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She opened the car door and walked towards the house, leaving him to decide what he wanted to do She felt his presence behind her as she rustled in her bag for her keys, but she pointedly didn’t look round at him as she slotted the key into the lock

‘The kitchen’s through there,’ she said, nodding towards the back of the house ‘I’e’

She took the stairs two at a ti like a ha, that so into her present She also couldn’t believe that seeing hiined what it would be like to see hi in a million years that it would actually happen In her head she had been cool, contained, mildly interested in what he had to say, but with one eye on her watch—a busy young thing with a hectic life to lead, which didn’t involve souy who had duh standards he had wanted In other words, a woman of twenty-six as totally over the creep

Now look at her! A nervous wreck

She glanced at her reflection in the ht eyes Charlotte, ould have given her a stiff pep talk on bastards and how they should be treated, was, of course, conspicuous by her absence Where were friends when you needed theues so put just in case an urgent pep talk was required

She was only inally calmer when she headed downstairs fifteen minutes later, in a pair of faded jeans, an old sweatshirt, and her fluffy rabbit bedroom slippers—because, hey, why should she put herself out to dress up for a man whose taste now ran to sophisticated brunette lawyer-types with cut-glass accents?

He aiting obediently in the kitchen, a graceful, powerful panther who seemed to dwarf the small confines of the room He had removed his black coat, which lay over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and was sitting at the table, his long legs extended to one side and elegantly crossed at the ankles

‘So…tell me what you’ve been up to these past few years,’ he said, watching her as she turned her back on him to fill the kettle

This, undy shirt, was the Megan he remembered Casual in jeans and an oversized ju the most ridiculous bedrooured her to be the only person in the country ore gi her legs to her breasts, and he felt as though the room had suddenly become airless

‘I gotcoffee into the boiling water and finally turning round to hand hiht at St Nicks for three years Ihere and I thought it would aret’s, and I started working at Dominic’s school in September’

‘That’s a very dry, factual account Why London? The last ti brooks, or little cottages hite picket fences’