Chapter Twenty Seven

She had been young and naive but not so young nor so naive as not to be able to guess where the tiny pretty lacy briefs Roth had given her might have come from, and the knowledge that they must have belonged to another woman had cast a shadow not just over the whole day, but over everything.

She had once heard lucas joking with Roth about his taste for older women. ‘I’m not in the market for commitment or marriage,’ Roth had returned. ‘But I’m not about to turn myself into a monk either,’ he had admitted frankly.

Neither of them had known that she was listening as she hesitated outside Luca's library door on her way past.

‘So a woman who knows what life’s all about, who’s been married and decided that it isn’t for her, suits me fine.’

She hadn’t been able to hide her massive crush on Ran before she’d left for university, in fact had openly offered her love to him, but he had determinedly pushed it away—just as he had also determinedly pushed her away. She had noticed it again at L