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Why had she told Jaround? Hoas she supposed to keep her e her to divulge stuff she had never spoken of to anyone before? Was it his steadiness? His centred calm that she envied so much? His self-control? His concern? His compassion?

Aiesha was used to being judged and vilified Mocked and berated and excluded She wasn’t used to being listened to She wasn’t used to being understood She wasn’t used to showing a side of herself that had been hidden away since childhood Hoould she reasse? The breastplate over her heart was no longer a thick layer ofpaper

James would only have to hold her too close to the warm, firm safe shelter of his body and it would be totally destroyed

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘SO YOU’VE FINALLY decided to answer your phone,’ Jaht ‘What the hell do you think you’re up to?’

‘I could ask you the very sa,’ Louise countered ‘You’re not really engaged to Aiesha, are you?’

‘Of course not, but for God’s sake don’t tell Dad that I let hi with the rest of the world’

‘Your little secret is safe with me’

James frowned at hislike this would happen’

‘I had no idea you were planning to visit me,’ his mother said ‘Last time we spoke, you said you were behind on the terribly i on and couldn’t possibly spare the time to drive all that way just to—’

‘So I’ off his mother’s you-work-too-hard lecture ‘You’d be worried if I was lazing on soe like someone else we know Why didn’t you tell me Aiesha was here?’

‘You knohy’

He let the recri silence pass Yes, he could be stubborn Yes, he could be unforgiving when someone crossed him But that didn’t mean his mother should have kept her relationship with Aiesha a secret for all this tis a little better He’d blundered in like a clu He was used to being in control He was used to taking strategic measures to sort out difficult problems, not make them a hundred times worse

‘You don’t know her, James,’ his mother said ‘You don’t know her the way I do You’ve done what everyone else does when they meet her They take her on face value and don’t see the sweetheart of a girl hiding behind that don’t-mess-with-me facade’