Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

burn and closed her eyes in horror. It was hard to imagine now what had taken place this afternoon within minutes of their meeting.

      And did he have to remind her of it? There she had been, just seconds earlier, foolishly vowing to be nice to him, when clearly he had no compunction about embarrassing her.

      ‘Why mention that?’ she cried. ‘And why now?’

      ‘Why not?’ he challenged. ‘We’ve been studiously avoiding the subject ever since it happened. Is that something else which is to be brushed underneath the carpet, Triss? Ignored as though it never happened?’

      ‘It shouldn’t have happened!’

      ‘Maybe not,’ he admitted, and Triss felt her face crumple at his easy agreement. She took another huge slug of wine so that he wouldn’t see.

      ‘But it did happen,’ he continued, and went to open the refrigerator door and peered inside. ‘So maybe we need to ask ourselves why.’

      ‘Why?’ Triss echoed.

      ‘Mmm.’ His blue eyes were very candid as he turned to look at her over his shoulder. ‘Why, after everything that’s happened between us, did we still fall into bed with each other today?’

      ‘I would have thought that was fairly obvious,’ answered Triss repressively. ‘It’s one of the baser human instincts and it’s known as lust.’

      He didn’t answer her, just pulled out a plastic box and began to take various lumps of cheese out. ‘Oh, go and sit down, Triss,’ he told her impatiently. ‘I’ll bring this in when I’m ready.’

      She topped up her glass and took it into the sitting room and lit the lamps, so that the room looked warm and peachy and inviting. It was cold enough for a fire, too...

      Minutes later, she had the beginnings of a blaze crackling in the grate. She sat down in one of the armchairs and must have dozed off, for when she opened her eyes again it was to find Cormack towering over her, a tray in his hands with a bowl of something steaming on it.

      She sat up. ‘That smells good. What is it?’

      ‘Soup. I found a carton in the fridge. And there’s a melted-cheese sandwich too.’

      ‘My favourite,’ she said automatically, pleased in spite of everything, and yet acutely aware that she was straying into dangerous emotional waters here.

      ‘I know,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll go and get mine.’

      They ate their supper in silence, and when they had finished Cormack took the plates out. She could hear him stacking the dishwasher.

      She had forgotten his scrupulous fairness about the allocation of household chores, and yet he managed to knock up a simple meal without losing one scrap of the blatant masculinity which was so much part of his appeal.

      When he returned, he sat down on the rug in front of the fire and looked at her. ‘You say you don’t want an explanation about that night—’

      ‘I don’t!’ she put in quickly.

      ‘Is that because you are determined to think the worst of me?’ he probed quietly. ‘Does it make you feel better to imagine that I behaved like some brainless stud?’

      ‘Not really.’ And that’s a lie, Triss Alexander, said the voice of her conscience.

      ‘I think it does,’ he disagreed perceptively. ‘Believing the worst of me enables you to keep your hatred of me alive, doesn’t it, Triss?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Yes!‘ His voice sounded angry now, and his blue eyes were spitting fire. ‘Don’t you think that after everything we shared together you at least owe me the courtesy of listening to an explanation?’

      ‘I’m listening.’

      He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully, for it took him several moments to continue. ‘I met Helga a long time after we split up—’

      ‘How very convenient for you.’

      ‘Triss!’ he thundered savagely. ‘You are testing my patience to the extreme! Now, are you going to shut up and listen to what I have to say—or am I going to be forced to assert my mastery?’

      Her heart raced and her mouth dried as her body responded automatically to his words. ‘Y-you w-wouldn’t d-dare!’

      ‘Wouldn’t I?’ Suddenly he smiled and the anger was gone—although the sexual promise wasn’t. ‘No, you’re right—I wouldn’t.’ There was a pause. ‘As I said, I met Helga nearly two years after you and I split up—’

      ‘And in all that time you never once contacted me!’ she accused him, aware even as the words tumbled out that she was giving herself away.

      ‘And neither did you,’ he retorted softly, ‘contact me.’

      ‘But you were the one who said you didn’t want to be friends—’

      ‘Not didn’t want to be,’ he corrected her. ‘I just felt we couldn’t be. That our somewhat tempestuous relationship was not a particularly sound basis for friendship. And I assumed that the relationship was dead since neither of us had been able to make it work.’

      He shook his dark head. ‘I stayed alone for a long time, but when Helga came along she was...’ He shrugged and spread out the palms of his hands rather helplessly.

      ‘Tell me,’ she said, though the words choked her.

      ‘Easy, I guess.’ And then he saw her expression and shook his head again. ‘Oh, not in the commonly used sense. I mean that she was undemanding, uncomplicated—’

      ‘The opposite to me, in fact?’

      He did not flinch under her accusing stare. ‘If you like. I certainly wasn’t looking for a replica of the intensity I had shared with you, Triss.’

      ‘So what happened?’ she demanded. ‘It sounds as though in Helga you found your dream woman.’

      He regarded her critically. ‘In theory, perhaps she was. She never answered me back the way you do. And she didn’t have a jealous bone in her body.’

      ‘So why no happy ever after?’ enquired Triss caustically. ‘Or did your night of sex with me put paid to all that?’

      ‘You can be such a little bitch,’ he told her softly, and something in his eyes warned her that she really was stretching his patience just that little bit too far. ‘I’m trying to tell it like it was, Triss—not how I would have liked it to be.’

      And quite what he meant by that Triss didn’t know—but judging by the look on his face now was not the time to ask him.

      ‘So what happened?’

      ‘Nothing actually happened. We just drifted apart, I guess, so gradually that our meetings became less and less frequent. Helga never actually lived with me, and she was based in Paris—’

      ‘Paris again,’ interjected Triss bitterly, thinking of how they had met. She stared at him, not even bothering to disguise the jealousy in her eyes. She had always thought of Paris as their city.

      ‘Paris again,’ he agreed, and his face was sombre. ‘It was a totally different relationship from the one I had shared with you. When she was away I never actually missed her—not in the way I missed you.’ He smiled. ‘And Helga wasn’t in love with me either. She always said that she wanted to marry another German. And she has. I’m godfather to their baby, as a matter of fact.’

      ‘I see,’ said Triss rather faintly. Godfather? Which meant that not only must Helga have the highest regard for Cormack, but her husband must too. What a manipulative Irish rogue he was! ‘Carry on,’ she instructed primly, ‘with your story.’

      His face was reflective. ‘I hadn’t seen Helga since October.