Книга - A Woman To Remember

A Woman To Remember
Miranda Lee


AFFAIRS TO REMEMBER A night never to be forgotten! Luke St. Clair had it all: looks, international success, females at his feet. But was his life-style the recipe for lasting happiness? Luke wondered if he should marry a nice Australian girl and start a family… . But would that ever happen?Eighteen months ago Luke had met the girl of his dreams in Sydney, but she'd disappeared into thin air after their brief, passionate encounter. Then a stroke of luck led him to discover her name. Now what should Luke do - the woman he'd always remember was Mrs. Rachel Cleary!Affairs to Remember - stories of love you'll treasure forever







“Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. I’m a good guy. And I can see you’re a good girl...” (#u4cccf5eb-31fe-53e0-9d31-1fd830be475a)Letter to Reader (#u58cb46d5-a64f-586e-88a8-78d819642a4b)Title Page (#u434e2960-1faa-5778-8d0c-3f1f51653091)PROLOGUE (#u6157a32a-e2fb-52a4-a04a-7b2c9fbdbf5a)CHAPTER ONE (#ub9107b9b-2808-5788-8d10-4d31730a98f5)CHAPTER TWO (#u78d32429-1a8a-525a-abda-ac83d69439f8)CHAPTER THREE (#u4f94360a-05ad-50d2-b10d-b0296854b9a7)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Teaser chapter (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


“Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. I’m a good guy. And I can see you’re a good girl...”

They both went to sleep...eventually... though Luke took quite a while to come to terms with what had just happened. He hoped he was right. Hoped she was a good girl. If not, he’d just done the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his whole life. Slept with a perfect stranger. Then, to top it all off, he’d fallen in love with her....


Dear Reader,

Love can be full of surprises!

We know you’ll enjoy the last book in Miranda Lee’s bewitching trilogy, AFFAIRS TO REMEMBER. All three stories are about love affairs with a difference, and they are brought especially to you by this popular Australian author—all the tales have twists that you won’t forget!

Sincerely,

The Editor


A Woman to Remember

Miranda Lee




















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


PROLOGUE

SHE took the clothes from the case and laid them out on the hotel bed: a leopardskin-print halter-necked mini-dress, sexy gold sandals with outrageously high heels plus the obligatory ankle strap, and a cream stretch satin G-string which would give the illusion of nakedness underneath the oh, so tight dress.

Not another thing. No bra. No stockings. No petticoat.

A shudder rippled through her at the thought of what she would look like dressed in that garb, with her long tawny blonde hair wildly fluffed out around her face and shoulders, her full mouth made to look even fuller with carefully applied lip-liner and filled in with the sort of lipstick it would take paint-stripper to remove.

Hardly subtle.

Still, that was what she wanted to look like. There was no time for her usual ladylike image. No time for demure or coy. She had only this one night. A few bare hours.

Dismay swept in at the thought of what she was going to do, of how she would have to act to get what she wanted so quickly and so thoroughly. Dear God, what had happened to her this past year? What had she become?

For a split-second she almost backed away from the idea, but desperation and a fierce frustration brought renewed resolve. She had to go home in the morning—home to her dying husband, home to nothing but more weeks of disappointment and despair and loneliness such as she’d never known before.

She could not let this chance go by. She had to grab it. She simply had to!

Snatching up the folded newspaper lying on the pillow, she rechecked the address of the photographic exhibition—the only opening she could find on that particular Wednesday night. It was not a street or a gallery she recognised, but there again it had been some years since she’d lived and worked in Sydney.

She jotted down the address, hoping against hope that this type of function would be the same as they’d always been—full of highly sociable swinging singles. Admittedly, a percentage of the seemingly available men—and often the best-looking—would be gay, but there would always be a sprinkling of straight males with more machismo than morals.

And where are your morals, Rachel? came the taunting inner question.

‘I left them at home,’ she snapped aloud as she threw the newspaper into the wastepaper basket. ‘Along with everything else I once held dear. Life is a different ball-game these days. A different ball-game,’ she bit out, her heart hardening as she strode quickly into the bathroom, dragging off her wedding ring as she went.

There was no time for guilt tonight. Or conscience. Or, God forbid, shame. Shame was for normal wives in normal situations. It had no place in her life at that moment. No place at all!


CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’LL have to go to the dentist.’

Luke popped the two painkillers into his mouth and swigged them back with a large glass of water.

‘I’ll go when I get back to Los Angeles,’ he said, turning from the kitchen sink to smile at his still frowning mother. ‘It’s not that bad.’

Grace wasn’t about to be distracted from her maternal mission, although she recognised that her son’s smile would have distracted most of the female gender. Distract, disarm and downright disorientate.

At thirty-two, Luke had become a lethal weapon where his looks were concerned. Age and life had finally put some interesting lines on his once too smoothly handsome face, especially around his eyes and mouth, giving him more sex appeal than ever.

His two elder brothers were good-looking men, but Luke was matinee idol material, having inherited the best of his parents’ genes—his father’s tall, well-proportioned body, clear olive skin and flashing dark eyes, and his mother’s symmetrical features, high cheekbones and sensually carved mouth. All in all, a potent mix.

As a teenage boy Grace’s youngest son had been a big hit with girls. No doubt nowadays he was an equally big hit with women. Pity he couldn’t find one to settle down with, Grace thought wryly.

Not that he mixed with the type of woman she would have chosen as a daughter-in-law. Luke’s life as private and personal photographer to the stars in Hollywood meant that his immediate circle of acquaintance was the entertainment and movie-world crowd. Hardly the sort of people renowned for long-term commitment and traditional values.

Motherly concern had Grace wishing that one of these days Luke would come home to Australia to live permanently, not just pop home to Sydney for the odd week every year or so. He was an Aussie at heart, and she felt sure he’d be happier at home.

He never looked very happy these days. There were always dark smudges under his eyes, and his mouth had taken on a cynical twist which made her feel quite sad. The young man who’d flown off to see the world and make his fortune ten years ago had not been a cynic.

The man who’d flown in yesterday definitely was, and had been for quite some time. He also hadn’t been too happy for quite some time.

Not that it was easy to be bright and bushy-tailed with jet-lag and a nagging tooth. Knowing how difficult men could be when something physical was wrong with them, Grace had no intention of letting Luke procrastinate over getting his tooth fixed.

