CHAPTER ONE

      STEPHEN didn’t bother to tell anyone he was leaving. He simply took his private lift down to the ground floor. They would find out soon enough that he was gone—when the negotiations were over.

      Frankly, he no longer cared what the outcome would be, whether or not by this evening he would still have control of the company he had built up with such ruthless determination over the past ten years. He had known last night when he’d heard the news he had been waiting for what he must do today.

      The irony of the situation struck him as amusing. Ever since the take-over bid had first been made and he had decided not to fight it he had been looking for Rachel. The team of investigators he’d hired had had little success in tracking her down, and then last night Stephen had received a phone call.

      He had been stunned to learn that Rachel was here in the town—yet in an odd way wasn’t it fitting? Rachel had gone out of his life just as everything was beginning; that she should come back now seemed somehow right. Now he intended to tie up some loose ends before he closed the book on this chapter in his life.

      The wind was sharp as it blew across from the park. It lifted the dark brown hair back from his face, setting his harshly cut features in even sharper relief. Stephen caught a glimpse of himself in the glass door and smiled again with little pleasure.

      Life and experience had etched themselves onto his face and filled his slate-grey eyes with cynicism. That was the legacy he would be left with when this was over. Oh, there would be money, of course—more than he would need in his lifetime—but nothing to make him regret the decision he had made. It seemed a bitter indictment of all he had achieved.

      The roads were quiet, but Stephen took his time following a route which he hadn’t taken in years. His life had moved on from these narrow streets, the huge house set in countless acres now the proper setting for a man of his means, but as he drove he experienced a sense of time slipping away...

      His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he drew up outside the house. He felt overwhelmed by the sudden feeling that he could be making a mistake. What did he hope to achieve by this meeting? Rachel had made no attempt to seek him out, so was he a fool to rake up the past when it might be best to leave things as they were?

      Stephen hesitated only for a moment before his resolve hardened. For the past ten years he had wanted answers, and now more than any other time seemed the perfect time to hear them.

      He glanced along the street as he got out of the car and felt shock hit him hard in the stomach when he saw the woman walking towards him. She was muffled up in a thick coat, the hood drawn up over her head, but he would have recognised that long-legged stride anywhere...

      ‘Rachel.’

      Her name slid so easily from his lips that it might have been days not years since he had seen her last. Stephen had thought he was prepared for this meeting, yet he wasn’t prepared at all as everything he had felt that long-ago lost summer came rushing back so swiftly, so fiercely...

      ‘Can we go to the park later, Mummy? Please?’

      The child’s voice carried clearly along the street. Stephen started, realising for the first time that Rachel wasn’t alone, then seconds later registering what he had heard. His gaze fell to the child beside her and he experienced another cold jolt of shock.

      The boy had to be Rachel’s son; the resemblance to her was startling as the child ran on ahead and came closer to him. It wasn’t just the boy’s pale gold hair or his small, even features, but the lift of his chin, which carried a familiar hint of determination, the way he looked Stephen straight in the eyes so unflinchingly as he stopped outside the house...

      The shock Stephen had felt before was just a forerunner for what he felt then. He stared into the boy’s eyes and saw there something he had never dreamed he would see!

      Suddenly, he felt anger start to burn inside him and melt away the years of uncertainty. Once the need to find out the truth had eaten into his soul. Now he knew what that truth was at last, although he didn’t have all the answers...but he would!

      Stephen looked up, his eyes like ice as he watched Rachel stop to open her bag. Yes, he would have his answers—and something which by rights should have been his a long time ago!

      Rachel took the keys out of her bag and sighed. The last thing she felt like doing was taking Jamie to the park, but she hated to refuse him the small treat. If only she didn’t feel so tired, but nursing Aunt Edith in the weeks before the elderly woman died had been exhausting.

      Rachel hadn’t wanted to come back, but her conscience wouldn’t have allowed her to stay away after she had got her aunt’s letter, and in the event her fears about returning had proved groundless.

      Now all that remained to be done was to pack what few things Aunt Edith had left to her and go home. Yet the thought of going back to her flat on a faceless estate in Birmingham wasn’t one Rachel relished. Being