And then at eighteen she’d met David Stewart. Six feet three in his bare feet, blond and beautiful. An Adonis. They had been together all through university and he had proposed to her on graduation day. Her cup had been full. They’d decided while he continued to study law—his father had his own law firm which one day David would take over—she would get a nine-to-five job with no commitments so she could fit in with him and see him when he had any free time between studying at law college. He had sailed through the solicitors’ final examination at the end of twelve months, and joined his father’s firm to serve articles, at which time they had set the wedding date.

Every weekend she had travelled from her parents’ home in Surrey to Oxford, where David lived in his family’s massive seven-bedroomed house complete with swimming pool and tennis courts. His parents and younger sister adored her, and she them. Everything in the garden was rosy. And then, six weeks before the wedding, he had turned up on her doorstep one night and taken her out for a meal so they could ‘talk’.

She had known even before he told her that something was dreadfully wrong but nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to hear. There was someone else. They’d only known each other a short time but it was the real thing.

Reeling from shock, she had asked who it was. Miranda, the girl next door who had been mad about him for ever, according to what his sister had whispered? Someone at his father’s work? A mutual friend?

No, he’d replied. She didn’t know Francis; neither did his family.

Frances? she’d repeated shakily. Where had he met her?

It was then he had looked at her steadily and told her that the ‘her’ was a ‘him’. It was Francis with an I. And he’d met him at one of the bars they both frequented. He had thought he could do the marriage and children bit to keep his family happy but he couldn’t. He liked her, he assured her. Loved her even, but not in that way.

She had been so dumbfounded she hadn’t been able to speak for some moments. And then she had got up and walked out into the pub car park, where she’d phoned for a taxi. She might have been able to follow through on the dignified and calm bit if he hadn’t made the mistake of following her and trying to justify the lies and deceit of four and a half years, at which point she had shouted and screamed and finally walked across to the sports car his father had bought him for the first he’d got at university and kicked it so hard she’d dented the door. Fortunately the taxi had arrived then.

The next few weeks had been the worst of her life. Both sets of parents had been beside themselves, the bridesmaids had been heartbroken they weren’t going to get to wear the fairy-tale dresses which had cost a small fortune, all the wedding presents had had to be returned and the reception and all the other paraphernalia connected with a huge wedding cancelled.

In the midst of it all she had talked to David several times. Although she felt he was sorry that he had hurt her, she sensed a great feeling of relief and even joy that everything was out in the open. And of course he had his Francis, with whom he had promptly set up a home in the flat they should have been renting together. He had admitted he’d cheated on her numerous times before but they had just been ‘little flings’.

Kim had hardly been able to believe what she was hearing. The man she had thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, whom she’d known and trusted implicitly for over four years, didn’t exist. She had been absolutely faithful to him, refusing even a Christmas kiss at work because she felt it took something away from David, and all the time…

A hundred and one things suddenly fell into place the more she thought about it, the chief one being the reason David had never tried to get her into bed. He had talked a lot about honouring her, that he wanted his wife and the mother of his children to be different from all the rest, that, although it was terribly hard to stop at just a kiss and a cuddle, it was the right thing to do. And she had believed him! Respected him for it.

The feeling of rejection and betrayal had cut deep, and the humiliation that had gone hand in hand with it all had caused her to lose over a stone in the first few weeks. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth and she had loved him utterly but everything had been a lie. And she hadn’t sensed it, hadn’t known anything was wrong. That had terrified her.

The beanpole of teenage years had reared her head again and every time she looked in the mirror she had cringed at what she saw. She had felt she was nothing, less than nothing. But eventually, with the help of family and friends, she had started to eat properly and sleep soundly and get back on an even keel. She wasn’t the same, she knew she wasn’t the same, and she felt sad about that, mourning the loss of the trusting, happy girl she’d once been, but she was older and wiser and she would never allow herself to love anyone again the way she had loved David.

Kim came back to herself with the realisation that the coffee was quite cold. She went into the kitchen and tipped it away, standing and looking out of the window into the street below.

It was going to be a beautiful day, she thought. And life was for living. She’d done her period of mourning for what might have been if things had been different. Now she had to get on with life.

CHAPTER THREE

KIM felt on tenterhooks all day, so much adrenaline flooding her body that she fairly ate up the work. By five o’clock her desk was clear in spite of the backlog from the day before.

Her boss walked out to the car park with her. He had asked her that morning how she had got on; now he said ruefully, ‘I’d be surprised if you don’t get the job, Kim. Blaise West has a reputation for knowing a diamond when he sees one.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him. Alan Goode was a dyed-in-the-wool family man who was devoted to his wife and three boys and they’d always had an excellent working relationship. ‘But you didn’t see the competition. Anyway, I’m not bothered either way.’ This wasn’t quite true but she’d rather walk barefoot on hot coals than admit it to anyone. She knew Kate and her cronies were taking an avid interest in events.

‘Now, that might be your trump card,’ Alan said musingly. ‘I’ve only met Blaise once or twice but that was enough to know he’s a man who plays by his own rules. He’s never conformed and he doesn’t ask for conformity in others. He’s an…extraordinary individual, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes.’

They smiled at each other, linked by the knowledge of what was unsaid rather than what was spoken.

‘He caught his toe with his wife though—ex-wife,’ Alan continued. ‘She was a free spirit in every sense of the word. Any man, any time, if rumours are to be believed. She took the child when the divorce happened but then a year later she was killed in a head-on crash. Had the kid with her at the time.’

‘That’s awful.’ Kim hadn’t known about these details.

Alan shrugged. ‘The child wasn’t hurt too bad from what I can remember and the accident enabled Blaise to get his daughter back. I doubt he cried any crocodile tears.’

‘How long ago did that happen?’

‘The accident? About four years ago, I think, maybe five. The girl’s ten or thereabouts now.’

Kim nodded. For a second she had a mental picture of the hard, rugged face of the man she had met yesterday. It was a face that had seen life, but it was also a face that revealed nothing of the man behind the mask. But he must have suffered. She felt a dart of sympathy even as she acknowledged it was the last emotion a man like Blaise West would ask for or want. Curiously, for no logical reason she could think of, she felt it was somehow disloyal to be talking about him. Quietly, she said, ‘Goodnight, then, Alan. Give my regards to Janice.’