CHAPTER ONE

      LORNA FARRELL would never forget the last time she’d seen Mitch Ellery. She’d been nineteen then. Now, five years later, the memory of that terrible day hung suspended in time, burned so deeply into her heart that it could have happened twenty minutes ago.

      The certain knowledge that she would—perhaps in a matter of moments—come face-to-face with Mitch Ellery again caused her memory of him to go bright as lightning. She discreetly brushed at the sheen of cold perspiration on her forehead, dismayed by the slight tremor of her hand.

      Lorna had faced trauma and hard times before, so she knew how to steel herself against them and survive. This time, though, she would face calamity knowing she deserved what happened next. Her sense of responsibility was too exacting for her to ignore the heavy load of guilt, hence the reason for the sick dread in her chest and the tremor of her hand.

      She glanced cautiously at the young brunette who stood next to her in the elevator. Barely three years younger than Lorna’s own twenty-four, Kendra Jackson was blissfully unaware of Lorna’s anguish. As the silent car rocketed them to the twentieth floor of the San Antonio office building, Lorna studied Kendra’s pretty profile. Emotion stung her eyes, but she continued to stare, alert to any sign that her scrutiny had been detected. It could very well be that these moments with Kendra would be her last.

      Once Mitch Ellery found out she’d had such close contact with his stepsister, he would likely speak to her boss, if not also to the police. And the good job she’d worked so relentlessly hard to get would not only be gone, but the circumstances of her firing might ensure great difficulty in securing another.

      Kendra Jackson. Now the fiancée of her boss, John Owen; the young woman who’d persistently undermined Lorna’s aloof distance, even to the extent of having her boss put Lorna at her disposal for small tasks and favors. Kendra had seemed to set out to make Lorna a friend and minor confidant, and Lorna had been trapped by Kendra’s friendly persistence. The fact that Kendra had commandeered her time and attention had been a bittersweet joy that Lorna had faithfully kept to herself.

      Because Kendra Jackson was a young woman too happy and carefree and in love—and too naïve about the secrets and selfish motives of others—to be aware that the very efficient Miss Farrell, whose time and attention she apparently coveted, was actually her half sister.

      And therein lay the reason for Lorna’s guilt. She’d known who her sister was the moment she’d heard her name six months ago. To then see her walk into the office three weeks later to meet her new beau for lunch had been both thrill and torture.

      Because Lorna could never allow her sister to know who she was. Their mother had wanted nothing to do with the out-of-wedlock daughter she’d given birth to, and she’d not only made that crystal clear five years ago, she’d followed it up by sending her stepson, Mitch Ellery, to hunt Lorna down and give her wishes emphasis.

      Though at first he’d restated it all with a gruff kind of tact, the no-nonsense glitter in his dark eyes and the rocky sternness of his harsh face had given his quiet words the impact of a sledgehammer.

      It hadn’t mattered to Mitch Ellery that she’d been as shocked as her mother had been by the surprise meeting at the ritzy San Antonio restaurant where Doris Jackson Ellery had been having lunch with him and his father. The unstable friend who’d arranged it all had been nowhere to be found by the time Mitch had caught up with Lorna later that afternoon.

      Lorna had been intimidated enough by his sudden arrival at her one-room apartment that she’d defended herself by telling him the truth: that her well-meaning but misguided friend had arranged the surprise, that she’d been as shocked and horrified as her mother had been.

      Lorna had watched his hard expression darken as she’d vowed to him that she wouldn’t for