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PROLOGUE

CLARE took a deep breath and walked forward into the dimly lit cocktail bar Soft uely recognised an old nu instead for the nearest table, set low and surrounded by deep leather easy chairs designed to soothe the bodies of besuited businessmen, weary from a hard day’s work in the corridors of power

Her htly Those corridors—and the boardroo hours, but they also awarded a deluxe lifestyle to those who stalked the, and the ability to pay exorbitant prices with a flick of a platinum credit card

As Clare approached the table, around which a cluster of suits eased back in the arhtly A little ay, at another table, a couple sat on a sofa, drinks in hand It was not the hed so seductively, but his female companion For a brief hting she could see that the woman was very beautiful, with chic hair, expertly styled, and i to her lisso, sheer-stockinged legs, and one elegantly h

A little stab went through Clare She looked away

I shouldn’t have taken this job I kneas a mistake!

For four long years she had kept away from places like this The world she lived in noas in a different universe Stepping back into this lush, expensive environ she had wanted to do

It brought back too many memories

And the brief gliner-clothed female had intensified them

Was I ever really like that?

It seemed impossible—and yet with her brain she kneas true She too, once, a lifetio, had been like that woant and chic

She inhaled sharply What did it ht back the past? Memories she didn’t want and didn’t welcome She was here si the extra money she needed if her determination to take Joey and her friend Vi on holiday that su as the only kind that was possible, and waiting cocktail tables in this swish new hotel, recently opened on an arterial road en route to Heathrow in West London, a bus ride away fro in a pub, or in her local pizza parlour

As for the h Her chin lifted She’d have to get over it

The unco injunction resonated in her head Get over it One of the toughest self-help co those four long years Years when she’d had to co far more profound Far more difficult

No Don’t go there!

That was another o there—where in her dreao Back into the past A past that ached like an old, deep, unhealable wound

Or, worse, don’t go into a present that did not exist—a parallel universe of longing and desire that was conjured up out of her deepest places, where the choice she had made had been quite, quite different

Well, I didn’t ht way to choose—the only way

However hard the choice had been, it would have been far worse if she hadn’t made it She’d paid the price for her decision, and even to think of it was agonising…just agonising

Her own voice interrupted her painful thoughts

‘Good evening, gentleet you to drink?’

Painting a bright, attentive smile on her face, she listened and nodded and scribbled as fast as she could, hoping she was getting it down right She headed back to the bar to relay the order

‘Doing OK?’ asked Tony, one of the barenially

‘I hope so,’ Clare replied cautiously

He wasn’t to know that it was not just her being new to the job that washer cautious That the whole expensive a her with one for ever At least she’d never been at this place before; she was more familiar with the classic deluxe hotels, like the Savoy in London and the Plaza in New York This hotel was too new, too impersonal, not at all the kind that—

She spotted a custolad of the distraction Glad, too, that she was kept on her feet without respite as the evening wore on Her feet in the unaccusto to ache, but apart fro coht She was careful always to keep her physical distance fro any hassle