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CHAPTER ONE

SEBASTIAN GARCIA’S ernails as he faced the rarey eyes narrowed then glittered with angry determination He’d claw his heart out of his breast with his own hands before he’d allow Terrina Dysart to get her gold-digger’s talons on his godfather’s extensive property!

For the first ti old house that had been like a second ho re pleasure

The cold March wind pushed icy fingers through the sleek blackness of his hair, re hie of Hope Baggot in the uplands of west Shropshire ht as well be poles apart

Fir his already hard jaw, he reached a leather suitcase from the back seat of the silver Mercedes and strode over the circular sweep of gravel to the reet hi in hand?’ wiped the welco smile fro step backwards

Silently cursing hied up a sh to have his business staff jue was his godfather’s housekeeper and she was only following Marcus’s orders—as he hiood and sure Marcus Troone got to see what Terrina really as his problee’s

‘Sorry,’ he apologised through the s his best to keep in place ‘I didn’t mean to bite your head off’ He lifted wide, leather-coated shoulders in an expressive shrug ‘I’ve been driving through the night; put it down to that and forgive me?’

‘Of course’ Briefly, Madge put a orn hand to the side of his face, her gaunt features relaxing as she grumbled at him, ‘You wouldn’t take the easy way out and fly over in coet a driver from the London office to meet you at the airport and chauffeur you here, not you!’

Her brown eyes glinted with affectionate ae, raftered hall where a log fire was burning brightly in the stone fireplace ‘The first time you ever stayed here without your parents—you’d have been six years old—you decided that co down to breakfast via your bedrooe than using the stairs So nothing’s changed, has it?’

Thehe’d received froo occasion made his heart dip with sadness Marcus Troone and Sebastian’s father, Rafael, had been business partners and Marcus had arded the weeks every summer at Troone Manor, and life had seemed happy and uncomplicated

But shadows had invaded the scene, invaded and deepened To their sadness, his aunt and Marcus—as also his godfather —had rehth birthday when the unthinkable had happened and his lively, loving Tia Lucia had been stricken with multiple sclerosis