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Ignoring his last line, Aret for all she had done, the love she had throay, but needing to hear how close she had co her dream ‘What did she say?’

‘I didn’t get to tell her’ Vaughan’s face hardened, yet she could see the pain behind it, see his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists together in an effort to hold things back ‘Ja definable, of course, nothing the doctors can put their fingers on or qualify to the press as reasons forhim to the top of the transplant list So I doubt it will happen now’ He stared at her paling face, ra her all over again ‘I brought Liza back here for a break, so she could have a shower and bawl her eyes out away froive her a chance to adht tiain, and he was speakinglack of it’

‘I’ll go’

Her voice was ahis head out of his hands just long enough to loathe her

‘Why not? After all, you got what you came for’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT FELT as if she were co the loss of what she’d so recently had And her apartment seemed steeped in a life that was divided into two—before and after Vaughan

Before, when things like bath oils had ht she had it tough, had been so naïve as to think that Taylor’s infidelity was as low as life went

How naïve, how pathetically naïve to think then that she had known pain The loss she had felt at the end of her relationship with Taylor didn’t even corip now

The waxy pink petals of the orchids Vaughan had sent her were the first thing to catch her eye, and she couldn’t help but realise that they had lasted longer than the she could do

‘I guess I just fell in love,’ A so beautiful could hurt so much

And was it worth the pain?

She could al the question and re on tired, aching feet at the threshold of the love affair of a lifetiht of her bruised, raw, shredded heart Without hesitation she nodded into the lonely room

‘Absolutely’

She knew he’d never forgive her, knew her tiht, to soly inflicted But at every turn she was thwarted Her angry deh from Paul, as co in the glory of it all

Hours dragged into days, her anger giving way to lethargy, and it was a supreme effort just to lever herself off the couch to answer the door Floere being delivered, even a bottle of chaes of congratulations Even her father, for the first tihter’s work

But the one person she wanted to see, the one person she wanted to hear fronified silence

No outburst of temper on the six o’clock news, just the stern fix of his jaw as he left the hospital with his sister-in-law and nepheait for a call that ht now colasses, yet nothing could shield from Amelia the depth of his despair, the pain behind the ‘no coony of her apparent betrayal

And Areedy for insight, surfing news bulletins, listening avidly as reporters explained the disease that afflicted his nephew, that Vaughan Mason hiene She learnt that even in his apparent anger, his seehan had been concerned for her—had so to protect her

He had loved her With torturous hindsight she knew that no that in his own unique, special way Vaughan Mason had truly adored her

The loud ringing of her doorbell onlyto raise her spirits, and she didn’t want another bouquet or congratulations she didn’t deserve And anyway her apartment already looked like a funeral parlor—felt like a funeral parlor

Amelia didn’t want to see anyone

Unless it was Vaughan, standing grey and washed-out in her doorway, looking as awful as she felt, yet theshe could ever hope to see