BOOK 3

The sound of her own voice made her start and, half laughing at herself, she stood up and marched into the kitchen to start the coffee.

The past was done with. Tonight had been a fiasco. And in a couple of weeks, when Connie was over her operation, she would call Felix.

When a hard little lump began to form in her chest she doused it with scalding hot coffee. Except that it turned out to be scalding hot water, because she'd forgotten to put the coffee-grounds in the pot.

Brand stood in the doorway of the private hospital room he had insisted on for Connie, and watched Isabella bend over his daughter's bed.

By rights, Connie should have been out of hospital the same day she went in, but there had been some problem with the anaesthetic and they were keeping her in for observation.

He felt something lodge in his throat as, unnoticed by the other occupants of the room, he gazed at the slender figure of the mother of his child. She looked so young, so vulnerable as she smiled tenderly down