CHAPTER ONE

      ABBY stood behind the kitchen door, with her hands pressed hard against her burning cheeks. She hoped no one had observed her hasty departure from the party, or if they had, that they assumed she was helping Liz with the washing up. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself, and at least in the kitchen she could not be seen.

      Dry-mouthed, she moved away from the door, glad that the caterers who had been here earlier had departed some time ago. It would have been awkward, explaining her withdrawal from the proceedings to them, and she supposed she ought to be grateful there was no one to witness her consternation. But how could she have anticipated that Rachid would turn up here, at Liz’s party, when she had not even known he was in London?

      Taking long gulping intakes of air, she endeavoured to calm herself. It was ridiculous behaving like this, she told herself impatiently. She was a grown woman, not a child. She should be capable of handling any situation, including meeting the husband she had not seen for almost eighteen months. She was Brad’s secretary, wasn’t she? The cool collected recipient of his confidences, and no longer the wide-eyed innocent she had been when she first met Rachid. At just such a party as this, she thought bitterly—only in Paris, not at her friend’s apartment in London.

      Liz!

      With a puzzled frown she considered the possibility that Liz had known Rachid might appear. Liz knew everyone, and her job at the news agency ensured that she knew most of what they were doing as well. It was inconceivable that she should not have learned that the son of an eminent Middle Eastern prince was in town, so why hadn’t she told Abby? The answer was obvious. Because if Abby had suspected her husband might be here, she herself would not have come.

      Nibbling at her lower lip, Abby braced herself against the sink. She supposed it had been bound to happen sooner or later, that she should meet Rachid again, if not socially then at least commercially. Since she had taken up the post of Brad’s secretary once more, her work brought her into contact with the oil barons of the world, and after all, it was through Brad that she had met Rachid in the first place.

      But Liz! She and Liz had been friends since schooldays. She had known how she felt. Had known that she had no desire to meet her husband again—not yet. It was too soon. And she half wished she had not succumbed to her father’s pleas to her to return to England. Without his entreating letters, she would still be working at the trade mission in New York, and she felt a surge of frustration that she should have allowed herself to be persuaded to take up her old life.

      And yet, she argued logically, couldn’t this have happened just as easily in New York? Rachid was not bound by the conventions and limitations which had restricted his ancestors. He was a man of the twentieth century. He flew all over the world on business for his father. He looked like a European, and he dressed like a European, and only in his own country did he shed the trappings of the Western world.

      Nevertheless, Abby knew that the chances of her encountering Rachid in New York had to be less likely. Her work there had not afforded her the same opportunities she had as Brad’s secretary, and besides, so far as she knew, Rachid did not know where she was. All correspondence between them had been through her father’s house in London, and he had distinct orders not to give her address