Sharon Kendrick Collection

Guy cut his meeting short, and it was clear from his secretary’s expression that she clearly thought he had taken leave of his senses.

Well, maybe he had.

Or maybe he was just coming to his senses.

He found himself asking why he was prepared to let someone like Sabrina simply walk out of his life without argument. As if he had no control over the future. As though, because of one long-ago act, a pattern had been set in his life and he was powerless to change it. It was ironic, really, that he—the master of control—was allowing events to gather up speed by themselves.

He’d spent his life shielding himself from the prying questions of women on the make. Yet Sabrina was clearly not on the make—and neither did she ask him questions.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he missed his stop on the tube. Another first, he thought wryly as he walked home in the golden summer sunshine. But the idea that Guy Masters—the cool and controlled Guy Masters—had misjudged a train journey he’d been making for the past who-knew-how-many years actually had him smiling ruefully.

He walked into the flat. ‘Sabrina?’ He watched while she drifted out of the sitting room, as graceful as that water nymph he’d first compared her to in Venice.

‘Hello,’ she said softly.

She’d used her waiting hour to shower, and to change and carefully apply her make-up. Because this was important, she realised. Very important. And, like a job interview she was determined to win, she just wanted to look her best. It was as simple as that.

Guy wanted to kiss her. Hell, he wanted to lose himself in the sweet torment of her body. But he didn’t trust himself to touch her. Sometimes desire could cloud judgement, and right then he needed every bit of judgement he’d ever possessed.

‘I need to talk to you, Sabrina.’

‘And I need to talk to you.’

He nodded, but absently, as if he’d scarcely heard her. Like a man with a lot on his mind.

‘Let’s go into the sitting room,’ he said abruptly.

Sabrina nodded as she followed him, vaguely disappointed at something in his tone but determined not to lose her nerve. She would chip, chip, chip away until she found out what she needed to know and what Tom hadn’t been able to tell her.

In the sitting room neither of them sat, but instead stood looking at each other warily, like two fighters sizing each other up before a duel.

‘Do you want to leave?’ he demanded. ‘I mean, really?’

Truth? Or lie? Communication? Or hiding behind social niceties? What did she have to lose? ‘Of course I don’t!’

Relief flooded his veins like a drug, and Guy drew in a deep breath. ‘Well, that’s good—because I don’t want you to either. I want you to stay here. With me.’

Sabrina stared at him steadily. She had played her part—now she needed to know the truth from him. ‘Why?’

How else to say this without shooting straight from the hip? But Guy used words carefully—he recognised their power and their significance—and there were certain words that he would not use lightly. Or recklessly. Unless he was certain that he meant them. And he didn’t want to frighten her either. Or push her into something before she was ready. ‘I…care for you, Sabrina,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s why.’

So he cared for her. It was a curiously colourless way to phrase it, but Sabrina nodded her head slowly, less disappointed than she’d imagined she would be. He wasn’t offering her the moon, no, but it was a start. For Guy to even admit caring for her was something. Because he was not, she knew, a man who would make a declaration without thinking it through first, or without meaning it.

But if she stayed then there had to be a new honesty between them. ‘Why leave it until the day before I was going?’ she demanded. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say something before?’

‘Because I was burying my head in the sand and believing in the impossible.’ He sighed. ‘I imagined that my life would continue in its calm and uncluttered way once you’d gone. I didn’t realise that the thought of you not being here was going to drive me out of my mind!’

Well, that was a bit better. A lot better. She actually smiled, but the smile had a hint of reproof about it. ‘Hell, Guy, I’ve virtually packed all my suitcases!’

‘Then unpack them,’ he drawled silkily, but something in her face made him backtrack. He owed her more than that rather dispassionate request that she stay with him. ‘Listen to me, Sabrina. I’m no good at trust—you’ll have to help me. I’m used to women who are…’ he paused ‘…different from you.’

Women who wouldn’t want to know him if he was just an average guy. Not like Sabrina. She’d fallen under his spell without knowing who he was. His gaze was unflickering. ‘And I guess my childhood sowed the seeds of distrust almost from the start.’

