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The fact was not immediately apparent in the way the car lurched round the side of the house but Ashley didn't waste any ti his foot down on the accelerator, he thundered down the highway and they shrieked out on to the road on two precarious wheels

'Could you drive o very slow' They raced down the road at what felt like ninetydriver

'Slow!' she finally shouted in terror about ten minutes later when she recalled the drop down to the tea terraces on the outer edge of the road Kuency stop The car skated out of control from one side to the other The nearside wheel hit the ditch and the car careened into a skid before finally lurching to a halt Ashley was screa even louder The car rocked Silence fell

'Go slow, have accident,' Ku her seatbelt, Ashley staggered out on to the road and threw up in the ditch She was shaking all over in reaction and was only diue of woe in his own language until a treht, she stared in disbelief as the car si down on to the terraces below Kuotten to put the handbrake on The steep incline had done the rest

He gave a great shriek of horror and threw himself down on the road He was in such a state that it was some time before she could reassure him that he would not lose his job and that Vito would not blame him for the loss of the car He was unconvinced, his ed to establish that there was a small rest-house some miles down the road They started to walk It took an hour and the heel snapped off one of her sandals when she went over in a pothole By the time Kumar had roused the owner of the rest house and the portly owner, soon joined by curious wife and excited children had heard the whole story, it was three in thehow on earth she could have been so crazily impulsive

She was shoarm hospitality into a s at the cold tap over the ancient corner sink, she slid between the patched but scrupulously clean sheets and stared up into the white blur of her mosquito net

Wasn't she a clever girl, then? But then, when had she ever been clever with Vito? Inexorably her thoughts turned back the years and found no comfort in the past either

Theafter that fateful party she had persisted with her assertion that she never wanted to see Vito again right up until it caly she had allowed him to drive her ho She had told hi and she had told him that she would be busy for the rest of her life

And he had laughed and said nothing But that night he had simply arrived complete with an enormous bunch of roses Her flatmates had been struck dumb She had reasoned that it wouldn't be cricket to shoot hione to dinner

'You really don't have to do this,' she had kept on saying, as prickly as a cactus in his co on toast in the five-star restaurant because she didn't want him to spend his money on her

'Every day I start with a clean sheet,' she had told hi'

'Why are you so determined to drive me away?' he had finally asked

Clearly it was a very new experience for him with a woman He had switched on the charht… it had happened too fast He was older, wiser, should have known better It was all his fault, his responsibility, and he wanted them to start over as if it hadn't happened

'Why?' she had queried baldly

A wry smile had formed on his beautiful mouth 'I think I've fallen in love with you'

'Lust,' she had countered stiffly 'Fallen in lust'

'I also think that I'h for me to ask you,' he had draith complete confidence That had shaken her, but she had quickly decided that he could not possibly be serious Even so, she had spent the re in no uncertain terms why she would never marry him or anyone else

'So we have an affair,' Vito had murmured with immovable calm

'I don't have time for an affair' She had been seriously rattled