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CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS the one night of the year he dreaded more than any other
In the beginning he’d tried everything in a bid to escape it—wild parties, women, work—but he’d discovered that it didn’tit with, the pain remained the same He chose to live his life in the present, but the past was part of him and he carried it everywhere It was a memory that wouldn’t fade A scar that wouldn’t heal A pain that went bone-deep There was no escape, which hy his favoured way of spending this particular night was to find soet very, very drunk
He’d driven the two hours fro in rural Oxfordshire si alone For once his phone itched off, and it was staying that way
Snoirled in a crazy dance in front of the windscreen and visibility was down to alh at the side of the road, a trap for the nervous, inexperienced driver
Lucas Jackson was neither nervous nor inexperienced and his mood was blacker than the weather
The howl of the wind sounded like a child screa and he clenched his jaw and tried to blot out the noise
Never had the first gli the entrance to his estate been so welcome Despite the conditions he barely slowed his pace, accelerating along the long drive that wound through acres of parkland towards the main house
He drove past the lake, now frozen into a skating rink for the ducks, over the bridge that crossed the river and heralded the final approach to Chigworth Castle
He waited to feel the rush of satisfaction that should have co It shouldn’t have surprised hi since accepted that he wasn’t able to feel in the way that other people did He’d switched that part of hiain
What he did experience as he looked at thethat satisfied both the mathematician in him and the architect The diatehouse presided over the entrance, its carved stonework creating a first i And then there was the castle itself, with its buff stonework and battlements that attracted the interest of historians fro history gave hiree of professional pride, but as for the rest of it—the personal, e
Whoever said that revenge was a dish best eaten cold had been wrong
He’d sampled it and found it tasteless