CHAPTER ONE

      WOULD he come? That was the question. A question which could only be answered by the man himself, all six feet four of him, with his unruly hair and his Irish eyes and that irreverent humour which always seemed to be lurking at the corners of a mouth just made for kissing.

      Triss shivered. She must just be patient, and wait. She had waited fourteen months, after all, so another few minutes were neither here nor there.

      In fact, what she should do was to make herself remember why she had split up with Cormack Casey in the first place.

      And after that she should force herself to recall every single one of his bad points, so that a miracle might happen and she might remain immune to him.

      Some hopes.

      The sound of the waves beating down on the wet blond sand outside the cottage rang in her ears. Triss glanced down at her watch and for the twentieth time she wondered how Simon was. She had never been away from her beautiful blue-eyed baby before, and had been totally unprepared for the almost physical pain of his absence.

      No one ever warned you what babies would do to you, she thought, with a sudden rush of overwhelming love. How motherhood would change you irrevocably, so that the person you used to be before you had the baby seemed like a distant stranger.

      The cottage she had rented had been deliberately chosen for its lack of television and telephone. Cormack was a man whom other people clam-oured to be with. When they had lived together his phone had never stopped ringing—hence the lack of facilities in this out-of-the-way place. But, even more importantly, she wanted all his attention when she dropped her bombshell into his lap.

      She had given the number of the local pub to Lola—who was looking after Simon for her—with the instructions that she was to ring Triss immediately if there was anything she wasn’t happy about.

      Please God, there wouldn’t be.

      She thought of the comfort and security of her elegant house on the exclusive St Fiacre’s Hill estate, bought with the earnings from her successful modelling career. The perfect place, she had decided during her pregnancy, in which to bring up her baby.

      Triss swallowed down the ever-present fears which were part and parcel of motherhood and allowed herself a fleeting glance in the mirror, wincing slightly as she did so.

      The simple rust-coloured linen dress she had chosen was practical and comfortable, but it made her look so mumsy—and today it seemed to drain all the colour from her skin.

      Should