most delicious frisson of dread when he looked at her in his “courtroom” manner. They suited one another. Both of them knew the rules; both of them knew exactly what they could and could not have from their relationship. Miles didn’t sleep with other women, but she knew that the moment she began to pall he would drop her and that there would be no court of appeal.
He picked up the letter along with several others as he opened the door of the flat he owned, conveniently close to his chambers. Along with the rest of his mail he dropped it on his desk before going upstairs to shower and change. He had no appointments for the day. He was a man who didn’t like to rush anything he did; a man who was patient and thorough, and to those who didn’t know him, surprisingly passionate. He had a dangerous temper, although it was slow to be aroused.
His phone rang as he stepped into the shower. He cursed and went into his bedroom to answer it, dripping water on to the carpet. His body was strongly made and taut with muscle from his bi-weekly games of squash at his club. His torso was shadowed with dark hair, silky fine and alluringly sensual to the female sex.
The phone call was from his clerk, and Miles answered the query, then rang off.
Once dressed, he went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He had a daily woman who kept the apartment clean and sometimes shopped for him, but he preferred to be independent. He had never known either of his parents. As a very small baby he had been abandoned on the steps of a Glasgow children’s hospital, and had eventually ended up in a children’s home, where he had learned to value his privacy and independence.
He took his coffee with him into his study. It was a spacious room, the walls lined with bookshelves, and it was one of the reasons he had bought this particular apartment. He sat down at his desk and glanced through his mail, frowning slightly as he came to the Minesse envelope, his bottom lip jutting out slightly, a habitual gesture he wasn’t particularly aware of but which women found sexy. The name of the company was familiar to him, but as far as he knew he had no legal dealings with them, and in any case most of his dealings with clients were via the medium of a solicitor.
Miles opened the envelope and read the letter with a smile. Intriguing, and he would have known that it was a letter from a woman even without his knowledge of who headed Minesse Management. He couldn’t recall if he and Pepper Minesse had ever met, although he had heard about her. He wondered what on earth she could want, tossing several possibilities around in his mind. There was only one way to find out, and he had a free afternoon. Miles picked up the phone.
Pepper spent the weekend with friends who lived just outside Oxford. Philip and Mary Simms were the closest thing she had known to a family since the death of her grandmother when she was fifteen. She arrived just after eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, having timed her journey to avoid the traffic.
The bright early summer sunshine had tempted her to put the hood down on the Aston Martin, and her hair, left loose from its chignon, had been tousled by the wind. She was wearing a linen suit in a soft shade of olive green, the skirt cut short and straight, and the jacket fitting the contours of her breasts and waist. Underneath it she was wearing a cream silk blouse. As she stopped the car engine and swung her legs out on to the gravel drive she saw Oliver Simms disappearing round the side of the shabby Victorian semi.
She called to him, and he turned and waited for her, a grave-eyed boy of ten. He blushed slightly as she approached him, but the good manners instilled by his parents made him wait until she reached him.
“Hi, Oliver.”
Of all his parents’ friends, Pepper was his favourite. She didn’t try to ruffle his hair, or worse still, to kiss him, and she always remembered his birthdays and Christmas with presents that were exactly what he wanted, plus a small sum of money for his post office savings account. At the moment he was saving up for a new bike. His birthday fell in June and he was hoping that as a present his parents would make up the shortfall on his savings.
“Mum and Dad are in the garden,” he told Pepper.
He had arrived in his parents’ lives when his mother was just over forty and his father was eight years older, and in all the ten years of his short existence he had never for one moment doubted how much they had wanted him. He wasn’t spoiled in the sense of being indulged with material possessions—his father taught at the local comprehensive and the family were comfortably rather than well off, but there had never been a second in Oliver’s life when he had not known the security of being deeply loved.
He was a good-natured boy who had learned quite young to analyse and judge logically, and already he knew that although there might be times when he envied those of his school friends who possessed the latest computer, or the latest BMX, in reality many of them came from families where their parents led such busy lives that their fathers and sometimes their mothers were almost strangers to them.
Oliver knew that it was a struggle for his parents to send him to the exclusive prep school he attended, but no matter what sacrifices had to be made there always seemed to be just enough money for things like a new school uniform, and extras, like the skiing holiday he had had just after the New Year.
Once he had seen Pepper safely round into the back garden, he excused himself, telling her gravely, “I’m just off to cricket practice…I might make it on to the first junior team this year.”
Pepper watched him until he had disappeared then headed into the garden.
“Pepper, my dear! You’re early…”
“The traffic was in my favour for once.” Pepper kissed Mary’s cheek and allowed the older woman to hold her close. Mary Simms was the only person she ever allowed to embrace her in that way. Instinctively Pepper always held herself aloof and remote from others, but Mary was different. Without Mary…
“You’re looking very well, Mary—both of you are, in fact.”
There was no emotion in Pepper’s voice as she studied their faces. No one looking at her could guess how close were the bonds between them.
Mary Simms, who had grown up in a rambling old vicarage near Cambridge, populated by not only her parents but a collection of ancient aunts and uncles as well, had almost from birth been used to showing her affection freely and physically. It hurt her more than she could ever put into any words that Pepper had been denied the love she herself had known as a child, and with which she surrounded her husband and son.
Philip Simms greeted Pepper with his usual absent-minded bonhomie. Philip was a born teacher; he had the gift of communicating to his pupils the desire for knowledge. He had taught her so much…given her so much. Here in this shabby house she had….
“Did you see Oliver?” Mary’s voice cut through her thoughts.
Pepper smiled at her.
“Yes. He was just leaving. He said something about cricket practice.”
“Yes, he’s hoping to be chosen for the school’s junior team.” Love for her son and pride for his achievements shone out of her eyes as Mary talked.
Philip was carefully transplanting some young plants, and Pepper watched him. He was always so gentle and careful about everything he did, so endlessly patient and understanding.
“Come on inside, I’ll make us all a cup of coffee.”
The kitchen had changed very little since the first time Pepper had seen it; true, there was a new washing machine and fridge freezer and a new cooker, but the large cupboards on either
