CHAPTER ONE

      THE night the world came tumbling down around Arden Miller’s ears began just like any other, or, at least, like any other during the five months since she’d transferred from McCann, Flint, Emerson’s New York office to the firm’s newest branch in Costa Rica.

      She put in her usual eight hours as executive secretary to Edgar Lithgow, bid him a polite good evening, then drove her Ford Escort—a perk of her new job—the few miles to the hotel in which the company housed its small roster of North American employees.

      The clerk at the reception desk greeted her pleasantly.

      ‘Buenas noches, señorita. The cook says to tell you the langosta is especially good tonight.’

      Arden smiled. ‘I’m sure it is, but I think I’ll settle for a chicken sandwich in my room. Would you ask Alejandro to bring it up in an hour or so?’

      The clerk smiled. ‘With iced coffee, yes?’

      ‘Please.’

      ‘Of course, Senorita Miller. It will be my pleasure.’

      No, Arden thought, no, all of this is my pleasure. I have never been so fussed over, or made to feel so much at home as I have these last months.

      But she didn’t say that, of course. Such an admission would have been far too personal and out of keeping with her carefully honed professional image. Instead she gave him another smile, scooped up the few messages and letters that had been left for her, and made her way to the lift. She stabbed the button, then turned her attention to the envelopes in her hand.

      There was an advertisement from Macy’s, urging her to take advantage of a sale on shoes, and a form letter from a candidate for local office, pleading for her vote in an election that had taken place a month before. Arden smiled. It was amazing, the mail the post office re-routed so it followed you all these thousands of miles.

      The third letter was from her mother, and Arden opened it eagerly. Evelyn wrote that she was feeling fine and still happy in her new job as live-in housekeeper to the Carsons, up on the Hill in Greenfield. Did Arden remember them? Arden’s mouth turned down. Yes, she certainly did. They’d had a couple of sons who’d thought it was their absolute right to sexually initiate girls from the Valley in the back seats of their cars, and if there were any complaints they’d had the money and the clout to hush them up.

      Her gaze dropped to the next paragraph. There was good news about Emma Simms, her mother said. She’d just finished a course in beauty school and she was head over heels in love with that nice Evans boy, the one who was working over at Destry’s Plumbing. They planned to get married in February and honeymoon in Disneyworld. And Nan Richards was pregnant with her third baby and working weekends for a caterer so she and her husband could buy a house.

      Arden shook her head. Some things never changed, nor did the expectations of some people. She loved her mother dearly, but how Evelyn could be content working as a servant for the rich was beyond her to understand. As for the news about the girls she’d grown up with—well, if Emma and Nan were happy, that was wonderful, but for Arden happiness had always meant establishing herself in a career. You had to have goals in life, and the higher, the better.

      As for falling head over heels in love and getting married—well, that sort of nonsense made for catchy song titles, but it had little place in——

      ‘Señorita.’

      Arden’s head lifted sharply. The lift had arrived, the door had slid open, and she saw that a man was lounging in the far corner, watching her. His arms were folded across his chest, his feet were crossed at the ankle, and he had a lazy smile on his beard-stubbled face.

      His eyes—surprisingly green in his sun-darkened face—met hers, and she took an unexpected step back. For barely an instant she’d felt—she’d felt as if the ground had suddenly tilted under her feet...

      She gave herself a mental shake. That was what came of skipping lunch. But Mr Lithgow had asked her if she’d mind working through, so