‘You don’t fly back to LA till Sunday week,’ she pointed out firmly. ‘That’s two whole weeks away. You can’t put up with a toothache for that long. Now, don’t be such a baby, Luke. Lord, I know you hated the dentist when you were a boy, but you’re a grown man now.

‘Fancy!’ She tut-tutted, well aware that nothing prodded a man into action more quickly than a jab at his male ego. ‘Thirty-two and still scared of the dentist.’

‘I’m not scared of the dentist,’ he shot back testily, all smiles abandoned. ‘I simply don’t like being in that damned chair. I detest how it makes you feel, sitting there. Totally out of control and at someone else’s mercy!’

Grace glanced at the stubborn set of her youngest son’s jaw and thought, Yes, you’d hate that, wouldn’t you? You’ve always wanted to run your own race—always resented being pushed into corners. No one could ever make you do something you didn’t want to do, or dissuade you from doing something you did want to do.

Still, Grace had to admit that she admired Luke’s tunnel vision and tenacity. He’d dared to do what others had only dreamt about. He’d followed his dreams and made them come true. At least professionally speaking. Privately, his life hadn’t been so successful. She wondered what had happened to that young actress he’d been living with a couple of years back. Luke’s letters had indicated that marriage was imminent, but then suddenly nothing.

Grace would never forget how grim he had looked when he’d flown home a couple of months later. And how bitter he’d become about women. He hadn’t confided in her, of course. Boys gave up confiding in their mothers at around the same time they discovered the opposite sex. With Luke that had been a good twenty years ago.

But his being his own man didn’t stop her being his mother, and wanting to do mother-type things for him.

‘Going to the dentist is not as bad as it used to be,’ she argued reasonably. ‘The new drills are practically painfree, and they have that gas which helps a lot if you’re the tense type.’

‘They still stuff sixty million wads of cotton wool in your mouth so that you can’t speak properly,’ Luke returned irritably. ‘Then there’s that damned hook thing, which makes the most appalling sucking noises—not to mention the way it drags the corner of your mouth down so that you look like some mutant from Mars.’

Grace chuckled. ‘So that’s the root of the problem. You simply don’t want to look less than your gorgeous best for Dr Evans’s pretty little dental nurse.’

Luke’s left eyebrow lifted with a mildly sardonic interest. ‘Does Dr Evans have a pretty little dental nurse?’

‘He did the last time I went. Goodness, if I’d known I’d have mentioned her earlier. So you’ve still got a weakness for pretty women, have you?’

His glance was sharp, confirming Grace’s opinion that some pretty woman had hurt her son once—hurt him badly. She wondered if it had been the actress.

‘I’ve moved on from pretty to gorgeous these days,’ he said drily.

‘And is there one particular gorgeous girl in your life I should know about?’ Grace asked.

‘Nope.’

It was a bit like pulling teeth, Grace thought, trying to get information out of Luke. ‘What happened to that Tracy girl you used to write me about?’ she persisted. ‘It sounded like you were going to marry her at one stage.’

‘I was. But in the end she decided to embrace her acting career rather than yours truly,’ came his coldly caustic remark.

‘Why did she have to make a choice? I thought American girls tried to have it all. Marriage and children, and a career.’

Luke’s laugh was hard. ‘Don’t go believing those sitcoms you see on television, Mum. That’s fantasy-land. Tracy didn’t mind the marriage bit. She quite fancied being Mrs Luke St Clair. But she drew the line at babies, and at least she was honest enough to say so up front. I didn’t see the point in marriage without children, so we called it quits.’

‘And rightly so. Marriage without children for you would be a disaster. You’d make a great father.’

He seemed taken aback, throwing her a surprised look. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Oh, Luke, don’t be silly. I’m your mother. I know these things.’

‘Aah. Feminine instinct, is it?’

‘Maternal instinct. And paternal example. Your father was a great father. His sons take after him in that regard.’

‘Well, that’s too bad, because I’m afraid I don’t see myself marrying now, let alone having kiddies.’

‘You really loved Tracy that much?’

‘Good God, no! I’m well and truly over that ambitious little bitch.’

‘Then what is it, Luke?’ she asked, genuinely confused. ‘You’re only thirty-two. You’ve still plenty of time to get married and have a family.’

An awkward silence descended on the kitchen while Luke rubbed his jaw and frowned darkly.

‘Who is she?’ Grace said abruptly. ‘Another actress?’

Exasperation sent dangerous lights glittering in his deeply set black eyes. ‘This is exactly why I don’t tell you anything, Mum,’ he bit out. ‘Before I know it, I’m getting the third degree. Let’s drop the subject of women all round, shall we? I’ve come home for a nice, relaxing holiday—not to face a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition!’

‘I only have your best interests at heart,’ Grace defended herself. ‘I only want you to be happy—like Mark and Andy.’

Luke glared at her for a moment longer, before a rueful smile smoothed the frustration from his face. Walking over, he took his mother into his arms and gave her a big hug.

‘I am not unhappy, Mum,’ he said. ‘Hell, what have I got to be unhappy about? Other than this damned tooth, of course,’ he added, grimacing.

Grace could see that she wasn’t going to get any more out of him about his love life. But she wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily where the dentist was concerned.

‘In that case I’m not going to take any more nonsense from you,’ she said staunchly. ‘I’m going to ring up and make you an appointment at the dentist. If I say it’s an emergency they’re sure to fit you in some time this morning. I’ll drive you down to the surgery myself. I’ve got some shopping to do and I can do it while you’re in there.’

‘Oh, all right,’ Luke grumbled. ‘I can see you’re determined, and if there’s one thing I know about my mother it’s that she can’t be swayed once she sets her mind on something. You’re as stubborn as a mule!’

Takes one to know one, Grace thought wryly as she left the room and made her way to the telephone.

Ten o’clock found Luke in the passenger side of his mother’s battered old blue sedan, feeling rather ambivalent about where they were going. He’d lied to his mother when he’d said that he wasn’t afraid of the dentist. He was.

But thirty-two-year-old men couldn’t admit to such failings. They couldn’t admit to anything which other people might jump on and make fun of, which men might use against them or—worse—which women might look down upon.

