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'I think he already does.' Sadly, Dani remembered that cold look of scorn. 'The only thing I can do is to keep out of his way.'

'If that's what you want,' Brian said neutrally. The rap on the front door startled them both, and he scowled. 'Bit late for a social call.' He glanced at his watch. 'Eat your omelette, Dani-girl, and I'll see who it is.'

It was Prentice. Dani had guessed that from the moment she heard the knocking, because it was so typical of the man himself. Decisive. She had a moment to prepare herself, but he obviously did not suspect her presence until he saw her.

'Oh,' he said. 'I didn't realise you'd be here. Am I interrupting something, Brian?' His voice was polite, but Dani met the frosty green eyes and shivered.

'No.' Brian's bright eyes went from his brother to Dani and she saw the curiosity there. 'You want a beer ... brandy?'

'I'll settle for a coffee.' Prentice's gaze lingered, accusingly Dani thought, on the brandy glass at her side. 'You want me to make it?'

'I'll do it. You be nice to Dani. She's had a hard day.'

Dani had to resist an inclination to scream. Why did Brian have to put on such an innocent act? Why did he have to walk away from them with such a smug grin on his face? Demurely, she continued to eat her omelette while Prentice stood by the Welsh dresser and seemed lost in his own thoughts.

Dani wondered if he was thinking that perhaps he had interrupted a very cosy, very intimate scene. Brian had denied that, but maybe Prentice did not believe him. Here she was, sitting on Brian's bed, wearing one of his cardigans, without her shoes on and eating an omelette. Very domestic. Her dress was crumpled and her hair was untidy, but maybe that would just make her look even more relaxed and uncaring. Inside she shivered.

'Did you enjoy yourself at the fete, Prentice?' Brian called.

'No,' Prentice answered him, 'not much.' Dani raised an enquiring eyebrow, but he was not looking at her. 'Village fetes aren't really my idea of entertainment.'

'Too parochial for you?' Dani asked softly. His eyes met hers and accepted her challenge.

'Precisely,' he said smoothly. 'I couldn't have put it better myself.'

'Did Dani tell you that she was divorced?' Brian sang out from the kitchen, and she felt her fingers close convulsively around her fork. How dare he? How dare he make such an obvious and ill-timed remark! How dare he interfere in her life!

'No, she didn't.' Prentice had been lounging against the dresser. He straightened up and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his cords. He looked directly at her and Dani watched him solemnly for a moment before looking down at her plate again. 'Recently?' he asked.

'No.' She did not feel she had to go into an elaborate explanation.

'Do you have any children?'

'No.'

'You must have been very young.' The statement was made without any hint of gentleness or understanding. Dani raised her head proudly.

'Yes,' she admitted clearly, 'I was. So was he.' And that was all she was prepared to say. He could think what he liked. She would not try to gain his sympathy by telling him that Keith had loved the girl he met in the summer, and that one year later, their marriage had died quietly and painfully.

'Maybe you should have tried a little harder.'

That was unforgivable. Dani put her plate down with a clatter and swung her feet to the floor. She wondered vaguely, as she hunted for her shoes, if maybe the warmth she thought she had glimpsed in Prentice had been assumed and that this unfeeling coldness was the real man.

'You're going?' He did not seem surprised.

'Yes, I'm going.' Her omelette was only half-eaten, but she did not intend to stay and finish it. 'There's nothing I like less than people who make stupid, cruel statements about things they don't understand.' It was, she considered, a dignified sentence, but in her tiredness and anger, she could not be content to leave it there. 'Since you've never been married, I can hardly believe you're an expert on the subject.' She was pleased with that point, despite the pain in her heart, but when she saw the way his lips tightened into a hard line, she repressed the next words that might have come tumbling out.

'Are you two fighting?' Brian strolled back into the room and asked the question lightly, although Dani saw that his eyes were flicking from one protagonist to the other. 'Really, Prentice, I told you to be nice to Dani.'

Dani doubted that he could have made a crasser statement if he had thought about it for a week. What was he trying to do to her? What were they both trying to do to her? She felt trapped by Brian's bright-eyed, feigned innocence on one side, and by Prentice's disapproval on the other. Suddenly her own flat seemed like a haven and she slipped her shoes on, glad of the extra height they gave her, and confronted them both coldly.

'I'm tired,' she said quietly. 'I'm going home.'

'You haven't finished your omelette,' Brian pointed out, but his voice seemed suddenly subdued.

'No. Sorry. I just couldn't eat any more.' If she tried, it would choke her. 'Goodnight, Brian.' She nodded to Prentice, picked up her handbag and stalked to the front door, wearing her dignity as if it was a cloak that could somehow protect her from those compelling eyes that she was sure were following her every step.

'You don't have to go,' Brian said, but she opened the door and looked back at him, making her face into a chill mask that rivalled Prentice's for its impersonality.

'Oh yes, I do,' she retorted. 'I can't. . . won't. . . face up to his . . .' She nodded towards Prentice. ' . . . kind of arrogant unpleasantness.'

