CHAPTER ONE

      WIL HUDSON WAS a handsome, handsome man. Georgia Lang had recognised his exceptional good looks from day one of their friendship. What red-blooded female wouldn’t? But she had never allowed herself to acknowledge even a flutter of attraction to him.

      It was way safer to be ‘just friends’ with a man who attracted women as effortlessly as gorgeous Wil did—and discarded them as readily. Especially when she was just an ordinary girl, attractive enough, but hardly a winner in the head-turning stakes. Nothing like the women Wil dated. Girl next door was the way people described her. On self-doubting days, she wondered if that was shorthand for distinctly unexciting. Most of the time she embraced the label as a good fit.

      As Wil’s girl next door pal, his buddy, his good mate from university days, she’d watched as his glamorous girlfriends came and went while their friendship endured. To be sure, it had ebbed and flowed. They’d always seen more of each other when they’d been between relationships; there had been moments when she’d wondered if they could be more than friends. But, fearing rejection, she hadn’t dared suggest it; he hadn’t either, and they’d each dived back into the dating pool.

      But all that had been before Wil’s whirlwind marriage. After he’d wed, none of their group of friends had seen much of him. They’d seen him even less after his wife had left him. Georgia hadn’t seen him at all. He’d ghosted her—just stopped all contact without explanation. Not a call, not a text, not even a ‘like’ on social media. She’d seen him interviewed on television, he’d become a reluctant go-to spokesperson for the young generation of millionaires. But he might as well have been a ghost for all the personal contact she’d had with him.

      Now, just days into the new year, he stood at the doorstep of the North Sydney apartment she shared with two other schoolteachers. She was so taken aback to find him there she had to clutch at the door frame for support. Wil. Her heart started a furious beating. How she’d missed him.

      Incredulous delight flooded through her at seeing the friend she’d painfully accepted was no longer part of her life. She started to blurt out her pleasure at his unexpected appearance, wish him the happiest of new years. To tell him she was moving house and he was just in time to help her lift some heavy boxes of books and she’d reward him with the cookies she knew were his favourite. But she held herself back. This Wil wasn’t her best friend. She hadn’t deserved how he’d treated her. This Wil seemed like a stranger.

      If it had been any other guy she might have shrieked about what a wreck she looked, in shorts and a past-its-use-by-date vest top, no make-up, hair rioting every which way from the January summer humidity. But she’d never worried about her appearance with Wil; she doubted he’d ever noticed what she’d worn.

      But she’d always noticed him. The impact of his good looks hit her afresh—tall, broad-shouldered, in dark jeans and a white T-shirt that showcased his athletic physique. For a long moment she stared at him as he met her gaze through narrowed eyes. What was he doing here? Why now?

      ‘Georgie,’ he said slowly, his voice as deep and resonant as it had always been. His eyes searched her face, acknowledging that it had been a long time between meetings, waiting for her reaction. She met his gaze unflinchingly, drinking in the sight of him.

      He was the same, but not quite the same. Wil had always been well groomed in a clean-shaven, country-boy kind of way. Now he was a few days away from a shave and stubble shadowed his jaw. His dark hair, longer than he used to wear it, fell unkempt over his forehead. Fine lines scored the corners of his eyes, the colour of bittersweet chocolate. At twenty-eight, a year older than her, he seemed somehow...weary. Perhaps making so much money so quickly did that for you, she thought cynically. Maybe it had also made him think he’d outgrown his old friends.

      ‘It’s been two years,’ she said at last, determined not to let a note of accusation edge her voice but failing dismally. Laughter and good-humoured teasing had been the keynotes of their friendship but she couldn’t find it in herself to summon them up. It had hurt, the way he had so abruptly discarded their friendship of six years’ duration.

      Friendship not just diminished—as did happen when friends met ‘The One’—but extinguished. As if those years had meant nothing when he had finally fallen in love. As if she had just been a convenient prop, of no further use in his new life. Good old Georgia—no longer required. She couldn’t hide that hurt. Couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter.

      And Wil wasn’t fooled for a moment. ‘I’m sorry it’s been so long, Georgie, I really am,’ he said.

      She attempted to tease but her words fell flat. ‘You know whose fault that is.’

      ‘Mine. I know. And I regret it.’ He paused.

      ‘Yet you’re here now.’ She made no move towards him. No kiss on the cheek or hug in welcome—not that their friendship had ever been the kind that involved physical contact beyond the socially polite. There had always been an unspoken ‘no touching’ barrier between them.

      Back in the day, when Wil had smiled there had been a hint of a dimple in his left cheek that, in spite of herself, she’d always found appealing. He wasn’t smiling now. Georgia didn’t smile either. Once they’d been such close friends they’d joked they could read each other’s minds. Now she could see in his eyes that he knew he’d hurt her by the way he’d dumped her. She wasn’t inclined to be forgiving. But this was Wil and he had sought her out. She had to give him a hearing.

      ‘I need your help,’ he said, his voice gruff.

      Georgia could tell the effort it took for him to force out those words. Once she would have immediately jumped in to ask what she could do for him. Good old Georgia would have cancelled prior engagements. Rearranged schedules. Bent over backwards to accommodate him—far more, she realised, than he had ever done for her as his good friend. Now she remained with her feet planted firmly at the threshold. ‘I heard you and your wife had divorced.’

      Angie, tiny, blonde, with a waif-like air that hadn’t hidden her calculating eyes. None of the girls in their friendship group had been taken in by her. Not so the guys. But none had been so smitten as Wil.

      ‘Yes,’ he said shortly.

      Georgia crossed her arms across her chest. ‘I’m no longer available as number one shoulder to cry on when you break up with a woman.’ Not one word from him in two years. ‘I’m afraid my give-a-damn quota has expired,’ she said.

      Only a tightening of his lips let her know that her words had met their target. He cleared his throat once, then again. ‘Angie...she... Angie’s dead,’ he said.

      Georgia clutched a hand to her heart. ‘What?’ She expelled just the one word, tinged with disbelief. But Wil’s bleak expression told her to believe him. ‘When? How?’

      ‘Car accident in the Blue Mountains. New Year’s Eve. She...she died the next day in hospital. Three days ago.’

      ‘Oh, Wil, that’s dreadful. I’m so sorry.’ She remembered all the bitchy thoughts she’d had about Wil’s fluffy little wife. Regretted every one of them. Also regretted the just-spoken ‘not giving a damn’ remark. Angie