Being a real man was a bloody lonely business sometimes, Luke conceded drily to himself. Real men didn’t moan or groan. Or enter therapy. They certainly didn’t cry on their mother’s shoulders.

Hell, no! A real man looked life straight in the eye and didn’t blink an eyelid in the face of adversity. No matter what, he forged on—strong and silent and self-sufficient!

Damn, but he hated being a real man sometimes—especially when going to the rotten dentist!

‘I have no idea why you won’t let me buy you a new car,’ he grumped as his mother backed out of the garage. ‘Or a new house,’ he added, scowling up into the sky as a jumbo jet roared overhead, the noise deafening.

‘I like living in Monterey,’ his mother returned, exasperation in her voice. ‘I’ve lived here all my married life. Your father and I were very happy living in this house. I raised you and your two brothers in this house. Most of my friends live round here. Not only that, your father’s buried not two miles down the road, and I—’

‘All right, all right. I get the point,’ Luke broke in frustratedly. ‘I just wanted to do something for you, Mum, that’s all.’ He adored his mother. And admired her enormously.

She hadn’t gone to pieces when a heart attack had left her a widow five years ago after nearly forty years of happy marriage—hadn’t asked any of her sons to let her live with them. She’d picked herself up and gone on with her life, filling the lonely hours with lots of volunteer work and generally being a fantastic person.

But she could be a bit of a pain once she got her teeth into something.

‘You can do something for me, Luke,’ she piped up suddenly, and Luke shot her a wary glance.

‘What?’

‘Come back to Australia to live. I’m sure once you get home you’ll find a nice girl who’ll be more than happy to marry you and have all the children you want.’

Luke felt a deep, dark emotion well up inside him, but he dampened it down, hiding his feelings as best he could. Impossible to tell her that he had found a girl, here in Sydney, the last time he’d been home.

Unfortunately she hadn’t been at all nice. Neither had she been the type to settle down and have children.

But, for all that, Luke had not been able to forget her afterwards. Not for a minute. She obsessed him every waking moment, haunted his dreams and was slowly destroying his peace of mind.

His mother talked of his seeming unhappy. How could he be happy when he didn’t know who he was any more, or where he was going with his life? He’d been lost since he’d woken that morning eighteen months ago to find her gone. He’d searched and searched, but could find no trace. It was almost as though she’d never existed.

But she had existed. He only had to close his eyes and the memories would sweep in. Her face. Her passion. The all-consuming heat of her beautiful body.

God, if only she would let him go! If only he could stop remembering!

‘Luke?’ his mother prompted. ‘Don’t go giving me the silent treatment. I can’t stand it when one of my boys goes all quiet and brooding on me.’

Luke pulled himself together, finding a cool mask from somewhere to turn towards his far too intuitive mother.

‘I would have thought Andy and Mark had more than adequately fulfilled your grandmothering needs, Mum,’ he pointed out drily. ‘They have five very nice children between them—three boys and two girls—plus two perfect daughters-in-law for wives. You really don’t need me to add to the St Clair brood, or the St Clair wives. Two out of three ain’t bad, you know. Don’t become one of those meddling matchmaking mums, or I might be forced to stay in LA in future.’

Her hurt look made him feel instantly guilty, and he sighed his regret. ‘Just kidding, Mum. You know you’re my best girl. I could never stay away from you for too long.’

‘Flatterer,’ she said, but he could see that she was pleased.

His mother mollified, Luke sat back silently and tried to distract his wretched mind by focusing on the familiar but still beautiful surroundings. He stared out at the blue waters of Botany Bay on their right, then up at the clear blue sky. Nowhere in the world had he ever found skies such as in Australia. Their clearness and brightness was unique, but it made for harsh light—not the easiest background for good photography.

It took special skills and equipment to photograph Australian scenery really well—unless one captured the shots at dawn or dusk—skills which he had never honed, but which could present an interesting challenge, Luke decided unexpectedly.

His passion had always been photographing people, right from his boyhood days. He’d perfected portraiture, especially in black and white, and had made a small fortune out of it.

There’d been a time when he’d got a kick out of surprising people with his flattering photographs of them. Models and actresses with a portfolio by Luke St Clair had a definite edge in the cut-throat world of auditions in the US. He was sought-after and paid handsomely for his work. He could command huge fees.

But, quite frankly, it had all become somewhat of a bore.

Besides, he no longer needed to do things for money. An inspired investment in a small independent movie which had taken the world by storm a couple of years back had ensured he never had to work again if he didn’t want to. So perhaps it was time to spread his photographic wings, so to speak. To find a new direction to satisfy his creative eye.

Maybe his mother was right, he began to muse. Maybe it was time to come home—if not to marry then to find a new life-path. He could not go on as he had this past year. It was slowly destroying him.

‘I’ll let you out here,’ his mother suggested, pulling over to the kerb. ‘The dentist is just in that small arcade over there. There’s a narrow staircase which leads up to a corridor, and his surgery is the second door on the left upstairs. I’ll meet you in that coffee-shop on the corner. Whichever one of us gets there first can wait for the other.’

Butterflies gathered in the pit of his stomach as he mounted the stairs and pushed open the glass door. A very attractive brunette looked up from behind the reception desk, saw the cut of the man standing there and smiled a smile as old as time itself.

‘Yes, can I help you?’ she asked hopefully.

Luke did his best to ignore the silent invitation in her pretty blue eyes, despite his own gaze automatically shifting to her left hand. He was almost relieved to see a diamond engagement ring twinkling there, for in all truth he’d become horribly addicted to picking up pretty women during the last year or so, taking them out, then home to bed, then never contacting them again.

He wasn’t proud of his behaviour, but he understood it. He was punishing them for her.

He excused himself by saying that he only picked up the really eager ones—the ones who made it perfectly obvious what they wanted from him. Like she had. He always hoped to gain some darkly twisted satisfaction from being the one who did the seducing and the dumping. Instead he always felt like a rat in the morning, hating himself more and more with each episode.

The women involved didn’t know it, but they were better off without him. He’d become a right bastard—sexually speaking—since that night, his only concession to his conscience being that he steered clear of married and engaged women. He took some small comfort from that, soothing his escalating qualms with the thought that he hadn’t descended to being a complete scoundrel yet.

