that her sister was in terrible pain and she couldn’t help her. That had been excruciating.
Finally, when she couldn’t keep him at bay a moment longer, she allowed Zak Hamilton to walk through the door of her mind. This resulted in a distinctly harrowing, squirmingly hot and embarrassing twenty minutes when she replayed every word he had said and she had said, every gesture, every look. She did this several times. More than several. It got worse, not better.
When she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, Blossom slid out of bed and walked into the en suite, running herself a hot bath and adding a liberal amount of bath oil which magically promised to soothe and calm in equal measures. Stripping off the practical ‘I’m dealing with children’ pyjamas she had bought especially for her last babysitting endeavour, she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror to one side of the deep cast-iron bath before climbing into the perfumed water.
Only someone as effortlessly slim as Melissa could think having a mirror you couldn’t avoid when you were naked was a good idea, she reflected ruefully as she inched her bottom slowly into water which seemed to be a good few degrees hotter than she had thought. Not that she was a two-ton Tessie by any means. She just wasn’t naturally willowy like her sister.
She was now resting on the bottom of the bath, and breathed out thankfully. It had been obvious from an early age she took totally after their mother, whereas Melissa had inherited their father’s to-die-for genes. Yet it had been apparent to anyone within a five-mile radius of their parents that their father had worshipped the ground his sweet but homely wife walked on.
Blossom’s face took on a tender quality. She was so glad her parents had lived long enough to see Harry and Simone before they had been killed in a multiple car-crash three months after the twins had been born. They’d been so thrilled Melissa had achieved her heart’s desire. She and Melissa had had the best of childhoods, and their parents had continued to be utterly supportive even after she and her sister had left home—Melissa to married life, and Blossom to follow her career in London. She had always dreamed she’d find a relationship similar to the one her parents had had one day, a love which would lead to marriage, perhaps even children, whilst her career was put on hold for a short time.
And then, a few months after her parents had died, Dean had come along just when she’d been beginning to doubt there would ever be a Mr Right among all the Mr Wrongs she’d dated in the past. She hadn’t known then that, if all the Mr Wrongs in the world had been gathered up into one bundle, they wouldn’t be as wrong as Dean had been.
Blossom tried to close her mind against the memories now pouring in, but it was too late; she had opened Pandora’s box.
They had met at a fashion shoot; he had been one of the male models, and she had been bowled over by his dark Latin looks and smouldering charm. As he had intended she should be.
They had married two months to the day they had met, and already her photographs had begun to open doors for him. She had established good contacts over the years, and she had used every last one of them for Dean. He was her husband, her love; there was nothing she wouldn’t have done for him.
She had been so looking forward to their first Christmas together. Blossom clenched her teeth as the pictures in her mind rolled on with relentless accuracy. On the day before Christmas Eve she had come home to the flat—her flat; Dean had been sharing a grotty bedsit with a friend called Julian when they had met. She found all his clothes and belongings gone and a note waiting for her, propped inappropriately—or perhaps completely appropriately, she thought bitterly—against their wedding photograph. A small, neatly folded piece of paper.
He was holidaying in the Caribbean, Dean had written. He would not be returning to the flat when he came back to England. Their marriage had been a terrible mistake. It was better they faced it now than later. This was all for the best, and he hoped she understood. They had been married for seven months.
It had got worse. Oh, how it had got worse.
When she had gone to the bank after Christmas it was to discover Dean had withdrawn every last penny from their joint savings account, which had housed her half of the inheritance from her parents’ estate. A tidy nest-egg. All gone.
A week later a concerned work colleague had reported he had heard whispers Dean had taken someone with him to the Caribbean. Subsequent enquiries had revealed the woman had in fact been living with him in the bedsit when Blossom had met him—‘Julian’ was ‘Juliette’, and the two had never stopped seeing each other.
It had been a bitter pill to swallow, but Blossom had had to accept Dean had married her purely for the size of her bank account, and the influential circles within the modelling and TV fraternity she could introduce him to. His career—due mainly to her efforts on his behalf, along with the cash she had lavished on him for anything he had needed—had taken off far better than even he could have hoped for. He’d begun to fly high, and he and his Juliette must have been congratulating themselves at Blossom’s gullibility as they had basked in the warm Caribbean sun, laughing at her as they’d sipped their cocktails.
She had been ill for some time after that.
Blossom moved restlessly in the warm water, drawing a mental veil over the emotional devastation she had suffered. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. She nodded to the thought which had been voiced by Greg, of all people. He had been right. When she had surfaced from the blanket of grief and despair, she found she’d become curiously autonomous, and she welcomed it. She never, ever wanted to put her trust on the line again. Her heart was her own, and she intended it would continue to remain so.
She understood work. Work was safe, secure, sure, even taking into account the inevitable backstabbing and diva-like skirmishes which were part and parcel of the fashion world. That world could be irritating, false and cruel; it could make her angry or plain disgusted on occasion. But the ups more than made up for the downs and, more importantly, even the worse aspects didn’t touch the inner core of her. Didn’t make her feel as though life wasn’t worth living, that she was the ugliest, most unattractive, unworthy female since the beginning of creation. A man had done that, and she never intended to give another male the same opportunity. Once bitten, definitely twice shy.
Her mouth tightening, she stood up, reaching for the fluffy bath sheet and wrapping it round her. Why was she thinking about Dean tonight, reliving it all? She had thought that was behind her. It wasn’t as though she cared about him any more.
Zak Hamilton. The name popped up as an answer all by itself. Blossom frowned. Over her dead body. She wouldn’t give a man like Zak the tiniest chance of entering her life. But—the frown deepened—he had unsettled her. Rattled her. She didn’t know why, but he had. And it wasn’t his looks or wealth; she came into contact with plenty of drop-dead-gorgeous men in her line of work, and more than a few were well-heeled. Nothing like that intimidated or impressed her any more.
So—what was it about Zak she didn’t like? His confidence, which definitely bordered on arrogance? The fact that he was probably one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen, and certainly possessed a male charisma that was dynamite? The way he’d looked at her, the amusement in his eyes, along with the fact he had made her feel like an insect under a microscope? A bumbling, somewhat ineffectual insect at that. His manner, which had spoken of unlimited wealth and the knowledge people would jump as high as he ordered them to?
Dropping the sheet, she pulled on the pyjamas again and then rubbed the bottom of her shoulder-length hair with the handtowel. It had got slightly wet as she had lain in the bath.
She was probably being monumentally unfair, because she really knew nothing at all about Zak Hamilton, but she didn’t care. She didn’t
