www.millsandboon.co.uk

      With many thanks to Carol O’Reilly for her insight

       into the legal aspects of surrogacy in the U.K.

      For more information visit www.surrogacyuk.org.

      CHAPTER ONE

      GRACE MCALLISTER restlessly paced the entrance to Accident and Emergency, punching yet another number into her cellphone in a desperate attempt to contact Josh Kingsley.

      It would be Sunday evening in Australia and she’d tried his home number first. A woman had picked up.

      ‘Anna Carling.’

      ‘Oh…’ The sound of her voice, the knowledge that she was in Josh’s apartment answering his phone, for a moment drove everything else from her mind. Then, gathering herself, she said, ‘Can I speak to Josh, please?’

      ‘Who’s calling?’

      ‘Grace… Grace McAllister. I’m his… his…’

      ‘It’s okay, Grace, I know who you are. His brother’s wife’s sister, right?’

      The woman was in his apartment and knew all the details of his personal life….

      Grace gripped the phone tighter until it was hurting her fingers. ‘Could I speak to him, please?’

      ‘I’m sorry, Josh is away at the moment. I’m his personal assistant. Is there anything I can do to help?’

      ‘Do you know where he is?’

      ‘He’s moving about a lot. Hong Kong. Beijing. Can I pass on a message?’ she prompted when Grace didn’t reply.

      ‘No. Thank you.’ This wasn’t news she could ask a member of his staff—no matter how personal—to deliver second-hand. ‘I need to speak to him myself. It’s urgent.’

      Anna didn’t waste time asking questions, playing the dragon at the door, but gave her a string of contact numbers. His cellphone. The number of his hotel in Hong Kong in case there was no signal. The private number of the manager of the Hong Kong office, since it was evening there. Even the number of Josh’s favourite restaurant.

      There was no signal. She left a message asking him to call her, urgently, then called the hotel. He wasn’t there and the manager of the Hong Kong office informed her that Josh had flown to mainland China. Apparently Anna had already called the office and primed the manager to expect her call and again, when she wouldn’t leave a message, he helpfully gave her the number of Josh’s hotel there, and his partner in Beijing.

      Beijing? He had a partner in Beijing? That was new since the last time he’d been home. Or maybe not. He hadn’t stayed for more than a few hours and no one had been talking about business…

      Calling the number she’d been given, she was told that Josh was out of the city for a few days and that the only way to contact him was through his cellphone.

      She felt as if she were going around in circles, but at least it helped take her mind off what was happening at the hospital, even if she was dreading the moment she found him.

      This time it rang. Once, twice, three times and then she heard him. His voice, so familiar, so strange as he briefly instructed the caller to leave a message.

      ‘Miss McAllister…’

      She spun round as a nurse called her name. Then wished she’d taken her time.

      She’d been trying so hard not to think about what was happening to Michael. She’d only caught a glimpse of him lying unconscious on the stretcher while the emergency team worked on him before they’d rushed him away to the operating theatre and she’d been told to wait.

      One look told her everything she needed to know. Her warm, loving brother-in-law had not survived the accident that had already killed her sister.

      ‘Josh…’ She forced his name out through a throat aching with unshed tears. There would be time for tears, but not yet. Not now. ‘Josh… You have to come home.’

      A day, even an hour ago, the very thought of seeing him would have been enough to send her into the same dizzy spin that had afflicted her as a teenager.

      Numbed with the horror of what had happened, she was beyond feeling anything but rage at the unfairness of it.

      Rage at the cruelty of fate. With Josh for being so blind. For refusing to understand. For being so angry with them all.

      She didn’t know what he’d said to Michael.

      Remembered little of what he’d said to her, beyond begging her to think again.

      All she could remember was his bloodless face when she’d told him that it was too late for second thoughts. That she was already pregnant with her sister’s child. She would never forget the way he’d lifted a hand in a helpless gesture, let it fall, before taking a step back and opening the front door, climbing into the car waiting to take him back to the airport.

      The nurse, no doubt used to dealing with shocked relatives, put her arm around her. Said something about a cup of tea. Asked if there was someone she could telephone so that she would not be alone.

      ‘I’ve called Josh,’ Grace said, stupidly, as if the woman would understand what that meant. ‘He’ll come now.’ He had to come.

      Then, realising she still had the phone clutched tightly to her ear as if she might somehow catch his voice in the ghostly static, she snapped it shut, pushed it into her pocket and allowed herself to be led back inside the hospital.

      Josh Kingsley looked up at the majestic sight of Everest, pink in a freezing sunset.

      He’d come here looking for something, hoping to recapture a time when he and his brother had planned this trip to Base Camp together. Older, a little wiser, he could see that it had been his big brother’s attempt to distract him from his misery at their parents’ divorce.

      It had never happened. Now he was here alone but for the Sherpa porters, drawn to make this pilgrimage, take a few precious days out of a life so crowded by the demands of business that he was never entirely on his own. To find a way to come to terms with what had happened.

      Now, overcome with the sudden need to talk to him, share this perfect moment, make his peace with the only member of his immediate family he cared about, he peeled off his gloves and took out the BlackBerry that he’d switched off three days ago.

      Ignoring the continuous beep that signalled he had messages—work could wait, this wouldn’t—he scrolled hurriedly through his numbers. Too hurriedly. The slender black miracle of computer technology slipped through fingers rapidly numbing in the thin atmosphere. And, as if he, too, were frozen, he watched it bounce once, then fly out across a vast chasm, not moving until he heard the faint sound of it shattering a thousand feet below.

      When he finally looked up, the snow had turned from pink to grey and, as the cold bit deeper, he shivered.

      Josh would come, but not yet, not for twenty-four hours at the earliest. Now, numb with shock, incapable of driving, she let the nurse call Toby Makepeace. He was there within minutes, helped her deal with the paperwork before driving her home to Michael and Phoebe’s home and their three-month-old baby.

      ‘I hate to leave you,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be alone.’

      ‘Elspeth’s