‘My name’s St Clair,’ he announced, deliberately leaving off the Luke. ‘I have an appointment for ten-thirty.’

‘Oh, yes, Mr St Clair. I’m afraid Dr Evans is running a little late. Maybe fifteen minutes or so. Would you like some tea or coffee while you wait?’

Tea or coffee on his churning stomach? A whisky, perhaps, but he didn’t think she’d offer him that. ‘No thanks,’ came his brusque reply. ‘I’ll just wait.’

‘There are plenty of magazines,’ she told him as he walked over to settle himself into one of the black leather two-seaters which lined the starkly white walls.

Luke did his best to relax, resting his right ankle on his left knee and spreading his arms along the back of the seat. But he soon found his fingers tapping impatiently on the leather. In the end he picked up one of the dog-eared women’s weeklies lying on the table next to him, smiling wryly when he saw that it was dated four years previously.

He began idly flicking through it, just to pass the time, and might have missed her picture altogether if his attention hadn’t been attracted by the headline above it: MODEL GIVES UP BLOSSOMING CAREER TO MARRY NOTED SCIENTIST.

It had been years since Luke had made his living doing fashion magazine layouts, but during that time many of his friends had been models—and some had been more than friends—so curiosity had him open the double page in his lap and look to see if this particular model was anyone he knew.

His eyes skimmed the kissing couple to see if he recognised them, but it was impossible with their faces obscured—though he noted that the bridegroom had greying hair. So he scanned the words beneath, looking for names.

No bells rang in his brain when he read that a twenty-two-year-old model named Rachel Manning had married noted geneticist Patrick Cleary at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, that Saturday afternoon four years previously. It was only when his gaze dropped further, to another smaller photograph of the bride alone, that he recognised her.

Had he gone as white as a sheet?

Luke fancied that he had.

His knuckles certainly went white as his fingers tightened around the pages, his eyes wide upon the photograph of the smiling bride—the gloriously golden-haired and exquisitely beautiful bride.

How innocent she looked in her white bridal gown, he thought savagely. The picture of perfect purity. The very essence of untouched womanhood.

A rage began to grow inside him as his shock gave way to anger. She’d been married! The bitch had been married!

My God, it explained so much. So damned much!

There had been so many elements of that night which had stayed to haunt him. So many unanswered questions.

Now he had the answers.

Or did he?

Just because she’d been married four years ago it didn’t mean that she’d still been married eighteen months ago. There was such a thing as divorce, wasn’t there? Maybe she wasn’t an adulterous little tramp. Maybe there were other reasons why she’d acted the way she had that night—why she’d chosen to disappear while he was asleep, without leaving a trace of her true identity.

And maybe pigs might fly, came the blackly cynical thought.

‘Dr Evans is ready for you now, Mr St Clair.’

Luke schooled his face into what he hoped was a normal expression, snapped the magazine shut and placed it back on the pile in the corner.

Forget her, common sense whispered. She’s bad news.

He stood up and walked over to where the dental nurse was waiting for him in the now open doorway. Her petite prettiness didn’t even register. He no longer felt nervous either. She dominated his mind again, turning his thoughts from the present.

Luke distractedly settled in the dental chair and closed his eyes, his mind whirling with memories. But how could he forget her now? Now that she had a name.

Rachel.

He hadn’t known her name when she’d picked him up at the exhibition that night eighteen months ago. Hadn’t known it the next morning, when he’d woken to find her gone.

Rachel...

It didn’t suit her, he decided viciously.

Oh, it suited the bride in the photograph, but not the sultry feline creature who had undulated into his sight that night. Rachel sounded like a lady—but it had been no lady who’d boldly approached him within seconds of spotting him leaning against a pillar, who’d stolen his drink from his hands and taken a deep swallow, who’d smiled seductively at him over the rim before uttering the most astonishingly forthright proposal he’d ever heard from a woman.

And he’d heard a good few in his time.

The dentist was talking to him as he worked, but Luke didn’t hear a word. He was back at that exhibition, hearing her say those astonishing words again, reliving every moment of that unforgettable but ultimately soul-destroying night.


CHAPTER TWO

‘I HAVE a hotel room nearby,’ she said in a huskily sexy voice, her incredible green eyes locked to his all the while. ‘If you’re as bored as you look, perhaps you’d like to join me there.’

Luke straightened, glad that his drink now rested between those long, elegant fingers with the equally long bronze-tipped nails. Otherwise he would surely have spilt his drink down his front. Though perhaps that might not have been such a bad idea. Things were happening down there which could do with a spot of cooling down.

He stared deep into those exotic green pools, because it was safer than looking at the rest of her. Not that he hadn’t already had a damned good look as she’d slowly sashayed towards him across the gallery floor.

She had a stunning face—exotic perfection framed by a wild tawny blonde mane—but an even more than stunning body. Tall and slender, with high, firm breasts, a riveting cleavage and long, long legs which ran right up to her tiny waist. Or so it seemed.

Dressed a touch obviously for his usual taste in women, her leopardskin-print mini left nothing to the imagination. Hell, if she was wearing anything underneath he couldn’t spot it. The silky material clung like a second skin, the halter-necked style leaving her shoulders and arms bare, the short, short skirt showing an expanse of firm tanned thigh which would do a stripper proud.

This last thought made him wonder what she did do for a living. Though perhaps it was better if he didn’t know.

Normally he was attracted to cool, classy types, sophisticated career women who exuded an understated and challenging sexuality which left it up to him to do the chasing. They sent out silent and very subtle messages for him to follow. They didn’t openly invite, like this bold creature.

‘Are you in the habit of propositioning perfect strangers?’ he drawled, trying not to sound as shocked as he was feeling. Or as aroused.

He told himself that it was because he hadn’t been with a woman since he’d broken up with Tracy a couple of months before. But underneath he knew this wasn’t so. He’d wanted this she-cat the moment he’d set eyes on her.

A slight frown drew her perfectly arched eyebrows close together. ‘You’re American,’ she said.

He could have enlightened her, but something... some indefinable tension which this mistaken conclusion was evoking in her, made him keep his Australian heritage to himself. He’d been told that he’d picked up an American accent, but he hadn’t believed it till that moment.

