‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’ he asked, finally. ‘At six-thirty?’

Business as usual? Was he serious?

It was too much…

‘You will be there?’ he pressed when she didn’t answer.

She shook her head, but he didn’t take it as a refusal, only as an admission that she didn’t know.

‘You’re exhausted,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’ And then he walked through the door she was not so much holding open as clinging to, down the stairs, out of her apartment. Out of her life.

It was all she could do not to call him back but she hung onto her sanity just long enough to hear the street door close. To close and lock her own front door.

It was only when she heard his car start, pull away from the kerb, that all the bottled up emotion shattered and she picked up her answering machine and hurled it at the wall, where it broke in a dozen pieces, along with her heart.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MAX left because she’d given him no other option. Louise had somehow managed to blank herself off from him, put herself some place far beyond the flare-up of temper that would have worked for him. He could have used her passion to break her down, bring her into his arms, but she’d put up a wall of ice to keep him out.

That in her own living room at close to two o’clock in the morning, she’d been wearing high heels, a dress he knew she’d have discarded for the comfort of her wrap the minute she’d got home, told him that it was deliberate. That she was playing a part.

The fact that she was still awake, clearly hadn’t even thought about bed, bothered him more. She hadn’t removed her make-up, and her hair was pinned up in that sexy way that suggested all it would take was one pin to bring it all tumbling down in his hands.

It all suggested that sleep had been the last thing on her mind. That she had more important things to do…

He pulled over, turned in his seat to look back. Her light was still on and for a moment he was tempted to go back, do anything, promise anything…

No.

She’d made it clear that she thought his promises were meaningless, and she was right. He’d been making promises to her all his life and then letting her down.

He needed to think about that. Really think about it before he could go back, attempt to change her mind, convince her that he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. He had to ask himself not what he wanted, but what Louise wanted from their relationship. And why he wasn’t giving it to her.

She’d told him all he needed to know, but, convinced that the proposal was nothing more than formality, he hadn’t bothered to use the information. Analyse it. Hadn’t listened to what she’d been telling him.

What three words would you use to describe yourself…?

Driven. Dumb. Dumped.

Louise went back to her packing. Concentrating on folding, packing. It took a while. She’d need suits as well as holiday clothes for this trip.

The last time she’d gone to Melbourne, she’d been running away from one family, searching for a new one. This time was different. This time she was reclaiming her life from a crippling obsession that had held her in its thrall since childhood hero-worship of Max had changed into something out of reach. Ultimately destructive.

She should have had a husband, children of her own by now, but there was no going back.

She didn’t have a family of her own and it seemed unlikely that she ever would have. But she did have a thriving business and a talented assistant whom she was ready to make a partner.

Gemma could bring in a junior, continue to run the London office. She, in the meantime, would concentrate on expanding her own business. Stop scanning the horizon for something, someone, who would never be there.

Her phone began to ring. It was the airline confirming her seat on the evening flight out of London Heathrow.

That was something her contact at the diary page of the Courier would be interested in, she thought. An unmistakable message that even Max would understand.

And a kindness. In his anger, he’d blame her. She didn’t want him to feel guilty. He was how he was. He couldn’t help it.

She’d call Gemma first thing, catch her before she left for the office and brief her about everything that had to be done. She’d better call Patsy, too, in case there was anything she wanted to send to Jodie. Then she’d spend the day with her parents out at Richmond Hill before going straight on to the airport.

Max…

He’d asked her if she planned keeping their six-thirty date. Well, it was just business, so it didn’t matter if it was Gemma who delivered the completed marketing plan which was, even now, sitting on her desk waiting to be delivered.

At six-thirty, she’d be unfastening her seat belt. Settling in for the long flight east.

She replaced the receiver, then bent to pick up the pieces of broken answering machine that were spread all over the carpet.

Under one of the larger pieces, she found a tiny gold safety pin. She looked at it for a moment, sitting back on her heels, wondering how on earth it could have got there. Even if she’d dropped it, and she couldn’t imagine how since the only pins she had were kept in the carryall she used for work or travelling, her cleaner had been in yesterday morning and she wouldn’t have missed it.

