Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

people would not wait for ever to book her, that her face might not always be flavour of the month and that she really ought to start working again—capitalise on her assets while they were still in demand. Which meant travelling again.

      Cormack didn’t like it one bit.

      ‘Why the hell can’t you model here?’ he demanded. ‘In Hollywood?’

      ‘Because I’m an international model,’ answered Triss, unconsciously quoting her agent, word for word. ‘And my looks are too European to appeal to Americans.’

      He shot her a disbelieving look. ‘And you believe that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Why not let me ask around, find you something?’

      ‘No!’ Her response was swift and definite. ‘I want to be independent, Cormack.’

      ‘Then so be it.’ He shrugged, but his voice carried a trace of unmistakable disquiet.

      So Triss flew first to Paris, then to Rome. And it was in London that she saw the first of the newspaper items, tucked discreetly into the corner of the country’s biggest gossip column. A picture showed Cormack with his arm resting lightly around the shoulders of a reed-thin girl with hair the colour of pale corn and a wistful smile as she gazed up at him, which gave her face a kind of dreamy look.

      They had a fierce row about it on the phone that night, in which Triss interrogated him and he told her that the woman was an actress who would be staring in his film, and that she meant nothing to him. And also that, hey, he’d thought that their relationship was based on trust.

      ‘Oh, it is, Cormack!’ she sobbed. ‘You know it is!’

      ‘Then what the hell is this all about, sweetheart?’

      ‘It’s just that I miss you! And I want to be there.’

      ‘Then be here,’ he told her simply. ‘Catch the next plane out.’

      ‘I can’t. You know I can’t—this job is going to last another week.’

      His Irish accent sounded matter-of-fact. ‘Then if you can’t or won’t change the situation you must accept it, Triss.’ A distant babble of voices hummed like bees on a summer’s day in the background.

      ‘What’s that noise?’ demanded Triss, hating herself for doing it.

      ‘Just some people. Brad. Louie. Nick. Jenna. We’re going out to catch that new film.’ His voice lowered. ‘I miss you, sweetheart.’

      ‘I miss you too,’ she gulped.

      But the seeds of suspicion were sown in a mind which provided fertile growing conditions for more suspicion as each day passed. The times when they were together took on—for Triss, anyway—the sensation of standing on quicksand.

      They were no longer completely at ease. Sometimes she found that they were eyeing each other warily across the room, like two predators sizing up the competition. She was aware that their relationship seemed to be shifting beneath the surface—and that there was nothing she could do to stop it.

      She was in Milan when her mother kindly sent her the article with the accompanying photograph. It showed Cormack out sailing in the company of a group from the studio, with a tiny brunette peeping adoringly at him from underneath a thick, glossy fringe, and Triss experienced an extra- ordinary feeling which could almost have been described as relief.

      Because, in a way, she had been freed from the prison of loving a man as much as she loved Cormack. Now she could stop hoping and stop trusting because, in the end, it turned out that he was just the same as every other man.

      Triss had only her own experiences to base her life on. She had grown up in a world where money ruled, where infidelity was as normal as apple pie and where promises were made to be broken.

      She went back to Malibu and packed her bags, then left Cormack a letter saying that she had made a mistake. And she returned to London.

      He tried to contact her, but she refused to take his calls and ignored his letters. But she was unable to ignore him when he turned up on her doorstep one day, straight off the early-morning flight.

      The change in him was frightening. He seemed so distant, so remote. Like a stranger—only worse than a stranger. And his eyes were as coldly sharp as razor-blades. What was more, he made no attempt to touch her. Perhaps, if he had, the whole scenario might have been different. But there again, what was the point of continuing their relationship if the overpowering sexual attraction between them was the only thing which sustained it?

      His voice was tinged with ice as he said, quite calmly, ‘Do you intend to continue this elaborate charade of hysterical behaviour, Triss, or are you willing to sit down and discuss the situation like an adult?’

      And, naturally, the insult with which he had begun his question evoked a similarly insulting response in Triss.

      ‘Get out of my flat, you no-good philanderer!’ she snapped, and was shocked and mortified when he turned around without another word and did exactly that.

      She missed him so much that it was as if half of her had gone with him, and she sent him a tentative letter, saying that perhaps one day they could be friends.

      She received a cold little note by return of post saying that no, they couldn’t—because one of the pre-requisites of friendship was the existence of trust.

      And that Triss had not yet learned the meaning of trust...

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      WHILE she waited for Cormack to return Triss bathed Simon, who was showing absolutely no sign of tiredness. She played peep-bo with him, and his delighted little chuckles rang out around the sumptuous art-deco bathroom.

      He was an absolutely gorgeous baby, she thought, with a surge of fierce maternal pride, as she bundled him up in a big fluffy towel. And Lola had said that he had been as good as gold with her and Geraint.

      Triss found herself wondering what Simon himself thought of Cormack. Did he have any inkling at all that the tall, dark Irishman was, in fact, his father? Were babies born with the instinctive equipment to detect their birth patents?

      She let Simon lie on the floor and kick his chubby little legs. Then she dressed him in his Disney pyjamas and settled him down in his cot, putting on the teddy-bear mobile which played nursery rhymes—which Triss always sang along to, even though she had not been born with the most tuneful voice in the world!

      Then she fed him, savouring those blissful moments of having him clamped to her breast and glugging contentedly. She was still breastfeeding first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and Simon seemed to be accepting this now, although it had been difficult at first.

      She hadn’t wanted to wean him quite so early, but a look at her bank statement last month had convinced her that she could no longer afford the luxury of continuing to play the role of full-time mummy.

      She had spent most of her savings on this house, which was her investment for Simon’s future. The rest she had been living off. She had not worked since discovering that she was carrying Cormack’s baby. She had been too plagued by morning sickness even to consider working at the beginning, and then, when the pregnancy had firmly established itself, she had done everything in her power to look after herself.

      She had been mentally and physically exhausted after her run-ins with Cormack, and so she had quite deliberately nurtured her baby in the womb, taking as much rest as she could.

      It was almost seven by the time Simon’s eyelids drooped and he fell fast asleep, his thumb firmly in his mouth. Triss crept out of the room feeling gritty and sticky and uncomfortable, her cheeks reddening as she remembered the reason why.

      Well, she would wash every trace of Cormack Casey from her body, and maybe after that she might feel able to confront him with some degree of calmness this evening.

      She