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CHAPTER ONE

HELENA SHAW HAD been sitting in the elegant marble foyer for the best part of two hours when the man she had trekked halfway across London to see finally strode into the exclusive Mayfair hotel

She had aliven up After all the effort she had devoted to tracking him down, she had almost lost her nerve Had al insanity—drive her out of the plush upholstered chair and back into the blessed obscurity of the crowded rush-hour streets

But she had not fled She had sat and waited—and waited some more

And noas here

Her stoh she had stepped fro started—a violent sensation that e full of canaries into which a half-starved tomcat had been loosed

Breathe, she instructed herself, and watched hi in a charcoal-grey two-piece that screamed power suit even without the requisite tie around his bronzed throat

Women stared

Men stepped out of his way

And he ignored the with an air of intent until, for one heart-stopping moment, his footsteps slowed on the polished marble and he half turned in her direction, eyes narrowed under a sharp frown as he surveyed the hotel’s expansive interior

Helena froze Shrouded in shadows cast by soft lighting and half hidden behind a giant spray of exotic honey-scented blooms, she was certain he couldn’t see her, yet for one crazyimpression he could somehow sense her scrutiny Her very presence As if, after all these years, they were still tethered by an invisible thread of awareness

A crack of thunder, courtesy of the stor Londoners since yesterday, made Helena jump She blinked, pulled in a sharp breath and let the air out with a derisive hiss She had no connection with this one, destroyed by her father and buried for ever in the ashes of bitterness and hurt

A hurt Leonardo Vincenti would soon revisit on her fa her father’s company

She grabbed her handbag and stood, her pulse picking up speed as she wondered if he would see her But he had already resu strides towards the bank of elevators She hurried after hi her neck to keep his dark head and broad shoulders in her line of sight Not that she’d easily lose him in a crowd He stood out froh he seemed even taller than she remembered, darker somehow, the aura he projected now one of command and power

Her stohter