‘You don’t like Americans?’ he asked, taking the drink back from her suddenly still hands and draining it dry. He had a feeling he might need to be a little drunk to get through this evening.

‘That depends,’ she said, a touch warily. ‘Are you holidaying here? Or staying indefinitely?’

‘Holidaying,’ he said, quite truthfully. But I might stay indefinitely, came the dark thought. If it means I can spend every night with you.

Already he could feel the blood rushing hotly to his loins. Already...

His flesh might have become a painful and obvious embarrassment if he hadn’t been wearing a longer-line sports jacket loosely over casually fitted dark trousers which also had plenty of room. Luke could put up with the discomfort, if it was his alone to contemplate and suffer in private.

He had no intention of letting this feline huntress see that he was ready prey for her animal-like sexuality. As much as he was turned on by her amazingly forward approach and absolutely knockout body, his male ego insisted that he play hard to get for a decent amount of time.

At least a minute, came the drily self-mocking thought.

‘Does that disqualify me?’ he said lazily.

‘On the contrary,’ she murmured, her husky voice rippling down his spine like a mink-gloved hand. ‘I love tourists. Especially tall, dark, handsome ones with sexy black eyes. You are alone, aren’t you? No little wife or girlfriend back at the hotel, or in the States?’

‘I’m so alone,’ he told her, trying to sound cool but feeling anything but, ‘that it’s positively indecent.’

‘Nothing about you is indecent, handsome,’ she murmured. ‘You’re positively gorgeous and positively perfect. Come with me...’

She pried the empty glass out of his suddenly frozen hand and bent to place it on the floor, giving him an uninterrupted view of her quite perfect breasts. Rising again, she smiled a siren’s smile, slid her right hand into his still frozen left and began leading him away, across the upper gallery floor then down the wide white staircase.

The shredded remnants of Luke’s common sense finally burst through his paralysed brain and he ground to a halt, momentarily resisting the hyp- . notic pull of the softly feminine fingers entwined through his.

‘You’re not a hooker, are you?’ came his harsh-sounding question as they faced each other on the stairs.

He could not have mistaken the momentary shock which flared within those gorgeous green eyes, or his own inner shudder of relief. For what would he have done if she’d said that she was?

Still have gone with her, came the appalling admission.

‘My mistake,’ he muttered. ‘Lead on, lover.’ Obviously she was just a good-time girl, out on the tiles for the night. She wanted a one-night standwithout—complications, without strings.

As much as that was not usually his style, Luke could see that it was going to be for tonight. It was no use pretending that he wasn’t bowled over. More than bowled over. She seemed to have bewitched him with the primitive and alluring sexuality which emanated from every pore of her body. It wafted from her in waves, weaving a spell around his senses, teasing his flesh and his imagination, making him wonder what it would be like to spend the night with her.

She kept glancing over her shoulder at him as she drew him down the rest of the stairs and through the crowded foyer, her eyes sometimes smiling invitingly, sometimes seemingly checking that he was still there—as though she too could not believe he’d come with her so readily.

It was those glimpses of unexpected vulnerability which began intriguing Luke. The suspicion that this was not her usual style either began to form in his mind. She looked at him that way one time too many after they’d finally made it outside into the street, and he suddenly whipped her over into a darkened doorway, pulling her against him in a jolting embrace.

Her shocked gasp and almost frightened eyes confirmed his opinion that she was not used to playing such dangerous games. Either that, or she had never run into real trouble before.

‘You little fool,’ he snarled, infuriated by this last thought. ‘Don’t you know the risks you run in going off with a stranger?’

Her chin whipped up, green eyes glinting an answering fury at him. ‘I take it you’ve changed your mind—is that it?’ she snapped. ‘If so, then say so, damn you.’ She began to struggle to free herself from his arms. ‘I have no time for cowards tonight.’

‘Cowards! Why, you little...’ Red spots of fury went off in his brain like flashlights, and before he knew it he’d grasped a large clump of her hair and yanked it back so that her chin tipped up all the more.

Before she could do more than cry out through startled lips, his mouth clamped down over those lips and he was kissing her as he’d never kissed a woman before. With anger, not passion, with a desire to punish and hurt, not seduce.

But seduction was the final result.

His, not hers. For as his tongue drove repeatedly into the depths of her mouth she moaned a moan which moved him as no woman’s moan had ever done before, making him want to protect her, not punish her. Hold, not hurt.

He found it impossible to keep kissing her with such ferocity. His tongue gentled to a series of sinuous slides against hers, his free hand finding the small of her back and pressing inwards. He thrilled to the feel of her sinking weakly against him, then to the sound of another longer, more sensual moan—this one signalling total surrender to his male domination over her body. It brought a dizzying sense of sexual power, and he simply could not wait to have her naked and trembling beneath him.

‘This hotel room,’ he muttered thickly against her mouth. ‘Is it far?’

She shook her head in the negative, the movement brushing her lush lips to and fro across his.

He shuddered as a rush of blood almost had him doing what he hadn’t done since he was fifteen. Gulping, he drew back from the raw heat of her body to stare down into wildly dilated green eyes. She looked... stunned, he realised. Stunned, and totally at his mercy. It was an exhilarating and intoxicating thought—a male fantasy come true. Impossible to resist.

‘Then take me there,’ he muttered. ‘And take me there quickly...’

The drill contacting his tooth brought Luke back to the present—physically at least—but his mind continued to chum over his still vivid memories.

Had she deceived him with that air of vulnerability, with her seemingly mindless surrender? Had she been so diabolically clever, so skilled in seducing strangers that she had made it seem as if he had been master of what had happened that evening? Whereas in reality she had been the one pulling the strings and making all the moves?

He desperately wanted to believe that she hadn’t been married at the time—although it seemed likely that she had. Given that assumption, he clung to the idea that it had been her first foray into adultery.

Even so, he could not deny that she had come to that exhibition right and ready for a night of casual sex, dressed for the occasion and armed to the eyeteeth with the equipment necessary to reduce fools like him to instant mush.

Looking back, he could see that she’d also gone to great pains to protect her true identity—to cut down the risk of ever being caught out in her outrageous behaviour. She’d wanted a mad fling of some kind, but she hadn’t wanted any evidence of that mad fling left behind. The only part of the puzzle which remained was why she’d taken that appalling risk during the middle of the night.

