What was wrong with her? he had demanded to know last night. Didn’t she realise how fortunate she was, how many women would gladly change places with her?

      ‘You’re my wife,’ he had told her. ‘Nothing can change that.’

      A promise, or a threat?

      She tensed now, guiltily trying to suppress her rebellious thoughts. Nick was right. She was lucky to be married to him, especially after…

      As he came towards her, her tension increased, her muscles locking. Automatically she looked away from him, pain a hard-edged lump in her throat. Nick was a very handsome man, and yet these days she found that sometimes she could hardly bear to look at him.

      ‘I love you… I need you, and I’m never, ever going to let you go,’ he had told her when he’d proposed to her, and she, swept off her feet, totally overwhelmed by his intensity, his insistence, dizzy and bemused by the speed with which he had taken over her life, had been unable to resist the pressure he had put on her.

      Then she had been flattered; reassured; filled with gratitude and joy by his words.

      Then…

      Now, even with the width of the kitchen between them, she could smell the scent of another woman’s sex on him.

      Fastidiously she increased the distance between them.

      Was Nick having another affair? Last night he had denied it. And she had wanted him to deny it.

      She had invested so much in this marriage, given so much to it. Too much?

      How could she stay with him if he was having another affair, and yet how could she leave? Marriage was a lifetime commitment, and when problems arose within it they had to be worked at… or ignored? Her heart lurched. Was she really such a coward?

      ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Nick demanded sourly. ‘Not still sulking, are you?’

      Protectively Fern turned to one side, reaching for the kettle, letting the straight swath of her hair swing across her face, obscuring her expression.

      ‘I’ve got a bit of news for you,’ Nick told her.

      The surliness had gone from his voice now. It was lighter, triumphant… gloating almost. Her tension increased, but Fern suppressed it, concealing her reaction from him as instinctively as she had concealed her face. Inwardly her soul ached at what she was doing; for what their relationship