PROLOGUE

      ‘YOU’RE a fraud, Nicky.’

      Andrew Bolton thrust himself away from her and stood up.

      In the half-dark of her sitting room, Nicky Piper clutched her elderly dressing gown round her. Andrew had arrived at midnight, bearing flowers and champagne. High on the success of a new contract and several hours celebrating it, he had woken her up, danced her sexily round her sitting room and then, laughing, carried her to the sofa.

      Where they’d both come face to face with a truth they had been avoiding for months.

      ‘Face it, Nicky. You don’t want me.’ The honesty was brutal. ‘In your heart of hearts, you never have.’

      Nicky ran her fingers through her loosened hair. In the light reflected from the street lamp outside her window stray fronds gleamed like diamonds. Even with all the gold leached out of it, the soft, curly mass was spectacular. Andrew eyed it broodingly.

      ‘Oh, boy, did I want you,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Gorgeous blonde. Legs to your eyebrows. Figure like a paradise houri.’

      Nicky said nothing but her jaw ached with tension. Although she said nothing Andrew picked up on it at once. The look he sent her was wry.

      ‘I know. I know. I’m not supposed to mention it.’ His sigh sounded as if it was wrenched out of him. ‘You’re a lovely girl, Nicky. Why don’t you want anyone to notice? Even when they’re making love to you?’

      Nicky shaded her eyes. This was truth indeed.

      ‘I—tried.’

      Andrew swung round on her. ‘That’s the point,’ he said, suddenly fierce. ‘You’re not supposed to have to try.’

      Nicky knew he was right. She hugged her knees to her chest, feeling guilty. She had so wanted to be in love with him. Until tonight she would have said she was. But all he had to do was to come to her when she was not expecting him and the façade cracked to pieces.

      And suddenly there was the real Nicky—tense as a drum and armed to the teeth against invasion. And that was Andrew’s problem—for all their shared laughter, when he took her by surprise, Nicky turned and saw an invader.

      She said, half to herself, ‘I didn’t realise.’

      He sat down on the bamboo chair under the window and looked at her. In the sodium light from the street lamp his expression was sombre.

      ‘Someone has given you a real pasting, hasn’t he?’

      ‘No,’ said Nicky, horrified.

      It couldn’t still hurt. It couldn’t. Not after all these years. She had been a child then. Now she was a woman, independent and in control of her life. She couldn’t still be in the power of something so stupid.

      She knelt down in front of his chair and looked up into his face. ‘Andrew, I’m so sorry.’

      He touched her cheek, quite without his usual passion, his eyes searching her shadowed face.

      ‘Have you ever been in love, Nicky?’

      Nicky shrugged evasively. ‘I don’t know what you mean by love.’

      ‘I mean,’ said Andrew drily, ‘has there ever been a man you wanted to make love with? Without pretending.’

      And, fast as a lightning strike, Nicky thought, He knows about Steve. Her whole body juddered with the shock of it. And in that moment she gave herself away.

      ‘I see,’ said Andrew at length.

      Nicky pulled herself together. She stood up.

      ‘One adolescent crush,’ she said drily. She was glad to hear she sounded more like herself at last. ‘Very adolescent and very short-lived.’

      Andrew watched her. ‘Returned?’

      Nicky gave an unamused laugh. ‘He despised me,’ she said flatly. ‘Very understandable. Looking back, I despise myself.’ Her voice rasped.

      Andrew was taken aback. ‘Isn’t that a bit extreme? For a teenage mistake?’

      Nicky had told herself the same thing a million times. It made no difference. Every time she thought about Steve and what she had so nearly done with him, she wanted to hide.

      ‘I made a fool of myself,’ she said between her teeth. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you and me.’

      ‘Hasn’t it?’

      He got up and touched her shoulder. Nicky’s shoulders went rigid. His hand fell.

      ‘You see?’ said Andrew tiredly. ‘It’s got everything to do with you and me. And any other man who tries to get near you.’

      ‘Don’t say that’, protested Nicky involuntarily.

      He said in a low voice, ‘Nicky, I love you to bits but this is getting us nowhere.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘No!’