It couldn’t have been deliberate, he decided, unless it had been part of some crazy fantasy she’d wanted to fulfil. He preferred to think that she’d simply been carried away—as he had been carried away.

It was one of the reasons why she haunted him. Because he’d never been carried away like that before. Or since...

‘I don’t even known your name,’ he said when he finally closed the hotel room door, neither of them having said a word as she had led him swiftly down two blocks and into the foyer of a small but surprisingly elegant hotel. Not at all the sort of place for a cheap rendezvous.

The lift-ride up to the third floor had been tense, the presence of another man in the lift stifling any conversation or physical contact. Luke had hardly been aware of his surroundings as he’d eagerly followed her down the corridor. He had absorbed little but a brief impression of red-patterned carpet and black and white prints of ships on the walls.

‘My name?’ she repeated, almost as though she were in a fog.

He liked her disorientation, liked the way she gasped when he pulled her abruptly into his arms. ‘Never mind,’ he growled. ‘No names for tonight. We’ll exchange names in the morning.’

He kissed her again before the fog could lift.

God, but he liked the woman his kisses turned her into, liked the sounds she made under them, liked the feel of her lips melting along with her body. He’d never known a woman become so pliant in his arms before. Her sweet surrender to his mouth and hands filled him with the heady power to do as he pleased with her.

He pleased to take off all her clothes. What little there was of them.

He pleased to carry her over to the king-sized bed and stretch her, seemingly dazed, out on top of it.

He certainly pleased to sit beside her gloriously naked body and touch her all over... at will... and very, very thoroughly.

She didn’t stop him, merely gazed up at him all the while with glazed green eyes, her lush lips gasping apart occasionally. Her pleasure was obvious, as was a bewildering amount of surprise. Hadn’t she expected to enjoy his touch so much? Or was it that she wasn’t used to a man giving her pleasure first this way?

She was getting close, he knew; her thighs were beginning to tremble. When her back began to arch from the bed he stopped abruptly, and she moaned her frustration.

It was only when Luke stood up that he realised his breathing was as hard and fast as hers. God, he hadn’t been this excited in years, he realised. Or this enthralled with a woman. Stripped of those sluttish clothes, she had taken on a totally different persona. There was nothing cheap about her any more. She was all classical curves and sweetly fragrant beauty. She was even a genuine blonde!

He couldn’t wait to bury himself in those softly golden curls, to have those lovely long legs wrapped tightly around him, to see those lush lips form a gasping O at the moment of her orgasm.

Funny, he had no conscious thought of his own satisfaction—which was a first for him. In the past, his priority when making love to a woman had always been what he would get out of it.

But not this time. This time he wanted to give even more than to receive.

Luke hardly recognised the man he’d become since entering this room. He felt all-powerful, yet that power was tempered with a strange tenderness. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought he’d finally really fallen in love. Even if not, it was certainly an experience outside his normal realm of experiences.

He could not even remember the first time he’d made love to Tracy, though he’d fancied himself in love with her back then. Yet already he knew he would never forget this night, not as long as he lived.

‘You haven’t done this before, have you?’ he remarked as he began undressing himself, slipping out of his jacket and draping it over one of the bedposts.

She licked her lips, her eyes wide upon his. ‘Why do you say that?’ Her voice was husky, as though desire had dried her mouth and throat. But not the rest of her. The rest of her was far from dry, he recalled, with a lurching in his stomach.

‘You seem too nervous.’

‘I’m no virgin,’ she protested, though shakily.

‘I never said you were.’ But her gaze was definitely close to virginal as it clung to his half-naked body.

Luke found her mixture of fascination and fear a real turn-on. He knew he had a good body, knew it was well equipped to satisfy most women’s fantasies. So there was no hesitation when he finally stripped off his underwear. He actually saw the swallowing action in her throat, and revelled in her reaction.

‘Where have you put the condoms?’ he said as he joined her on the bed, running a gently caressing hand down her body as he did so.

She quivered uncontrollably and closed her eyes.

‘Hey,’ he prompted, quietly but firmly. ‘The condoms?’

Long lashes fluttered open; the green eyes were pained. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I didn’t think. I just didn’t think.’

Her distress touched him, despite his flash of annoyance at her naivety. He would have to make sure that she never did insane things like this again. There again, she wasn’t going to have any lovers other than him after tonight. He was going to make sure of that. Come morning, there would be no more of this ‘stranger’ nonsense.

‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her, trying not to sound irritated. ‘I always keep one in my wallet.’

And that was what was annoying him. One. Only one! They would need more than one before this night was out. He tossed up between dressing now and finding a twenty-four-hour chemist or doing it later.

Later, his intense desire told him. Much later.

He could not wait another minute. Or even another moment.

‘No!’ she cried out when he swung his legs over onto the floor.

His glance over his shoulder carried impatience and puzzlement. ‘No, what?’

‘No, I can’t,’ she rasped. ‘I can’t...’

Luke had no intention of letting her change her mind at this point. It was beyond bearing just thinking about it.

‘It’s all right,’ he murmured, turning back to cup her face with firm hands and stare deep into her anguished green eyes. ‘I understand. You’ve only just realised what a very silly girl you’ve been tonight. But I’m a good guy. Really. I won’t hurt you, loveliness. I’m going to make beautiful love to you,’ he promised, pressing her back against the pillow and kissing her.

He kept on kissing her till she began clinging to him and squirming with renewed desire. But he didn’t dare leave her even then, reinforcing his temporary triumph by sliding down her body and kissing her all over till she was beyond stopping him, even when he had to abandon her for a short while.

She reached for him when he returned to the bed, pulling him down on top of her and not letting him indulge in any further foreplay. By this time Luke was ready to explode anyway, so when she opened to him, winding her legs high around his back, there really wasn’t any option.

He drove deep into her hot, honeyed flesh, shuddering with pleasure at her exquisite tightness. He’d barely moved within her when her first fierce contraction seized his flesh, and it was all too much. He could not hold back another second, tremors racking his body as he climaxed uncontrollably, his spasms totally in tune with hers, going on and on for simply ages.

