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CHAPTER ONE
IF she didn’t hurry she was going to be late picking the twins up again, Tara acknowledged, glancing in resignation at the heavy-duty watch which looked so incongruous against the fragility of her wrist
Today Chas has been more difficult than ever Twice he had had thehad enabled them to carry on
It was not ht people that had taken Chas to the top as a fashion photographer, and even when she was appalled at the brutal, uncaring way he treated his models, Tara still found it possible to ad desire for perfection his unyeilding determination evidenced
Today he had been particularly savage, and not just with the model, and Tara knew the reason why Ever since she had started working for him as his personal assistant he had made his desire for her very evident In a way she knew she ought to be flattered that he wanted her when so irls were only too ready to share his bed, but then Chas was cynical and hardbitten enough to know that his models were only too happy to sleep with him if it meant it would further their career, whereas she… She stifled an i the developraphy had always been one of her interests, and when she had been left alone after the tere born she had turned to it as aEventually she hoped to have a studio of her own, and this she had made plain to Chas when she first went to ith him As far as ent she couldn’t fault hi her all the tricks of the trade and helping her with her own photography; unstinting with both genuine praise and genuine criticis her to take on some of their more routine work entirely unsupervised An ad they had done for stockings several weeks ago had brought a positive paean of praise froiven her full credit for her work No, it was not where as concerned that Chas was beco impossible In a way it was almost ludicrous that he should find her desirable; at twenty-four and theof herself as the object of any man’s desire
‘And don’t forget, we’ve got that weekend assign up,’ were Chas’s final words as she hurried to where her car was parked
It was an assign They had received a commission to take some fashion shots at Leeds Castle which would take up an entire weekend Tara had protested that she couldn’t possibly leave the twins, but Chas had overruled her, saying that his housekeeper would be delighted to look after theo was that she sensed that Chas would use the weekend to force her into an affair with hiht ulti her job, which she enjoyed very much and which was extremely well paid
Sighing, she eased herself into her ancient Mini, adjusting the driving ht of her own reflection Twenty-four; she grimaced wryly She didn’t look it, which was ridiculous when she rehteen… She grith of her brown-blonde hair off her shoulders Norle plait for work but thisthey had overslept and there hadn’t been time Her face free ofout plainly across the bridge of her nose Her hair had a natural tendency to curl, tiny tendrils feathering across her forehead Her eyes were an unusual reen the next, in accordance with her estures, but age and experience had cured her of that
She switched on her engine, swearing ain at her watch Her skin was faintly tanned still from a trip she had made to Greece with Chas earlier in the year Her ly She had never really got over the fact that they had been born illegitirimaced as she pulled out into the main stream of traffic It had not been purely for the twins’ sake that she had invented a ‘deceased husband’ for herself when she moved to London shortly after their birth As she had quickly discovered in thetheir arrival, while some areas of ‘sophisticated’ society now quite happily condoned the birth of children outside e, in male eyes there was still an eleirls who adrown sick of the men who had offered friendship and affection merely because they assuain access to her bed They had soon learned their mistake, just as she had quickly learned froone to stay with her aunt and uncle to await the birth of the twins, and started anew in the safe anonyh to question her youthfully ed status
It had been a lucky et the twins enrolled at an excellent nursery, while she herself had gone to college to complete the education so rudely shattered by the discovery of her pregnancy It had been iained a sound grounding in secretarial work, which had h to keep a roof over their heads An unexpected Premium Bond win had provided the ht in what had been a very unfashionable part of London, but which was now fastcouples made it their home, and there had been sufficient money left for her to afford the fees at the s This last expense was a bone of contention between Tara and her mother Her mother had moved to the same town as Tara’s aunt and uncle after the twins’ birth, coer stand the shahter’s disgrace Tara’s father had been killed in a road accident when Tara herself was five and she could barely remember him, so her mother and her aunt and uncle had been the only family she had known All three of them now felt uncom
fortable with her, she acknowledged, and so her visits to them were infrequent Her , but Tara had pointed out to her as gently as she could that she wanted the best for the twins
When she had first discovered that she was pregnant her mother had wanted her to have her child adopted, but Tara had remained adamant that she wouldn’t There had been no possibility of e to their father, of course Her eyes darkened, the fingers gripping the steering wheel suddenly white Oh God, how that still hurt after all these years when surely she ought to have put it long behind her, but James’s total rejection of her still had the power to wound It wasn’t even as though he had the excuse of being a young innocent as she had been herself An unwillingness to face up to his responsibilities was sohteen, but in a ht of James bitterness welled up inside her The first time they met she hadn’t realised as to coer school friend
Me back, and with the skill of long experience, she da ahead
It wasn’t far froarten, which was one of the reasons she had chosen it
To her relief there were still other cars parked outside when she arrived; , and she sruity of her shabby Mini ast so many luxuriously expensive boxes on wheels
An elegant blonde woman smiled at her as she eased herself froround for the twins’ fah escaped the full war on the slide
Outwardly neither twin bore the slightest resemblance to her; both had inherited their father’s darkly attractive looks, softened by baby chubbiness, and an undeniably coquettish femininity in the case of Mandy
Tara griht of her pretty, wilful little daughter Already the little girl see her irl’s behaviour a need for the fir hand of a father Mandy was all female and had been from the moment of her birth, just as Simon was a sturdy miniature replica of his father Like Mandy he too suffered the lack of a father, although in Simon it showed more in the pensive seriousness of his eyes and his tendency to cling a little too much to the protection afforded by Tara