November Harlequin Presents 1(163)

The file was still there. So often he had meant to take it out and shred it, burn the contents, but he had never quite managed to do it. Tonight he felt he could. He had to if he was to have a hope of moving forward.

Tossing it on the desk, he flung open the folder, flicked on a lamp and stared down at the photographs. It was a year since he had last seen them but they still had the effect of hitting him like a punch in his guts. The man he didn’t know, though the investigator he had hired had told him that that was indeed Roy Stanton. And the woman’s face was hidden so that she could be anyone. He had tried to convince himself that the investigator had been mistaken, that she was someone other than Becca. But the ring was the killer blow. There was no mistaking the ring on her hand.

It was the ring that had marked the betrothal of his great-grandmother to his great-grandfather, and had been passed down to him to give to his own future bride. He had put it on her finger himself when she had first agreed to marry him.

‘What are those?’

The question came from behind him, making him start, spin round in shock. Becca stood in the doorway, her face pale, her eyes wide and her white cotton nightdress still floating round her from the effects of her movement, making her look like some ethereal spirit that haunted his home.

‘Nothing important.’

His answer would be more convincing, Becca told herself, if it hadn’t been so swift, so uneven, so blatantly obviously defensive in every way. Just the way he spoke and the look in those dark, dark eyes gave away the fact that whatever was in the file he had been looking at was very far from ‘nothing important’.

‘Just something I planned on shredding.’

‘At three in the morning?’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Neither could I—not after you left the bed.’

Of course, that wasn’t the truth. She didn’t know how long she’d lain there, alternately listening to Andreas tossing and turning, and knowing that he was lying far too still, trying so hard not to wake her. She didn’t know what kept him from sleeping, and she’d been afraid to ask.

What if the week of total sensual indulgence had been enough for him? What if that was long enough to get her out of his system so that he was no longer getting what he had declared he wanted? Had his ardour cooled so fast that he was lying awake, wondering how to tell her?

When he’d crept from the room, she tried so hard to convince herself that wondering how to tell her wasn’t Andreas’ way. If he’d tired of her, he would tell her straight, no hesitation, no cushioning the blow. But even knowing that hadn’t provided any comfort. In fact, it had only made things so much worse. If he wasn’t trying to think of a way to tell her that, then what else was going through his mind to keep him on edge throughout the darkest hours?

She hadn’t been able to stay where she was, with the space beside her in the bed growing colder with every second that passed. The feeling had reminded her too closely of the way she had felt when she had gone home after the disaster of their wedding day and had had to try to fall asleep in the bed that she had once shared with Andreas, knowing that she would never, ever sleep with him again. And so she had pulled on her nightdress and crept down the stairs after him.

But now she wished that she’d never done so. The look on Andreas’ face, the sense of withdrawal that had hooded his eyes, tightened his jaw, worried her even more than his restlessness had done. There was something very wrong here and she couldn’t begin to guess what.

And being in this room with him like this, in this incomprehensible mood, brought back unhappy memories of the way that he had confronted her here, on the night of their wedding.

‘Then I should take you back there. I’m sure I can think of a way of helping us both to sleep.’

It was smoothly done. Almost convincing. But Becca’s nerves were already on red alert, and, hypersensitive as she was to everything about Andreas, she caught the faint unevenness of his tone, the way his gaze had flicked to the file on the table and then away again.

There had been a file on the desk then too. In fact, she wasn’t sure that it wasn’t the same file.

‘What is that?’

‘Just business…’

His hand went out to close the file, but, alerted by his tone, Becca was there before him. Grabbing at it to get it from him, she sent it flying, the file, and the photographs it contained, falling wildly to the floor.

‘Oh, I’m sorry…let me…Oh…’

On her knees beside the desk, she froze, staring down at the photographs in each hand.

‘Who’s this with Macy—and why do you have a picture of my sister?’