CHAPTER ONE

      ‘SHAY.’

      She didn’t turn at the sound of that voice, her gaze unwavering from the long wooden box being loaded on board the small jet in front of her, all that remained of her five years of marriage, the broken and twisted body of her husband Ricky being flown from America back to the Falconer estate for burial in the family plot.

      ‘Shay.’

      She didn’t want to turn to the owner of that rich baritone voice, didn’t want him here at all, interrupting a moment that belonged completely to Ricky and herself.

      ‘For God’s sake, Shay!’

      For God’s sake! She wanted to turn and shout at him that if it weren’t for God she wouldn’t be here now, that if it weren’t for God Ricky wouldn’t be still and lifeless inside that oblong box they were even now securing inside the plane, that he would be beside her as he had always been, the love they felt for each other their greatest happiness! But she didn’t turn and say any of those things, knew that if she once gave in to that hysteria she would lose the one thing that was keeping her in one piece; her belief that even though life could be cruel, none of them had any choices, it was all, ultimately, decided for them.

      She finally turned as the doors closed on Ricky’s coffin, coolly facing the man she knew was responsible for dealing with the authorities and paperwork to get Ricky’s body out of the country they had made their home for the last three years, and back to their native England; she certainly hadn’t had anything to do with it, too numb to deal with details like that. No, she had known only Lyon Falconer could have managed such organisation in the few weeks it had been since they had found Ricky’s body, had known he was in California somewhere using the indomitable Falconer influence to take his brother home in the family jet. She also knew the two of them had nothing to say to each other, had informed her lawyer that she didn’t want to see Lyon when he had told her the other man was in the country.

      Lyon Falconer. He hadn’t changed at all in the last three years, lean and muscular despite being very close to his fortieth birthday, his tawny hair styled just over his ears and down to his collar in a way designed to look casual, that very casualness indicative of its expensive cut. His arrogantly harsh face was lean and craggy, dominated by narrowed tawny eyes, his nose long and straight, his unsmiling mouth a forbidding line, the squareness of his jaw as uncompromising as ever. The tailored, dark three-piece suit and cream silk shirt pronounced him for exactly what he was, a successful businessman, although its formality in no way detracted from his lean muscularity, his power not just of the physical, a single-word command from him having been known to daunt even his most powerful of adversaries. And Shay knew she was far from being that.

      But she wasn’t the unsophisticated Shay Flanagan from Dublin any longer, the young girl not good enough to become a member of his élite family. She had been a Falconer herself now for over five years, was this man’s sister-in-law, had gained in confidence almost beyond recognition since this man had first noticed her ebony head among his London personnel. At least, she hoped she had, feeling the first stirrings of inadequacy she had known in a long time, a very long time.

      Not that any of that showed as she and Lyon faced each other across the tarmac, the black silk dress adding height and slenderness to the already five feet nine inches she was in the high-heeled sandals. The soft ebony of her shoulder-length hair was hidden beneath the silk hat, the lace pulled down to partly obscure her face, the purple depths of her eyes unadorned by anything but naturally long black lashes. There were classical lines to her face; high cheekbones, small pert noise, generously wide mouth, the latter feeling as if she hadn’t smiled in months. As indeed she hadn’t!

      And she didn’t smile now, her gaze steady on that autocratic face. ‘Lyon,’ she greeted coldly.

      ‘Shay, you look—’

      ‘Like hell,’ she drawled mockingly, wanting no insincere compliments from this man. She looked exactly what she was, a recently widowed woman.

      Lyon