At last it was over, and he sank down upon her, feeling sated with pleasure. Yet even in the aftermath there was more pleasure, a sweet intimacy rising between them as her arms stole around him then squeezed, holding him tightly to her flattened breasts. His lips nuzzled her left ear and she sighed her satisfaction with him. He felt deliciously loved and loving, every limb and muscle flooded with a warm and wondrous peace.

He never wanted to leave her, but he had to in the end, though he returned from the en suite bathroom as quickly as possible. He began to see what the Bible meant about man and woman cleaving together to make one flesh. He felt only half a man away from her, already addicted to the feelings she evoked in him.

She was lying on her side watching him as he came back into the room, her position showing the delicious female curve of waist, hip and leg. Her breasts looked swollen, he noted, her nipples still hard, and her eyes were heavy-lidded and incredibly sensuous as they travelled slowly down his body.

His heart kicked over when her gaze drifted down past his navel, having an immediate effect on his till then flaccid flesh. The thought hit him immediately then he should dress and go in search of that chemist before another moment passed, but then she smiled that siren’s smile at him and stretched out a beckoning hand. She drew him down onto the bed beside her and began to caress him with that hand, bringing him to full erection within an amazingly short time.

Transfixed by this sudden reversal of roles, Luke simply lay there, stunned and speechless as she continued to kiss and caress every inch of his body. There was nothing even remotely virginal about her now; everything she did was designed to tantalise and torment him to the point of no return, yet without granting him release.

He knew the enveloping heat of her mouth, the flickering torture of her tongue, the teasing touch of fingers which knew exactly what to do to drive him mad then stop him in midstream.

He tried closing his eyes against the sensations growing within him, and it proved to be a disastrous mistake. For during those seconds of desperate darkness she moved to straddle his hips, taking the full length of his pained hardness deep within her. His eyes flung open on a raw cry of panic, but already she was riding him, green eyes glittering wildly.

‘No,’ he groaned. But weakly. Pathetically.

‘Yes,’ she hissed back. ‘Yes...’

His hands found her hips, and he should have heaved her from his body. Instead he gripped her flesh and urged her on to a stronger, faster rhythm. His own hips began to rise and fall, and it felt incredible.

God, but she was so hot in there. So hot. He could feel his own blood heating even further, racing along his veins like molten lava. The volcano of his desire would not be contained this time. Or controlled. It surged higher and higher with each drumbeat of his madly pounding heart, and then it was erupting, flooding into the already spasming heart of her womanhood, dredging raw groans from his parched and panting lungs.

When the climax had passed, he reached up to bring her down so that he could kiss her, wanting to feel the heat of her mouth as well.

He was startled to encounter the wetness of tears running into the corners. He didn’t know what to say; could think of nothing but to cradle her close, to stroke her back and say whatever came to mind.

‘Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. God, but I can’t bear it. Hush, sweetness. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing. As I said before, I’m a good guy. And I can see you’re a good girl. We’re good people. Hush, my loveliness. Hush. Go to sleep, there’s a good girl. Yes, that’s it. Go to sleep.’

They both went to sleep... eventually... though Luke took quite a while to come to terms with what had just happened. He hoped he was right. Hoped that she was a good girl. If not, he’d just done the stupidest damned thing he’d ever done in his whole life. Slept with a perfect stranger. Without protection. Then, to top it all off, he’d fallen in love with her...

‘All finished, Mr St Clair.’ The chair snapped upright and the nurse moved to unclip the paper bib around his neck.

Luke’s black eyes blinked open to stare blankly into her smiling face. His gaze went to the clock on the wall. Eleven-fifteen. He’d been at the dentist over half an hour and he hadn’t felt a thing! Unless one counted what had been going on within his head. And his heart.

An impotent rage simmered beneath the cool façade he presented to the dentist and his nurse as he thanked them and said goodbye, and then to the receptionist as he paid his bill. In cash.

‘I hope you enjoy your stay here in Australia, Mr St Clair,’ she said, reminding him that he still sounded like an American.

‘I’m sure I will,’ he returned, trying to keep the grim satisfaction out of his voice. ‘Enjoy’ was probably not the right word, but he had no doubt that this visit was going to be memorable. At last he had a name to put to his obsession. A name and a past. He would leave no stone unturned till he came face to face with the woman who’d haunted him all these months.

And when he did?

God only knew what he was going to do. Be cause he didn’t.

‘Would you mind if I took one of those old magazines with me?’ he asked the receptionist. ‘It has a picture in it of an old friend of mine.’

‘Take it, by all means.’ And me too if you like, her eyes seemed to be telling him.

Unfaithful bitch, he thought as he strode over to the corner table. They were probably all unfaithful bitches, all the beautiful women in this world.

He snatched up the magazine in question, not giving the girl a second glance as he stuffed it under his arm and strode angrily from the room.


CHAPTER THREE

HIS mother was waiting for him in the coffee-lounge, a cup of capuccino in front of her, a jam and cream doughnut to her left, a newspaper to her right and a plastic shopping bag at her feet. She shut the newspaper on Luke’s approach and folded it, frowning up at him as he scraped out the chair and sat down.

‘What’s wrong with you now?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you get your tooth fixed?’

He resisted the urge to scowl. Five minutes he’d give her, then he’d be off in a taxi to the nearby airport, where he would rent a decent car. He needed his own wheels. And the privacy that went with them.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. My tooth’s fine. The weather’s fine. Life’s fine.’

‘Then why are you still in such a foul mood?’

‘Lord, what is it with you? Do you have some special mother’s antenna that can pick up my mood at twenty paces? I’ve just walked in and sat down. How could you possibly gauge my mood? I hadn’t even spoken when you made your instant judgement.’

‘You were walking cranky,’ came her simplistic but accurate observation.

He couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. There was no hiding anything from his mother. Which reminded him. He slipped the magazine from under his arm onto a spare chair and thought of something to say to distract her.

‘Tell me, Mum. Were you ever unfaithful to Dad?’

‘Heavens to Betsy! What a question!’

‘That’s no answer. That’s an evasion.’

‘I needed a moment to catch my breath. Might I ask what’s brought such a question on?’

‘Well, you’re a good-looking woman. From photographs I’ve seen when Dad married you forty-five years ago you were pretty stunning. Stunning women have temptation put in their way, whether they’re married or not.’

