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Thankfully Miles got her off the hook 'Where's Tim? School?'

'It's Saturday, Miles,' said Clare drily Every day was a work day to her boss; the tere indivisible as far as he was concerned 'Tis'

'Oh Well, at least I'll get to spring et Shari to give s' Miles's needs were simple: he tended to live out of a suitcase even at hoe, but only for a few days,' he explained to the dark ood i cool and collected, 'and you'll have all the private facilities that you'd have in a guest suite I have a few things to get on with, so I'll see you later…'

Ignoring the impulse to follow him, Clare braced herself 'Come into the office and I'll find the book' Unfortunately the first book that sprang to sight was the glossy Deverenko biography on top of a filing cabinet She bustled over and heaped a pile of spread sheets over it before she searched out the register Deverenko didn't say a word, but when she looked up at hileam in his eye that told her he had seen the book and drawn his own egotistical conclusions

She wished he wouldn't stare so His eyes were likewith her concentration She sat down at the desk and opened the register In her hurry to get him out of the room, which suddenly seemed small and airless, she rapped out the necessary questions like a police interrogator

'And how long do you wish to stay?' she asked, with pen poised over the book All this was duplicated on the coes, the register was in the nature of an institution, an autograph book cra comments, both witty and prosaic

'How long can you put us up…or should that be, put up with us?' he countered, and for the first tinetic aura had been so strong that nothing else had registered

'I… no ure hovering in the doorway, an unco in her throat as she rioted that it wasn't a woers to relax around the pen So what if he had co to her! 'But surely you won't want to stay that long, anyway?'

'Trying to get rid of ly 'What would your…e on the desk, his shaggy head ale but definitely angora and therefore no doubt hideously expensive, and dark rubbed-corduroy jeans, he looked ure he had cut at his concert, and the party afterwards He looked erous…

'My employer—' she laid the sa him the answer to his subtle question about her relationship with Miles '—leaves the running of Moonlight to me'

'So we're your guests, rather than his We shall knoho to look to for our co…'

'Just the two of you?' Clare asked hurriedly, transferring her gaze to the sulky-looking boy in the doorway again

'Just the two of us,' Deverenko confir a hand 'I should have introduced you Clare, this is Tahter Tamara, this is Clare Malcolm, Tim's mother…'

Ah, that relegates ht Clare wryly as she coped with the shock Not a lanky boy, after all, but a gawky, adolescent girl, tall and thin with a punk-inspired crew-cut that didn't at all flatter her square face with its strong nose and jaw and ble seen pictures of Deverenko's wife, Nina, who had been killed in a plane crash four years earlier, Clare felt her heart go out to the girl Nina Deverenko had been a great beauty—a small, delicate Frenchwoht, a pianist who often used to accompany her husband Tamara, it seemed, favoured her father in looks, and Clare realised that she had already antagonised the girl with her surprise Dark, sullen eyes stonily rejected her greeting, while thin shoulders bunched in dislike beneath a scruffy brown leather jacket She wore jeans like her father, but with none of his panache

After irl turned her sullen face towards her father and asked hie that Clare couldn't identify Her voice was un undertone