She turned sharply away, covering the bruise with her hand, and started striding for the house. ‘Leave me alone.’

After a second of stunned paralysis, comprehension flooded through him and he was aware of a sharp twist in his chest. Her whimsical make-up had had a purpose, after all. He bounded after her onto her little verandah with the blind intention of pinning her down and making her talk to him, but she reached her door first.

Before she could close it, he rammed his knee against it. ‘What happened? Who did that to you? Was it him? Rémy?’

‘Of course not. What do you think, that as well as being a slut I’m a … a …? I had an accident, all right?’ She was flushed and trembling, so achingly vulnerable in her fierce pride he felt something inside him give.

Accident, vraiment. He couldn’t believe that. At the fragile pretence he felt so torn with tenderness and remorse, he hardly knew what he was saying, only that his voice grew hoarse. ‘Shari, chérie. Don’t be so … I didn’t mean to imply … This—this is not how we should say au’voir.’

In the verandah light her naked face was strained, her eyes dark with emotion. ‘We are strangers. We will never meet again. Move away from the door, please.’

She closed it in his face.

BUT the world as Shari knew it jolted off its axis. It was Rémy she never saw again.

Soon after dawn one morning in the autumn, Neil came hammering on her door with the shattering news. Rémy had been driving too fast on a foggy Colorado mountain road, misjudged a corner, and skidded over a cliff.

The shock was so immense, Shari was overcome with nausea and had to run to the bathroom to throw up. The details were sketchy, but it was clear Rémy hadn’t been alone in the car.

What a surprise.

In the hours that followed, once Shari had begun to assimilate the news, she wished she could cry. At least poor Emilie had that release. Em was so distraught, so overcome with grief, Neil was beside himself with anxiety for her health and that of their soon-to-be-born twins.

The best Shari could do was to change into her old track pants and run for miles, thanking heaven Luc Valentin wasn’t there to see her in her running clothes. Her emotions were a mess, not improved by an even more than usually massive dose of PMT.

She tried not to speculate about what Luc would be thinking about Rémy’s loss, and concentrated on feeling sad. Of course she must be, deep down. She must be torn with sadness, though the main feeling she was aware of was her sympathy for Em. Overcome as she was, as they all were, she refused to delude herself about Rémy.

His death didn’t change the cruel things he’d done. Some of the wounds he’d inflicted had had a bitter afterlife.

All right, maybe her plunge into adventure with Luc had been a bit soon after the end of the engagement, but officially—technically—despite the things Luc had said to her, she had done nothing wrong. Impulsive maybe, to share pleasure with a man who couldn’t appreciate a woman’s generosity in the best spirit, but not wrong.

She’d stick to that even as Luc Valentin tied her to the stake and applied the flaming torch.

No. If she did feel any guilt, the real reason, the one she could never admit to Em, was that, where Rémy was concerned, the worst she could feel was this terrible, awful hollowness. On the other hand, where Luc was concerned, she felt—

Raw.

The shock shook some Parisian quarters as well. In his executive office high above the Place de l’Ellipse, Luc Valentin was riveted to the police report, his pulse quickening by the second.

The loss of a young life was a tragedy, of course, though his cousin hadn’t exactly endeared himself to many of his relatives. Luc guessed poor Emilie would be the one who suffered most. The only surprise was that it had been an accident. Despite Rémy’s oily ability to slip out of tight situations, the chances had always been that eventually someone would murder him.

Someone like himself.

He’d considered it a few times after his tumultuous encounter in Sydney.

All at once finding his office suffocating, he took the lift down to the ground.

He strode block after block, seeing nothing of the busy pavements as the vision that haunted his nights invaded his being. Shari Lacey, powerful, vivid, as searing as a flame. Shari, her emerald eyes glowing with the sincerity of her denials. Shari …

Her very name was a sigh that plucked at his heartstrings. No, he mused wryly, wrenched them. If only Australia hadn’t been so far away. If he could talk to her. Hear her voice …

In the midnight hours he’d once or twice considered taking a month’s vacation and taking the long flight back. Just to—catch up. See if she needed protecting.

Those last bitter moments at her house stayed with him. We are strangers still rang in his ears. In English the words sounded even harsher than they did in French. That cold click of her locking her door, locking him out, had reverberated through him with a chill familiarity.

He grimaced at himself. Suddenly women were rejecting him on both sides of the world. Why? He’d never been a guy to pursue an unwilling woman. Vraiment, until Manon’s sudden betrayal he doubted he’d ever before experienced one. All his life, he’d taken for granted his ease at acquiring any woman he desired.

But first Manon, and now Shari … Somewhere on the journey, he’d lost his way.

Maybe he should have stayed in Australia and persevered. If it hadn’t been for that crucial directors’ meeting he might have stayed and … What?

Remonstrated with her? Sweet-talked her? Tried to make her forget Rémy? But how could he have? What man would dream of trying to impose his will on a woman who was already wearing the evidence of brute masculine force?

His fists, his entire being clenched whenever he thought of it. If he ever came across the canaille who’d done that to her …

He felt certain it had been Rémy. No wonder she’d been weeping when he’d gone to the apartment in search of him. How could such a woman have been sucked in by the guy?

He threw up his hands in bafflement.

Was that why Shari had insisted her wound had been an accident? She was still in love with her fiancé, ex-fiancé, whatever he’d been?

One thing was certain, whatever her status that night, she wasn’t engaged now.

Nom de Dieu. This impulse to contact a woman on the other side of the world, make some sort of approach, remind her he was alive, was ludicrous.

His feet slowed at the place where the red-curtained windows of a bar spilled an inviting glow into the grey afternoon.

Signalling the bartender for cognac, he took a table by the window. A couple of women came in and sat down. One of them had fair hair, not unlike Shari’s.

He drew the accident report from his pocket and re-examined it. Had they told Shari about the other woman in the car? Maybe she was in despair, grieving for the coquin.

He took out his mobile, calculated the time in Australia, then with a gesture of impatience slid the phone back into his pocket.

A blonde woman at the other table turned his way.

He dropped his glance, conscious of disappointment. There wasn’t the slightest resemblance.

Jolted from sleep, Shari dragged her eyelids apart as her phone vibrated with maddening persistence. She stretched out her hand for the bedside table.

‘Hello,’ she croaked.

‘Shari. Ça va?’

The masculine voice slammed Shari with a sickening shock. Her heart froze.

‘Rémy?’

There was a nightmare instant of suspense, then the voice, contrite, apologetic, said, ‘Shari, c’est moi. Luc. I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you.’