she had been caught up in a riot. The Indian army had fired over the heads of the rioters, but by horrible chance a bullet had ricocheted off a building and hit her beloved mother. She had died instantly.
The Foreign Office had been very helpful, but to the pregnant Willow, who had lost her mother and grandmother within six months of each other, it had been devastating. She had numbly agreed to everything that had been suggested, and she could still remember with horror a dark-suited man arriving at the cottage and presenting her with a brass urn containing her mother’s ashes.
For months she’d been swamped in grief and it had only been with the help of her grandmother’s neighbour, Tess, that Willow had managed to carry on. At seven months pregnant Willow had finally come out of her haze of grief and concentrated on the child growing inside her. She’d decided it was time to do as her mother had wanted, and tell the father. Only it had been too late…
Sitting on the train to London, with the address of Theo Kadros’s British office in her pocket, Willow had opened the magazine she had bought to read on the journey. There in front of her she had seen the marriage of Theo Kadros to Dianne displayed in a dozen glossy pictures of the happy couple. She had left the train at the next stop and gone straight back home.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Willow sat up and brushed the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand. She was never going to sleep, and she refused to indulge in any more grief or self-pity. Her mind had been made up for her years ago, and she was determined to stick by her original decision. It was too late to change now…
So by the same token the last thing she needed was to meet Theo Kadros for breakfast or at any other time, for that matter.
A quick glance at her wrist-watch told her it was two-thirty in the morning; no chance of a train back to Devon tonight. What the hell? She was a published author who had just signed a lucrative deal for film rights; she could afford it this once, and it was an emergency…
Quickly and quietly she washed and dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt and slipped a blue lambswool sweater over the top. She packed her overnight case and glanced around the room. Spying the list of pamphlets on the table, she quickly flicked through them until she found what she wanted. She dialled the number and breathed a sigh of relief. A car would be waiting for her in ten minutes.
It didn’t matter about the hotel bill, as it was in the name of her publishers and they were paying.
She did not use the lift, but walked down the stairs from her third-floor room. She had noted that the staircase ended very close to the exit door, and would save her having to cross the foyer, where somebody might see her.
‘Madam, do you need a cab?’ the doorman asked, blinking; the poor man was half asleep.
‘No, I have a car picking me up,’ she said truthfully, and slipped him the key to her room and a high denomination note, and suddenly he was wide-awake. He opened the hotel door for her, and escorted her to the pavement without batting an eyelid!
Willow heaved a sigh of relief as she slid into the back seat of the waiting car. ‘You know the way?’
A cheerful female face turned back to smile at her. ‘Yes, ma’am. I checked on the way over here; this is the best fare I have had in months.’
On that note, Willow finally closed her eyes. The immense relief she felt at having slipped away from the hotel and Theo, combined with the steady drone of the car’s engine, encouraged her to sleep. Within minutes she had dozed off into a restless slumber.
Damn it to hell! Theo swore as he drained the bottle of whisky into the crystal glass. The witch had turned him inside out all over again, but this time… this time he had decided to proceed with caution where the lovely Willow was concerned.
It had nearly killed him to let her walk out of his suite, hence the almost half a bottle of whisky he had downed since she’d left. He didn’t usually drink much at all. He had learnt his lesson the hard way.
After Willow had left him standing at the airport, feeling furious and betrayed, he had vowed to banish her from his mind. The method he’d chosen was to drink too much, which had resulted in him making a foolish decision. He had got back together with Dianne, and agreed to marry her. She was a great lawyer but not a great wife, and their marriage had very quickly sobered him up. When he had found his wife in bed with another man, divorce had been inevitable, and he wasn’t sorry.
Contrary to the opinion of the popular press, he was not the playboy they painted him. He had had three mistresses in the four years since his divorce. The latest one being Christine, who lived in Athens. Recently he had contemplated marrying her simply as a means to provide him with an heir. His work was his life. A life he had been quite content with until he had stood in the hotel reception this morning and watched Willow Blain walk down the stairs.
Draining the glass, he strolled over to the telephone and gave the night-duty receptionist his instructions. He wanted a wake-up call at six-thirty. But more importantly if Miss Blain tried to book out, he was to be informed immediately. His mind was made up; Willow would not escape him so easily this time.
At eight the next morning a snarling Theo spun the hotel register around and read the entry. ‘Willow Blain. Care of Henkon Publishing’ and the address.
‘What time did she leave?’ he demanded icily of the cowering manager.
‘According to the night porter, about three in the morning. A car was waiting for her, apparently.’
Famed for his business acumen and his quick, incisive mind, Theo was in danger of losing it completely and sacking everyone on the spot. Until it struck him there was something very odd about Willow’s behaviour. He wasn’t a fool. He knew women, and he knew the sexual tension, the chemistry between them was electric. He could, with very little persuasion, have had Willow in his bed last night.
Willow might not want to renew their relationship, but all she had to do was say, ‘No’. So why did she feel the need to escape in the middle of the night? That was the real question. He had to give Willow credit—she was crafty. A wry smile twisted his firm mouth. The woman wrote detective novels; he should have expected as much. But the lovely Willow obviously had something to hide, and Theo was not going to rest until he found out.
It was eight in the morning when the cab pulled up outside Willow’s thatched cottage overlooking the river. Willow paid the driver and, with a sigh of relief, let herself into her home. Stephen was staying with Tess and her husband at their home a hundred yards further up the road, and they were not expecting her back until this afternoon.
She glanced around the familiar hall and smiled. She had probably overreacted, leaving London in the middle of the night, but she didn’t care. She was home, and it felt great. Running upstairs to her bedroom, she placed her weekend case on the bed and swiftly unpacked. She took a quick shower and washed her hair. Standing in front of the mirror, she set about drying her hair. As she glanced at the naked reflection of herself a vivid mental image of Theo’s dark head lowered over her breasts, his sensuous mouth suckling the rose-tipped peaks, suddenly flashed in her mind. A shaft of heat lanced through her slender body and she almost groaned. No! her mind cried. Sex and all that was behind her, had been for nine years, and that was the way it was going to stay. She continued drying her hair with more force than was necessary.
Returning to the bedroom, she looked out of the window at the view of the river sparkling in the bright early morning sunshine and smiled again. This was her life now and it was a good one. So what if she didn’t have a man in her life? She didn’t need one.
