that you’re having dinner with your husband.’
‘I will not!’
‘Then give me his telephone number—I’ll do it for you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘Then I’ll talk to Beth—perhaps she’ll supply it for me?’
‘Beth wouldn’t do that. Look, Mac, this whole thing is completely crazy! We’ve been apart for too long. We’re not the same people we were when we broke up—’ Anguished, Tara breathed deeply, staring desperately down at the soft green carpet beneath their feet. When she was more composed, she lifted her head to look at him pleadingly. ‘Go back to London. Ring Amelie. Believe me, Mac, a reconciliation between us just wouldn’t work.’
‘What if I said I wanted us to try for another baby?’
With a gasp of disbelief, Tara turned and stumbled out of the hotel.
Mac got into his Mercedes and drove. He didn’t know where he was going, nor did he particularly care. All he knew was that he needed to breathe, needed to think, needed to get his head straight about Tara. He should never have said what he had about the baby—that much was clear. Besides, he’d gone at it like a bull at a gate and, unprepared, Tara had turned tail and run. Blaming her wasn’t even an option, Mac thought as he negotiated a suddenly sharp curve in the road—he was the one who had acted like a selfish idiot. Right now she was probably wondering what the hell he was playing at. ‘All right,’ he said out loud, pressing a button on the dash for some music. ‘I want her back. I don’t care what I have to do to get her back. I want to make babies—lots of them. I want us to live happily ever after in a place of her choice… I want—’ The words of the song that was playing on the radio suddenly penetrated his brain and halted the eager flow of words with bittersweet irony. ‘It’s too late, baby,’ crooned the singer. Mac eased his foot off the accelerator and cursed harshly beneath his breath.
Switching off the offending record, he stared through the windscreen at the surrounding countryside with little pleasure. Give him the city any day, he thought irritably. At least he knew how to operate in the city. The countryside was too quiet, too…green, too—well, it made him introspective and right now Mac didn’t know if that was a particularly good thing. He couldn’t honestly say he liked what he was finding out about himself. Thirty-eight years old, owner and director of one of London’s most successful advertising agencies, it was true—but that was where the success story ended. In every other respect he felt like a failure. He was a self-confessed workaholic who up until now lived to work. He’d walked out on his wife of three years because he’d put ambition before love and in five years had made no contact with her because he knew that walking out on her when she had desperately wanted to make a go of things—when she had needed him most—was pretty damn unforgivable. Even more so since he’d found out about the baby…
Half an hour later, emotionally drained and weary of his own incessant thoughts, Mac pulled over into a place signposted as an area of outstanding natural beauty, got out of the car and walked. Around him there was an infinite sea of rolling green, to his left a densely wooded area that with the sun glinting off it looked like a sentinel in the distance, and above him the bluest sky known to man. As he walked, his expensive Italian-made shoes cutting a swathe through the grass, the sun on his back, Mac surprisingly sensed some kind of peace descending on him. Shucking off his jacket and pulling off his tie, he continued to walk without looking back. A reluctant country-lover at best, he had to admit a grudging pleasure at this impromptu little foray into unknown territory.
‘Any messages?’
The dark-haired receptionist glanced up at the gorgeous blond Viking who’d strolled through the doors of the select little hotel and almost choked on her biscuit. Flushing scarlet with embarrassment, she blinked wide-eyed into Mac’s amused blue gaze.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Simmonsen, I was just having my tea. Been enjoying the fresh air, have you?’
His immaculate white shirt was undone casually at the collar, his suit jacket thrown loosely across his arm, and intriguingly there were a couple of blades of grass in his mussed hair. Eileen Dunne felt one of her tropical moments coming on. With the back of her hand she fanned herself.
‘It really is beautiful around here,’ Mac replied, smiling, the dimple in his chin devastatingly in evidence.
Slack-jawed, Eileen cleared her throat. ‘We have a lot of visitors who just come for the peace and quiet,’ she managed before blushing furiously again.
‘I can see why. So…no messages, then?’ Preparing to move towards the staircase, Mac doubted there were but thought there was no harm in checking.
‘There is one.’ Eileen turned round to the row of little boxes behind her on the wall to retrieve a folded piece of paper from one of them. ‘It’s from someone named Tara. I hope you can read my writing. If not, I can tell you what she said.’
Staring at the opened scrap of paper, Mac felt a crazy leap of hope in his chest at what he read.
Mac.
If your offer of dinner still stands, I’ll meet you at your hotel at eight.
Tara.
‘Thanks.’ Slipping the note into his back pocket, he treated the awestruck Eileen to another drop-dead gorgeous smile then took the staircase up to his room two steps at a time.
‘Thank you…’ Eileen grinned at his back before taking another ravenous bite of her biscuit.
‘Hey! What’s all this, then? Going somewhere special?’ Popping her head round the door of her niece’s bedroom at just after seven that evening, Beth Delaney smiled at the colourful heap of clothing on the bed. Tara was standing in front of an open wardrobe, dressed in one of those floaty Indian cotton summer dresses that made her look as if she’d just stepped out of the pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—especially as her feet were bare. Her soft blonde hair was newly washed and dried and her pretty face was flushed from the recent heat of the hair-dryer.
‘I’m meeting Mac for dinner.’ Thinking it was best not to turn around just then to gauge her aunt’s expression, Tara gazed unseeingly at the contents of her wardrobe, not certain about the dress she had chosen.
‘You are?’
‘I am.’
‘What’s brought all this on? I thought you swore you were never going to see him again when you ran into the shop this afternoon? Did he or did he not make you cry?’
Tara turned slowly to face her aunt. The older woman’s expression was bewildered and concerned. She sighed. Right now Tara was feeling more stunned than if a brick had been dropped on her head from a great height. ‘I want us to try for another baby,’ Mac had said, as cool as a cucumber—while in contrast she’d felt as if her heart would pound clear out of her chest.
‘I’m feeling very emotional right now. I don’t rightly know what’s going on with me and Mac. If nothing else, we have some unfinished business to discuss. That’s why we’re having dinner together.’
‘Does this “unfinished business” concern the pair of you getting a divorce?’ Beth asked.
Turning back to her vague perusal of the contents of her wardrobe, Tara sighed again. ‘Probably.’
‘Probably?’
‘You may as well say it, Beth. You think I’m a fool for agreeing to see him again. You think he’s up to no good. You think he’s going to break my heart. Well, I’ve got news for you—he can’t do it again because it hasn’t been mended in the interim, so I’m perfectly safe from that particular affliction!’ Her eyes filling with tears, Tara dashed them impatiently away with the heel of her hand. It was probably a huge mistake to see Mac again but she had to know what was going on with him—why he was professing to want to take up where they’d left off; why he had said what he had about trying for another baby. Until she knew, the turmoil in