She held her breath. Here, she was certain, lay the key to the barrier he’d erected around himself. This was what Tom had been hinting at. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ she asked him softly.

He paused only for as long as it took to be mesmerised by the ice-blue dazzle of her eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said simply, and gave a long sigh. ‘You’re always complaining that I work too hard…’

Her persistence had, in fact, sown the first seeds of doubt in his mind. Had made him look closely at her accusations. ‘And you’ve made me see how right you are. When you live alone, there’s no one to question you—no one to compare yourself with. It’s become a habit that’s hard to break, a habit that started a long time ago…’

‘Tell me, Guy,’ she urged quietly, remembering how he’d let her unburden herself over Michael. And suspecting that he now needed to do the same for himself.

His mouth flattened. ‘My father was the opposite to the way I am—his whole life was a reckless gamble. He would hear about some sure-fire scheme to make money and he would invest everything he had. Our life became a lottery. My mother and my brother and I used to find ourselves living in mansions. Or hovels, more often than not,’ he went on, with a disparaging shrug. ‘With my mother trying to feed two growing boys—and next to nothing in the cupboard. I guess it was just fortunate that a family trust paid for our education, or things would have come to a head much sooner.’

‘But something happened?’ prompted Sabrina, hurting herself at the look of pain which had frozen his features. ‘Something really bad?’

Was it that obvious? he wondered. He’d thought that he’d trained his face to hide all emotion—but Sabrina seemed to have the ability to make it come creeping back again. The words he’d locked away for so long came tumbling out as if they couldn’t wait to be spoken.

‘His schemes became more and more bizarre and my mother grew concerned. She tried to get all our assets put in her name, but he was far cleverer than she was. I guess these days she wouldn’t have stayed with him—but things were different then. And she was loyal, too.’ Just as you would be, he thought suddenly.

He saw her look of horror and heard himself defending his father. And that was something else he’d only just realised. That, whatever wrong he had done, his father was still his father.

‘Oh, it wasn’t a malicious action on his part—more a lack of judgement and a sense of misplaced pride. But one day he went too far and lost everything.’ Guy shrugged. ‘The business, the house, the car. Everything. With debts galore thrown in for good measure. Only this time his spirit was broken, too. I was fifteen, and my brother was twelve.’

There was a grim silence. Sabrina didn’t say a word.

‘My mother’s parents took us in—they had a beautiful big house close to the cliffs in Cornwall.’ His eyes grew distant as he thought back to a time he’d buried away deep in the recesses of his mind. ‘But accepting charity—even family charity—was anathema to my father. He tried working in paid employment, but he could never cope with working for other people. His mood went down and there seemed to be no way that anyone could reach out and help him. And he and my mother never communicated particularly well.’

Sabrina nodded. That explained a lot, too. Guy’s fear of relationships, his wariness of commitment and sharing. A bad role-model could put you off for life.

His face grew dark as he forced himself to say the words. ‘One night he went out and never came back again.’

‘What happened?’ whispered Sabrina hoarsely.

He didn’t coat it with any sugar. ‘He went out walking on the cliff-top. It was a wild night and the wind was blowing up a storm. He fell…We’ll never know what really happened—whether he lost his footing, or if the wind caught him off balance. Or whether he jumped.’

He met her eyes with such a bleak expression that Sabrina couldn’t help herself. In fact, even if he’d been just about to kick her out she still would have gone straight over and put her arms around him and hugged him as tightly as she knew how. Trying, however futilely, to take some of his pain away.

‘Oh, Guy,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘Guy.’

He dropped a kiss onto her beautiful head, but forced himself to continue, feeling the burden lifting even as he shared it with her.

‘I determined then that I would never be placed in such a vulnerable position again—and neither would my mother or brother.’

‘So how did you manage?’

‘Against everyone’s advice, I left school at sixteen and started working, and I never really stopped. Khalim’s father gave me a break, and I was off.’ Off on a merry-go-round of hard work which had continued until this bright-haired temptress had walked into his life.

Sabrina rubbed her cheek against his shirt. He’d told her everything she’d wanted to know, without her having to ask him. He’d trusted her enough to open up to her. Would his trust now spread out and out, like ripples on a pond, so that their relationship got bigger and bigger?