Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

heard the admonishment in the model’s voice and managed a watery smile. ‘You mean I’m behaving like a wimp?’

      Triss shrugged. ‘Well, yes—if you want my honest opinion. Why go to pieces? If he comes back—’

      ‘He won’t come back!’

      Triss ignored that. ‘If he comes back and sees you looking all blotchy and down-hearted it will feed his arrogant masculine ego no end, and not do your reputation any good in the meantime! Let him look at you and wonder how on earth he could have been mad enough to let you got’

      ‘How?’

      ‘Well, you could start by changing out of that grotty old skirt and jumper. Make yourself look good—’

      ‘But he won’t come back—I know he won’t!’

      ‘And then you’ll feel good,’ continued Triss, as if Lola hadn’t spoken. ‘And that’s the most important thing: how you feel—not him! And then you won’t want him to come back!’

      Lola smiled as insurrection stirred in her heart. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she agreed softly.

      ‘That’s better!’ Triss finished off the last of her coffee and then gave Lola a pleading look. ‘Now—has that helped at all?’

      Lola nodded, slightly amazed at how her mood had suddenly lifted so dramatically. ‘Yes! It has!’

      ‘Good.’ Triss glanced down quickly at Simon, who had begun to stir one chubby arm and now appeared to be trying to scratch his nose with it. ‘Because I think you can help me, Lola!’

      The following day, things looked decidedly rosier for Lola after she had given Simon his lunch and he was happily sitting on her living-room floor banging a wooden spoon hard against a saucepan.

      Outside the sun was shining and the mad March wind had gone away, to be replaced by a gentle breeze. Perfect weather for a walk, Lola thought as she screwed up her nose in the way which had had Simon giggling hysterically all morning.

      She bundled him into his woolly hat, his coat and his mittens, put him in his pram and then wheeled him outside, her eyes narrowing slightly against the watery paleness of the early spring sunshine.

      She walked him round and round the grounds of Marchwood House, listening to the sound of birdsong and doing her utmost not to let her thoughts dwell on Geraint, but without very much success.

      She also found herself thinking about Catrin, and Peter, and remembering the day when the news of her inheritance had arrived, like a bolt from the blue.

      Lola had thought at first that there must have been some kind of clerical error. Virtual strangers did not leave you mansions worth a million pounds, did they? And she had said as much to the solicitor’s clerk.

      But apparently they did. And apparently they were also well within their rights not to give a reason for their astonishing generosity. Even to the beneficiary.

      The young solicitor had shrugged apologetically when Lola had demanded to know just why Peter Featherstone had made his staggering bequest. ‘Mr Featherstone wished his reasons for bestowing the gift to remain confidential—and that is one of the conditions of the bequest, Miss Hennessy.’

      He had given her his bland, solicitor’s smile, but the rather insulting glint in his eyes had left Lola in no doubt as to why he believed she had been left the house!

      He had obviously jumped to the very same conclusion as Geraint, thought Lola bitterly as she bumped the pram across the sunlit lawn and down towards the fountain, where a finely carved wooden seat was placed so that the sitter could listen to the gentle, comforting sounds of the nearby water.

      Simon gurgled happily and Lola sat down on the seat, absently rocking the pram, the sun warm on her face, her eyes closed as she drifted in and out of coherent thought, her fatigue presumably brought on by her waking up through the night on the hour, every hour, thinking of that devious Welshman!

      Oh, and the torrent of conflicting emotions which seemed to have been raging through her ever since Geraint had first walked into her life—that might also have had something to do with her tiredness, she thought wryly.

      She heard no footfall on the still damp grass, had no indication whatsoever that she had a visitor until a shadow blotted the sun from her face and she opened her eyes to find Geraint towering over her, an uncompromising expression darkening his already shadowed features.

      Lola’s heart fluttered more than her eyelashes and she could have kicked herself for her instinctive reaction, immediately fixing an unwelcoming expression onto her face.

      ‘What do you want?’ she asked him ungraciously.

      ‘To talk to you,’ he answered grimly.

      ‘I think we’ve said just about everything there is to say.’

      ‘I think not,’ came the unyielding reply.

      ‘You’re trespassing,’ she pointed out. ‘I could call the police and have you thrown off my land.’

      ‘I doubt it,’ he answered, with an obdurate smile. ‘I could have you in my arms and in bed before you had dialled the first digit! Couldn’t I, Lola?’

      ‘How dare you?’ she questioned furiously, even though her heart was beating like a drum with excitement.

      He smiled again, a wicked, foxy smile which made Lola want to scream aloud—be looked so damned gorgeous! ‘Is that a challenge?’ he asked softly.

      ‘No, it jolly well isn’t!’

      His grey eyes swivelled in the direction of the pram. ‘Why have you got Triss’s baby?’

      ‘She’s got man trouble,’ said Lola, scowling at him indignantly as though he were responsible. ‘She wanted to be child-free while she tried to sort something out. She’s coming back for him later on.’

      ‘Good.’ He sat down on the seat beside her and stretched out his long legs. ‘Did you miss me?’

      ‘Like a hole in the head!’

      ‘No, seriously.’

      Lola turned to survey him with incredulous eyes. ‘Good heavens—I actually think you mean that!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why should I miss you, Geraint?’

      He gave a small nod, like a man who was satisfied with the answer, and then smiled. ‘We’ll return to that later, Lola—but in the meantime I have several things I need to say to you.’

      In spite of feeling that what she ought to do was to insist that he leave her property immediately, Lola was intrigued.

      ‘Is Simon warm enough, do you think?’ he enquired solicitously as he peered down into the pram.

      Lola nodded. ‘He’s well wrapped up—and the fresh air will do him good.’

      ‘You like babies, don’t you?’

      ‘Yes,’ Lola agreed, if a little defensively. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

      ‘Nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘Nothing at all.’ And his grey eyes searched her face.

      Well, she was not going to enlighten him! Let him squirm! Let him suffer! Let him think she was pregnant! That might make him reconsider next time he bedded a woman as some kind of attempt at retribution!

      ‘Say what it is you have to say, Geraint,’ she told him bluntly.

      ‘I know why Peter left you the house—’

      ‘So you told me,’ she interrupted cuttingly, her voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. ‘Wasn’t it to do with my loose morals? Oh, no! I forgot! We disproved that theory with your surprise discovery of my virginity!’

      ‘That’s enough!’ he ground out.

      ‘But why are you looking so uncomfortable,