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She stood up and began edging towards the door ‘I also know that it s a little unco to transfer back to my place tomorrow You’ll have to stay here with Daniel until your mother returns’ She collided with the door and paused, licking her lips nervously, willing hi a silence froh, his continuing silence was preferable to his mockery or contempt

Looking at her as she backed towards the door, Leo had been overcoent need to stop her in her tracks The inevitability of this outcoehammer He didn’t knohat he wanted to say, but he daue-tied silence But before he could utter a word she was holding up her hand The other hand had already turned the door handle

‘I don’t want you to say anything We both knew that this was going to end, anyway, for whatever reason’ There was a silence that lasted only a heartbeat ‘But, before I go, Ihome He’ll be here on Saturday In time for when Katherine arrives back froood to have the conversation back onto a prosaic level It helped her di self-control and rereat romantic drama, just an everyday story of two people eren’t destined to be together He would move on and she would too, eventually

‘Goodbye, Leo’

She fled He could hear her retreating footsteps, and he knew that she wasn’t heading back up to her room because he heard the slam of the front door It was as final as a full stop at the end of a sentence

CHAPTER NINE

HEATHER looked at her reflection in the mirror She could feel the flutter of nerves in her stoht thing? Was she giving off the correct ue that, having declared your love to a man who had a stone for a heart, there was no appropriate e that could be achieved with an outfit

She had spent the past three days unable to eat, concentrate or do hts had been very poor colanced at her work, which she had stolen back fro made sure that Leo was nowhere around when she had been inside the house She had, however, checked her mobile phone every other second, or so it seeainst the odds that she would hear the distinctive beeping sound of a text ether he had often texted her, and she still blushed when she rees But she had not heard a word from him and, while that was precisely what she had expected, the pain of ot the closure she had wanted, except it had done nothing to put her on the path to recovery

And now she was about to see hiain—when she still felt raw, bruised and vulnerable

Katherine had returned froh still unable to ithout the aid of crutches—and with the help of Marjorie, the lady who ca a dinner in celebration of her son returning fron shores

Heather knew all this because she had been invited to the little dinner party, which was going to be a cosy affair Just fa the lines of, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have soed to rescue her froain

Which brought her right back to her outfit: casual Nothing that would indicate that sheto attract hirey trousers and a black tee shirt with a si over it, and some plain, black flat shoes No one, she decided, could accuse her of wanting to draw attention to herself when she was dressed in the round colours known to reat for bolstering her confidence, because they made her feel utterly sexless All she needed was the addition of a briefcase, and shefor a job interview at a bank

Not that she felt in any way confident as she left her house fifteen minutes later In fact, she felt about as confident as a prisoner being led to the guillotine She had decided to walk and, the closer she got to the big house, the slower her pace beca at the house in front of her, searching out the little atticfro view of open fields and sky Leo’s car, the glearavelled courtyard, as was a sed to the housekeeper who had co to prepare the meal and do the dishes Close to the front door was a black h it had seen better times

Heather took a deep breath and forced herself on with the cheering thought that the evening wouldn’t last for ever In fact, she was determined to stay for as little time as humanly and politely possible