Their Wedding Day. Emma Darcy

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      “I wondered if you were avoiding me,” Keir said quietly.

      Such loaded words.

      They pressed on Rowena’s heart and constricted her chest. Why now? she railed desperately. She didn’t need this on top of everything else she had to contend with. Pride forced her to swing around and face him as he followed her into the compartment.

      “Why on earth should you think that?” she asked with what she hoped was credible astonishment.

      His swift scrutiny was offset by a shrug. “Because of Brett’s death. You could have ended up blaming me, as your parents did.”

      “You know I didn’t. I visited you in hospital.”

      His eyes seemed to take on a piercing intensity. “Did you receive my letter, Rowena?”

      She stared at him in confusion. Only days after Brett’s funeral Keir had been flown to the United States for highly specialised corrective surgery, and that had been the end of any contact between them.

      “When?” The word sounded like a croak from her throat.

      “I wrote from the clinic in California. You didn’t reply.”

      She shook her heard. “There was no letter.”

      He frowned. “I thought…assumed…”

      “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” she cut in.

      There was simply no point in a post-mortem over what might have been. Keir could have written again if she’d been really important to him. Or looked her up when he came home all repaired and fit to pick up his life. The past was gone. To open that sealed compartment and invite the old pain out into the open was more than she could handle. It was the present she had to deal with, and Keir was delaying her for no good purpose.

      She forced a smile to mitigate any offence in the abrupt snub. “Would you press the button for reception, please?”

      With a look of ironic resignation he turned to the control panel, lifted a finger, then unaccountably hesitated, passing over the button she had requested and pressing the one for Close Doors. He then faced her with a direct inquiry.

      “Whom have you come to see, Rowena? I know all my employees and the departments in which they work. There’s no need for you to stop at reception. I can direct you to the floor you want.”

      It sounded friendly and helpful, but Rowena wished she could die on the spot. She wanted to say it was none of his business. The expression in his eyes told her it was his business. Everything that happened in this building was his business.

      It was a bitterly capricious stroke of fate that her arrival in the car park had coincided with his. Here she was, trapped with him in a confined space, his eyes asking her for a direct reply. Even as she frantically sought some evasive explanation for her visit, the certainty came to her that he knew why she had come and what she meant to do.

      Maybe the affair had been carried on so blatantly it was common knowledge throughout the whole building. Rowena inwardly cringed at the thought. Then pride clawed through the miserable weight of humiliation, pride and a fierce maternal need to fight for her children’s emotional security. She had done nothing wrong. What other people thought did not matter when so much of real importance was at stake.

      She aimed a direct appeal at the man who had the power to stop her. “I’ve come to talk to Adriana Leigh.”

      He held her gaze for several fraught moments, then slowly nodded. “Adriana works in an open floor area, Rowena,” he said gently. “I’m sure you’d prefer complete privacy for your talk to her.”

      “I’m not exactly overwhelmed with choices,” she confessed, her courage deflating at the idea of a public audience.

      “May I suggest you use my office? I can call Adriana to come there, and I guarantee you’ll both be left alone together to say whatever you wish to say.”

      Once again unruly heat burned into Rowena’s cheeks. His sympathy to her plight was somehow shaming, yet to reject it was self-defeating. “Does everyone know?” The painful question slid off her tongue before she could clamp down on it.

      “There’s been gossip.”

      She closed her eyes, swallowed hard. “How long…how long has it been going on?”

      “I don’t know, Rowena.” He paused, then quietly added, “More than three months.”

      Phil had bought the sports car three months ago. Last night’s despair pressed in again. But she had come to try for a different outcome, to salvage what might not be a total wreckage. She had to try. She would try. She mentally constructed a protective shell around herself and opened her eyes. Keir was watching her, waiting for her decision, his expression carefully neutral.

      “Your offer is…very kind,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “Thank you. I’ll take it.”

      He turned to the control panel. The elevator started to rise. Rowena fought to keep her composure and her resolve. She watched the floor numbers light up above the doors. They were travelling to the top level of the building. Keir’s eyrie, Phil called it. She would soon find out why.

      “Why are you doing this for me, Keir?”

      It was an irrelevant question. Silly to ask it, really. It put the situation on a personal footing, which was the last thing she wanted to invite or encourage with Keir Delahunty. Yet something inside her had wormed past common sense…perhaps a need for comfort from someone who cared about her. Although Keir was probably only thinking of saving his other employees on the open floor area from what could be an ugly, disruptive scene, causing more gossip and stopping work.

      He looked at her, his face grave, his dark eyes intensely focused on hers. “We were friends for a long time, Rowena. I remember it, even if you don’t want to.”

      Friends…and lovers at the end. Did he remember that? Or had concussion from the accident wiped out the memory of the night before Brett was killed? She hadn’t spoken of it when she’d visited him in hospital. They’d both been in shock over what had happened. She wondered what had been in the letter she hadn’t received.

      She searched his eyes for some hint of knowledge of the intimacy they had once shared. It didn’t show. Maybe he had no recollection of it at all. Maybe that was why he had never come back to her. Maybe he simply remembered her as Brett’s younger sister, who had once had a schoolgirl crush on him.

      The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He waited for her to exit first. Courtesy. Consideration. A friend. Brett’s best friend all those years through school and university. Like another brother to her until…But she mustn’t think about until. She had to think about Phil. And this imminent encounter with Adriana Leigh.

      She forced her legs to move. She was extremely aware of Keir at her side as he directed her to his private office. A friend. She needed a friend. It was so hard…so very hard…to stand alone.

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