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CHAPTER ONE

WITH A FLEETING glance over her shoulder, Leah hurried down the steps and into the wine bar It was dark and croith lunchtih to see past the clu around A nervous treh the nised It was a relief to espy Paul’s golden head in a far corner

He stood up as she approached, tall, sophisticated and very attractive, and her heart swelled with pride ‘You’re late,’ he complained

‘Sorry, I couldn’t get away’ Short of breath, Leah dropped down on to a seat and couldn’t help spinning another glance around in fearful search of a familiar face

‘Stop that You’re on the wrong side of town to be seen’

Leah bent her silver-blonde head, her face flushed and taut ‘Thatat me!’

‘Most men stare at beautiful womenand you are exquisitely beautiful,for her slender-boned hand ‘It givesevery male head turn when you walk by’

‘Does it?’ Still unaccustomed to his compliments, Leah looked up at him with a shy uncertainty that was oddly at variance with her designer suit Her flawless face between the wings of her sleekly swept up silver-blonde hair was rapt, her sapphire-blue eyes bright as the jewels in her ears

‘Why don’t we go back toher full lower lip and smiled smoothly as her skin heated

Leah stiffened ‘I can’tnot yet; you kno I feel,’ sheup inside her as his handsome face turned hard and cold

‘And you kno I feel, Mrs Andreakis Bloody frustrated, if you must know!’

Leah hite ‘Paul, please’

‘For all I know, you’re just playing a little game with me while your husband’s out of town’

Pain and distress filled her eyes ‘I love you’

‘Then when are you going to tell him you want a divorce?’ Paul demanded

If possible, Leah went even paler, a hunted look tightening her exquisite features ‘Soon I just have to pick the right moment’

‘Considering that on average he only sleeps one night ahere this time next year Maybe you’re in love with the bastard— ‘

‘How could I be?’ She bent her head, her hands clenching tightly together ‘You knoe don’t have a nore’

‘And wouldn’t the tabloids just love to get a load of that!’ Paul sniggered

‘I don’t think that’s funny, Paul’

‘Well, the only thing that keeps e that I ot to admit that that’s a real in bride five years down the road and yet he’s rarely seen in public without soay’

Her sensitive stomach curdled She e Not, of course, that he would do anything with it She trusted hierously indiscreet in her need to soothe his jealousy of Nik Nik The very blood in her veins went cold when she faced up to what she still had ahead of her

‘Don’t talk about hihtly

‘You think the table is bugged? You’re scared stiff of hi to pick up the courage to tell hi my time— ‘

‘Nono, never,’ Leah whispered frantically, the thought of losing hio back to what her life had been for the past five years E Before Paul, every day had stretched endlessly in front of her She didn’t have a social life She didn’t have friends She atched everywhere she went The door of her prison had sla-day and she had been so dumb, so naïve, she hadn’t even realised it until she’d tried to move beyond the bars

‘Then when?’ he pressed moodily

‘SoonI promise you’

‘I don’t see why you can’t just h you don’t have all the evidence you need to divorce hio out of fashion with Nik Andreakis around’

‘I have to do it right, Paul Don’t you see that I owe him that?’

‘I don’t see that you owe hi In the eyes of the Church and the law, he’s not even your husband,’ Paul persisted impressively

Leah glanced at her watch and uttered a gasp of diso!’

Paul caught her by the shoulders and kissed her with practised expertise ‘I’ll phone,’ he pro’

Leah fled It was three blocks to the fashionable hairdressers where she had been booked in for a long session of e and beauty treatment She took terrible risks to er she put off asking Nik for a divorce, thefound out But, then, ould it really matter?

Nik didn’t care what she did She saw him maybe once a month when he stopped over in London, soht request that she play hostess for a business dinner, but of late even those requests had been few and far between If he had to coh his staff

In their entire e, Nik had never once taken her out in public Not for dinner, not to the theatre, not to a party Nik pursued his glittering social life with other women on his ar of the houseand even that handful of nights a year that he stayed under the sao out late and return after dawn, so those nights didn’t really count either

For an instant, as she flew through the side-entrance of the hairdressers, she re for hi with her, what she had done, what she had not done, what she could possibly do to rily she thrust the memory away Time had taken care of that kind of nonsense The child bride had grown up and wised up

‘I’ot my appointment,’ Leah murmured at the reception desk and as usual she insisted on paying anyway and she tipped as if there were no tomorrow The proprietor, Charlie, cahed and said she was running late and sat down to wait for her chauffeur to draw up outside

‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Andreakis— ‘ Charlie lowered his head, his beaded locks swinging colourfully ‘— your bodyguard called in with a e for you’

Leah went rigid, turned white as a ghost

‘Relax’ Wry brown eyes e-room’

Leah turned scarlet ‘Thank you,’ she ed jerkily

‘I’d better give you thefor you at home’

Nik hat? Nik aiting for herNik who had never waited for her once in five years? Nik was hoht? Involuntarily

, Leah shivered, her sto over sickly For a split-second she was consumed by the sort of panic that made people jump out s in a fire Sheer cold terror

Charlie settled down beside her, his hands planted on his knees ‘Baby, you’re not cut out for this ga— ‘

‘I don’t knohat you’re— ‘

‘You’ve been co here every week for five years And the last couple ofall over your face’ He sighed ‘But I don’t want to go down in history as the idiot stupid enough to give Nik Andreakis’s wife an alibi He’s the kind of guy who probably breaks fingers I get the shakes just thinking about it’

Shame washed over her ‘I’m sorry’