Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

this afternoon if I had some other man hovering in the background?’

      He edged smoothly into. top gear and the powerful car seemed to swallow up the road in front of them. ‘How would I know what you would do any more?’ he challenged fiercely. ‘You’re like a stranger to me now, Triss.’

      ‘A stranger?’ she whispered, slowly becoming aware that her actions seemed to have opened up a real can of worms. She had seen no further than her desire to hurt Cormack as he had hurt her; she had given no thought to how she still felt about the father of her baby. And no thought, either, to how vulnerable his blistering criticism would make her feel. ‘Cormack—I shared your life and your house for almost a year...’

      His mouth hardened forbiddingly at the corners. ‘If you think that I am about to be swayed by your sentimental reminiscences, then think again, sweetheart!’ he snapped, speaking with a bitter kind of cynicism which Triss had never heard him use before.

      ‘So how can you say that I’m like a stranger to you?’ she asked him in genuine confusion.

      ‘Because the woman I-thought I was in love with would never have behaved in such a despicable way!’ he stormed. ‘You suddenly confront me with the news that I am a father—’

      ‘And have you never stopped to ask yourself just why I might have behaved in such a “despicable” way?’ Triss snapped back as she remembered how she had felt when she’d discovered that he had betrayed her.

      He shook his dark head impatiently. ‘I’m afraid that your motivations concern me less than practical considerations at the moment, Triss. Like whereabouts in Surrey are we going?’

      She wondered whether he would have heard of it. ‘To St Fiacre’s Hill estate,’ she told him slowly.

      He had. He exhaled a long, low breath. ‘Not “The Beverly Hills of England”?’ he quoted, in a mocking sing-song voice.

      ‘That’s what the tabloids say,’ answered Triss, with a defensive little shrug.

      ‘And the reason why, presumably, you wanted to live there?’

      The numbing effect of the intimacies they had shared was wearing off, and now came the return of Triss’s sense of purpose. ‘Don’t make any presumptions on my behalf, thank you very much!’ she told him frostily. ‘I happened to buy the house because it is set in almost nine hundred acres of beautiful green land.’

      ‘Rather than because it happens to be populated by rich men with an eye for a beautiful woman on her own?’ he mocked.

      ‘That doesn’t even deserve the courtesy of a response!’ Triss glared at him. ‘St Fiacre’s is secure and well tended and very, very private. And the gates keep unwelcome visitors out—’

      ‘Like me?’ he queried sardonically.

      Triss went quiet.

      ‘That must have influenced your choice of where to live?’ he suggested softly. ‘I imagine that if your instantly recognisable face—’

      ‘But I’m not instantly recognisable any more!’ she protested. ‘I’ve had my hair cut off—remember?’

      ‘Maybe not instantly,’ he conceded. ‘But certainly recognisable. Not many women have eyes and bone-structure and height and posture like yours, Triss. If you had chosen to live anywhere else I shouldn’t think it would have been too long before someone was tempted by the lure of money from one of the newspapers to tell the story of the super-model turned single mother.’ His blue eyes glittered. ‘With a lot of speculation as to who the absentee father might be.’

      Triss gave a silent groan as she remembered blurting out Cormack’s identity to Lola. But she trusted Lola.

      ‘But I presume,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘that everyone who lives on St Fiacre’s is so financially secure and so paranoid about their own safety that they’ve barely given you a second look. And even if they did they certainly wouldn’t need to flog your story for cash.’

      Triss wondered whether this whole idea of telling Cormack about his son had been nothing more than a hare-brained scheme. But it was too late to back out now. ‘You need to take the furthest exit on this roundabout,’ she told him in an odd, brittle kind of voice that did not sound like her voice at all. ‘We’re almost there.’

       CHAPTER FIVE

      AS CORMACK drove through the wrought-iron gates of St Fiacre’s, with their distinctive navy- and gold-painted crest, Triss thought that she had never seen the estate look more beautiful or more welcoming.

      It was a brilliantly sunny early March afternoon, and clumps of daffodils swayed in bright yellow patches beneath the hundreds of trees which lined the roads.

      Few of the houses were visible—protected by lush shrubbery and drives which seemed to go on for ever—but occasionally they caught sight of a drift of smoke from a chimney, or heard the muffled barking of a dog.

      The happiness which settled upon her whenever she entered the serene green beauty of St Fiacre’s stole over her, and Triss found herself brightening in spite of everything that had happened. She thought of Simon and hugged her shawl round her shoulders excitedly, her eyes shining brightly at the prospect of seeing her baby again.

      Cormack shot her a swift glance. ‘You’ve missed him.’

      It was less a question than an astute statement, and Triss nodded. ‘Yes,’ she answered quietly. ‘I’ve missed him like crazy, if you must know.’

      He opened his mouth to say something else, then halted as they heard the sound of an approaching engine, which even Triss—who was not remotely interested in cars—could tell powered one hell of a machine.

      She almost smiled when she saw Cormack’s eyes narrow with male competitiveness. A long, low Aston Martin in dark and gleaming green slowed down as it passed them, before roaring off towards the main gates.

      ‘That’s just like your car!’ Triss pointed out in surprise.

      Cormack’s expression tightened. ‘Now what the hell is he doing here?’

      Triss craned her neck to make out who was driving and saw a handsome but disturbingly cruel face, set into grim and determined lines. And for some reason a shiver began to whisper cool fingers all the way down her spine. ‘Who?’

      ‘Dashwood,’ answered Cormack succinctly, a frown pleating his forehead above the dark sweep of his brows.

      ‘Not Dominic Dashwood?’ queried Triss, turning back to get a better look at him over her shoulder.

      ‘So you do know him?’

      ‘I know of him,’ Triss corrected him icily, not liking that judgmental look on Cormack’s face one little bit. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

      ‘Surely not another member of the Dashwood fan club?’ came the sardonic jibe.

      Triss fixed him with a long-suffering look. ‘When a man is that rich and that good-looking, most people get to hear of him.’

      ‘But Dashwood’s proximity naturally had nothing to do with your buying a house here?’

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Triss exploded. ‘Why should it?’

      ‘Husband-hunting, perhaps?’ Cormack suggested insultingly.

      Taking a deep breath, Triss resolved to keep her cool. ‘I’m not in the market for a husband,’ she told him with icy emphasis.

      ‘No?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I don’t know that I believe you, Triss,’ he accused softly.

      She forced her voice to sound very faintly bored. ‘I’m afraid that your beliefs are