She reached out a finger and touched it, remembering the moment when she’d given one exactly like it to Max. How he’d taken it. Put it in his ticket pocket, next to his heart.

It had been a special moment. A moment when anything might have happened. When it had happened.

No regrets.

She’d got what she’d wanted. If it hadn’t worked out quite the way she’d expected, if she hadn’t managed to get Max out of her system, she still had more than she’d ever dreamed possible. She’d dared to risk everything and, even if she didn’t have Max, she had somehow reclaimed her life. No more deep freeze…

She picked up the pin, placed it on the table beside the broken bits of answering machine, then frowned as she remembered the moment Max had pulled that damned ring out of the same pocket.

No. It couldn’t be. He’d been wearing a dinner jacket tonight.

For it to be the same pin, he’d have had to move it from suit to suit along with the rest of the contents of his pockets that he carried with him, always.

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just habit…’

But even as she said the words a tear welled up, fell. Soaked into the carpet.

Max hadn’t slept. He’d spent the night thinking. About Louise. About himself. About the bleakness of a future in which she wasn’t there at the start and end of every day.

Shining a light into every corner of their relationship, exposing feelings that he’d always refused to acknowledge, finally understanding a pattern of behaviour that had ended in that scene last night.

Searching for some way to show her that, despite everything he’d done, he was serious. That she was more important to him than a hundred restaurants. That he loved her…

He woke, groggy, just before ten, still in the armchair, an idea, half formed, struggling to the surface. He showered, shaved. Resisted the urge to go straight to her office and tell her what he was going to do.

Six-thirty. That was their time.

It would give him time to put his plan into action so that she’d understand that it wasn’t some empty promise.

She had to understand.

It was his secretary, bringing in the mail, who looked doubtful. She listened to him telling the company lawyer to set the wheels in motion, insisting that it be done in time for his daily meeting with Louise, then, when he rang off, said, ‘Are you expecting Louise this evening?’

‘Has she called to say she can’t make it?’

‘No, but…’

‘But what?’

She went and fetched the early edition of the Courier, folded it back at the diary page.

In between a torn heart, one enclosing a photograph of Louise, one of himself, was the headline:

“NO DIAMONDS FOR THESE VALENTINES…

Expectations were high of an announcement that Max Valentine had popped the question to his latest squeeze, Louise Valentine, at the Bella Lucia Diamond Jubilee party last night. Max, who has been working with Louise on the expansion of the restaurant group, with new premises in Qu’Arim and Meridia already well in hand, was spotted recently in the Queen’s jewellers, Garrard’s, investing heavily in a girl’s best friend.

Max, however, wasn’t at the party and I have it on good authority that London’s favourite PR consultant has already booked her business class ticket and is at this very moment packing her bags, preparing to hotfoot it to Australia, eager to expand her own expire.

He didn’t stop to question the veracity of this statement. It rang too horribly true. Instead he raced to her apartment, grabbed the front door as someone was leaving and raced upstairs, hammered on the door to her apartment.

It was opened by Cal Jameson.

‘Max,’ he said. ‘Louise said to expect you.’

‘She’s here?’ Relief flooded through him. ‘I have to see her, tell her…’

‘She was leaving as I arrived,’ Cal said. ‘Gave me a key, told me to make myself at home. I’m staying for a week this time-’

‘Where is she?’ he demanded, cutting him short. He wasn’t interested in Cal Jameson’s plans. Only in finding Louise.

‘I couldn’t say exactly. Somewhere between here and Melbourne. That’s in Australia,’ the younger man added helpfully.

‘She’s gone? Already?’ Max clawed back his hair. ‘She can’t have. What about work? Her parents?’

‘Damm it, Max. You’ve got it bad. You need a drink-’

‘I don’t want a drink. I just want-’

‘Louise. I know, mate. I know. You’d better come in.’