A Secret Until Now. KIM LAWRENCE

a few modest centimetres higher over the slopes of her breasts as she glanced in the mirror.

      ‘Or should we add the pearls?’ She chuckled to herself before warning her mirror image darkly, ‘First signs of madness, Angel.’ Snatching up the string of pretty green beads she’d bought at a crazy cheap price from an enterprising trader before a security guard had given him marching orders from the private stretch of beach, she left the bungalow at a trot, looping them around her neck as she went, reflecting it wasn’t what you wore, it was the way you wore it. A cliché but true nonetheless.

      * * *

      It was rare that Alex felt the need to rationalise his own actions, and why should he now? Looking at the situation objectively, all he had done was agree to Nico’s request. He’d helped out his nephew, which was what families did. Plus, he had business here. It was called multitasking, he told himself.

      He was curious, no crime. It wasn’t as if he had engineered the situation solely for the purpose of meeting with the woman who had spent the night in his bed six years ago.

      Sure you didn’t, Alex—you were just passing.

      Of course, if he took advantage of a situation that had fallen into his lap, who could blame him?

      The last time she had not fallen in his lap, she had jumped!

      Alex, who believed contrary to popular belief very few people were capable of learning from past mistakes, was an advocate of living in the present. But as a pulse of hot lust slammed through his body he found his thoughts being dragged back to a moment six years ago, when, driven by the need he’d had then to fill his every waking moment with action, he had left his car and driver stuck in rush-hour traffic and walked instead along a crowded London street.

      If he hadn’t been...?

      She had stepped off the pavement into the moving traffic and he had literally dragged the young woman from underneath the wheels of a bus.

      The memory, a moment frozen in time etched on his brain, was so vivid he could smell the exhaust fumes in the air now, hear the tortured squeal of brakes and the cry of a solitary onlooker who, alone among those busily going about their own business, had witnessed the moment of near disaster.

      Alex’s reaction had been pure reflex, not related in any way to bravery, and his body’s response had been equally involuntary when he’d turned the figure around and looked down into the face turned up to him...and carried on looking.

      His anger had melted.

      She was stunning!

      He could remember thinking what a crime it would have been for that face to be marked. A delicate, slightly tip-tilted nose; wide, full, luscious lips; a natural pout even in repose and incredible deep green, heavily lashed, almond-shaped eyes set beneath thick, darkly defined, arched brows, and all that general gorgeousness set against flawless satiny skin that had glowed pale gold in the grey city street.

      He’d found himself holding the breathing embodiment of sensuality and his body had responded accordingly and instantaneously.

      Fighting the impulse to keep her plastered against his body for longer—there was no way she couldn’t have picked up on how hard he was—he’d released her, but retained a steadying hold of her elbows as he’d pushed her a little away. His nostrils had flared as the scent of her shampoo had drifted his way.

      She had been breathing hard and blinking in a dazed way. Even in the flat, unattractive boots she’d been wearing she’d been tall for a woman, reaching a little past his shoulder. Her slim but voluptuous curves had made the generic jeans and T-shirt she wore look anything but common.

      ‘Are you all right?’

      She’d nodded, sending the magnificent waist-length curtain of hair that shone like polished ebony silk swishing around her face. He’d watched as, head tilted forward, she did a sweep of her feet upwards.

      ‘It’s all still there and in one piece,’ she’d murmured, sounding dazed. Her voice had had a delicious throaty rasp. ‘You really do see your life pass before your eyes.’ She’d tilted her head back and looked at him, breathing a soft ‘Wow!’ as her eyes widened.

      He had found himself grinning, amused by her total lack of artifice, then watched in fascination as a visible wave of heat travelled up the long graceful curve of her neck, adding an extra tinge of colour to her smooth cheeks. He could not remember ever encountering a woman who wore her emotions so close to the surface. Yet despite the blush, the glowing, gorgeous young creature had held his gaze steadily.

      ‘I think you saved my life.’

      He’d given the faintest of shrugs. ‘Do you make a habit of throwing yourself under moving vehicles?’

      She’d then been staring as hard at him as he was at her. ‘It was a first for me.’

      When not breathless, the throaty, sexy quality of her voice had intensified.

      He’d felt her trembling. Post-trauma or was she feeling the same clutch of lust he was...?

      There’d been more than a hint of provocative challenge in her attitude as she’d lifted her chin and asked, ‘Can I... Let me buy you a coffee, to thank you...? It seems the least I can do, unless you’re...?’

      ‘Coffee would be good,’ he’d heard himself say.

      She had expelled a tiny sigh and beamed up at him in undisguised delight, and when he’d kept a guiding hand on one of her elbows she hadn’t pulled away. He’d felt her shiver and that time he’d known why.

      Alex pushed away the memory; as always it was inextricably and painfully linked in his mind with guilt. On one level he recognised the guilt was irrational. He had no longer been married at that point, hadn’t cheated, he’d been free to have sex with a total stranger.

      Even when Emma had been alive he could have taken a mistress with her blessing. Alex was not easily shocked but on the first occasion she had brought the subject up he had been—deeply. He’d known she’d had something on her mind and had coaxed her to tell him what was bothering her but he hadn’t been prepared for the incendiary suggestion she had made.

      ‘You’re a man, you have needs that I can’t...and you’ve been so patient with me, never said that I should have told you about the MS. I wanted to, but it might have been years before it came back or even never.’

      ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had known,’ he had told her, hoping it was true. Even wondering had felt like a betrayal.

      ‘I know that, Alex, but the fact remains you didn’t have the choice. I didn’t give you the choice. So if you need to, you know...date other women, that’s all right with me. I don’t have to know, I don’t want to know, so long as you stay with me while I’m— I hate hospitals so much, Alex...’

      And there it was, the real fear, that he would send her to some anonymous nursing home. It had cut him to the core to know his wife had been willing to endure infidelities for the security and promise of staying in the home that she had enjoyed furnishing in those first months of marriage. She had enjoyed a lot of things before the disease that had finally killed her resurfaced.

      A short year later she had been confined to a wheelchair and eaten up with guilt because she hadn’t told him before they’d got married. The constant apologising had been hard to hear and sometimes had made him angry with her. Guilt piled on top of more guilt. It had been a vicious circle.

      ‘This is your home, Emma, our home.’ Her hand had felt so small under his, the bones fragile as he’d squeezed. ‘There will be no hospitals and no other women, I swear.’

      And he had kept his word to the letter if not the spirit. He might have been legally free but in his mind, in his heart, Alex had still been married when he had spent the night with Angelina. Though not once during that night had he thought of Emma. How could he have forgotten, even for a moment? The next morning he hadn’t been able to get out of there quickly enough.