Grace wondered which stunning married woman her son had been getting mixed up with, but tactfully refrained from asking. This time.

‘I won’t say I didn’t have my offers,’ she answered truthfully. ‘And I won’t say I wasn’t tempted, once or twice. But I managed to stay faithful to your father. Technically speaking, that is.’

Luke blinked his shock at her. ‘Technically speaking?’ he repeated rather dazedly. ‘What do you mean... “technically speaking”?’

‘Well, I did let a man kiss me once for a few seconds longer than I should have.’

‘Oh, is that all?’

‘I thought it was pretty terrible of me at the time. But he was awfully good-looking. And very charming. I was flattered to death that he fancied me. He was only in his early thirties and I was a silly forty-one at the time, thinking I was over the hill and desperate for some attention. He gave me some.’

‘And would have given you a whole lot more if you’d let him,’ Luke said drily. ‘Who was he, this Casanova?’

‘No one you ever met. He was Danish, visiting Sydney one summer. Your father met him down the local pub and was silly enough to invite him home for supper one night.’

‘And you let him kiss you that very same night?’ Luke could not contain his surprise.

A small blush of guilt stained his mother’s normally pale cheeks. ‘As I said,’ she muttered, ‘he was very charming.’

‘So how did it happen? And where was Dad, damn him?’

‘Watching TV, as usual. Eric offered to help me with the washing-up, and he sort of cornered me against the kitchen sink. At first I was shocked. But when he started kissing me, I have to admit I liked it. Oh, I stopped him before things went too far, but after he left I thought about him a lot. I knew which hotel he was staying at—since he’d made a point of telling me—and I actually rang his room one day. But when he answered I panicked and hung up.’

‘I see...’

‘Do you, Luke? I doubt it. I loved your father, and he was a good lover when he was younger. But time and familiarity can do dreadful things in the bedroom. Boredom sets in, and your father did work terribly hard. Most nights he was too tired. Our sex life had deteriorated to a quickie once or twice a month, and I was silly enough not to know what to do about it. So, of course, I was a ready victim for the likes of Eric, who really was a sleazebag of the first order.’

Luke frowned at his mother. ‘You’re not lying to me, are you, Mum? You didn’t really go with him, did you?’

‘Of course not! I went out and bought myself a sexy black nightie and started doing a few of those things I’d only ever read about in books before. Things really looked up after that.’

‘Mum! I’m shocked,’ he said, then grinned at her. ‘You devil, you.’

She blushed some more, though she did look rather pleased with herself. He felt inordinately proud of her at that moment. She’d been handed temptation on a plate, when his dad had foolishly been neglecting her, but her essential goodness had come through in the end.

Luke’s mouth thinned as he accepted that not all women were as strong, or as decent. Some were weak, self-centred creatures, who went out and took what they wanted, and to hell with the people they hurt in the process.

A waiter appeared by the table and asked Luke if he wanted to order. He declined, giving the excuse that his mouth still felt numb from the injection he’d had—which was true—but the real reason was that he could not stand to sit there any longer. He had places to go. Leads to follow. A woman to find.

‘Would you mind if I loved you and left you, Mum?’ he said as soon as the waiter had departed. ‘While I was at the dentist’s I remembered I’d promised Ray to look him up the next time I was home.’

‘Ray? Ray who?’

‘Ray Holland. He’s a photographer.’ Who I’m hoping and praying still lives and works in Sydney, he thought grimly.

‘Never heard of him. There again, the only photographer friend of yours you ever talk about is Theo, and that’s never very complimentary. I remember poor Theo had the hardest job talking you into going to the opening of his photographic exhibition last time you were home, and then the next morning he rang and complained that you’d disappeared ten minutes after you arrived!’

‘Yeah, well, over the past few years poor Theo’s work has gone from really good stuff down to the most pretentious crap. I thought if I stayed there any longer that night I might be tempted to tell the truth and offend him.’

‘Where did you get to that night? You didn’t come home, if I recall.’

‘Come now, Mum! You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you? I gave up reporting in when I turned eighteen.’

‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Luke. You were fifteen. The most difficult and rebellious boy God ever put breath into! I can see you haven’t improved much either. You’re still difficult.’

‘What about rebellious?’

“‘Rebellious” is not an adjective suited to a thirty-two-year-old bachelor. Let’s just leave it at difficult.’

‘Yes, let’s,’ Luke said, and stood up, sensing that his mother was about to deteriorate into emotional blackmail of some sort. She had that gleam in her eye which heralded that her female curiosity was far from satisfied.

Women could be quite ruthless when they really wanted to know something, he mused. If cool reason didn’t work, they tried every trick in the book—from Chinese-water-torture-style demands, to sulky silences, to floods of tears.

Luke could bear just about all those methods except tears. They were the undoing of him every time.

‘I must go, Mum. I have a lot to do today. And before you suggest it, no, I don’t want you to drive me. I’m going to rent myself a car.’

‘Will you be home for dinner this evening?’ Grace asked archly.

‘What are you cooking?’

She lifted her nose in a disdainful sniff. ‘I have no intention of telling you if that’s all that’s bringing you home.’

‘In that case you can surprise me. See you around seven, sweetie,’ he said, distracting her with a peck on the cheek while he scooped the women’s magazine up from the adjoining chair.

Grace watched her son stalk across the coffeelounge, well aware of the hungry female eyes which turned to follow him. Her sigh held a weary resignation. That boy is up to no good, she thought, her own eyes zeroing in on the magazine curled up in his right hand.

And it’s all to do with some woman, I’ll warrant. A woman featured in that magazine he’s been trying to hide. A married woman, no doubt, whom he met the last time he was home and whom he’s off to meet again in secret.

Oh, Luke... Luke...

Grace shook her head unhappily. When was he going to learn that there was no future with a married woman? No future at all!

Luke paced up and down the living-room of Theo’s apartment, impatiently waiting for his friend to come out of his darkroom.

He still could not believe his luck—or the ease with which he’d reached his objective! Within an hour of leaving his mother he’d been leaving the. offices of the magazine with the address of Ray Holland in his hot little hands. Half an hour later Luke had been walking into the man’s studio in Randwick, and once again his luck had been in—he’d caught the freelance photographer just before he had to leave. Luke had come to the point immediately.





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