'We really must try to keep out of one another's way,' he agreed smoothly, and when she glared at him, he smiled. Not the beautiful smile that she had seen before, but the mirthless grin of a man who was holding his temper.

'We really must,' she confirmed flatly. 'Goodnight.' :: Her flat welcomed her, and in a sudden gesture of defiance she took off her shoes again and threw them across the floor. They landed with two separate thuds on the polished wood and she wondered what Prentice and Brian would think when they heard the noise. Let them think what they liked, she was beyond caring. Those words of Prentice's were repeating themselves over and over in her brain and she could not block them out.

'Maybe you should have tried a little harder.' Yes, that's what he had said. Disconsolately, Dani walked over to her shoes and picked them up, her inherent sense of tidiness not allowing her to leave them lying around, but still the words hammered at her until she flopped down on her window-seat overlooking the dark square and made a conscious effort to bring them out into the open and think about them.

Could she have tried harder to make her marriage work?

Exactly one week after her exams were over, she had met Keith. He had been her sun, her moon and her stars. It had been a beautiful summer and she had fallen headlong in love. So had he. Every day of their holidays had been spent together, basking in the heat of the sun and their mutual passion. They had decided to marry immediately, despite protests from both sets of parents, and had rented a flat in the town where their training colleges were located. It had all happened so quickly that now, looking back, Dani could only remember the events in the context of too much happening too soon.

Could she have done more to hold her marriage together? Dani's eyes blurred with tears as painful memories surfaced. There had been so much to cope with! New marriage, new home, work to be done. Neither of them, she knew now, had had the maturity to recognise the difficulties and deal with them.

Love had died in that small flat but yes, Dani told herself, she had tried. She had neglected her work to go out with him, and had tried to understand what he wanted. When she had finally realised that it was his freedom he yearned for, she had given him that, too.

It all flooded back; all the hurt and the worry and the sense of guilt that she had failed herself and Keith and everyone else. Damn Prentice McCulloch! Dani leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window. She had to look forwards, not backwards. She might regret the past, but it was unchangeable and she must not dwell on it.

She heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs to her flat. Instantly she sat upright and listened to the careful footsteps. Who? Brian coming to see if she was all right? The steps sounded too heavy for a woman. Or, worse, she wondered frantically if it was Prentice himself coming to torment her further with his calm questions that hurt her more than he would ever know.

'Dani?' One word confirmed her worst suspicions. It was Prentice.

She had a choice, she told herself swiftly. She could either see him or pretend that she was in bed and did not intend to answer the door.

'Who is it?' she called, delaying the decision and furious to find that she was trembling. He scared her.

'Prentice. Can I have a word with you?'

She pushed herself off the window-seat and padded to the door.

'What do you want?' she called, her hand on the Yale lock. 'It's late and I'm tired.'

'Just one minute of your time.' His voice sounded smooth but neutral. He obviously did not intend to try and coax her. 'And then I'll leave you in peace.'

It was much too late for that. He had re-awakened old ghosts, dragged out spectres of her past that she did not want to be haunted by again.

'What is it?' She opened the door and stood squarely in the frame, not inviting him to enter.

'I owe you an apology.' In the darkness he was a shadowy figure, but the green eyes gleamed like a cat's. Fractiously, Dani wondered if she would be better able to deal with him if his eyes were closed. They seemed to reach into her soul. 'I shouldn't have spoken the way I did. Your life is your own affair.'

Silence. Dani tipped her head to one side and considered him carefully. Was it really possible that she had once been kissed by him? From the tone of his voice they could have been strangers. Yet the memory of that brief closeness still lingered like an evocative perfume.

'It is, isn't it,' she agreed at last. 'I'm sorry you disapprove of me, Prentice, but I can't change what's happened. And I'm the one who has to live with it, not you. So if you'll excuse me . . .'

'Okay.' His back straightened visibly. 'I've made my apologies. Brian will be happy, even if you aren't.'

'Brian?' Now he was adding a new twist to the conversation. Dani opened the door wide again, not realising that the light behind her silhouetted her slim shape and that there was a matching light of battle in her eyes. 'Did Brian tell you to come up here?'

'He pointed out my failings.'

'Perhaps it's time somebody did.' The knowledge that he was not there of his own volition hurt Dani more than she would have thought possible. Unhappily she lashed out at him. 'You might do better to think before you speak sometimes. For all you know, my ex-husband beat me every night. . .'

'Did he?' His hand stretched out, caught her fingers and pulled her towards him. 'Did he, Dani?'

His voice 'was suddenly harsh and there was such intensity in the question that Dani was taken aback. His grip hurt, but the obviously simmering anger seemed for once to be directed not against her but against her ex-husband. What, Dani wondered, would he do if she said yes? Would he hold her against him and soothe her and once again show her the softer side of his nature? For one moment she was tempted. It would be so nice to be close to -him again, and wonderful to feel that he was being protective towards her.

She was too honest to speak the lie. Maligning Keith to gain this man's sympathy was something that she knew she could not do.

'No,' she said clearly, 'he never did. He was just top young to be married.'

'And what about you, Dani?' He still had not let her go. His fingers were crushing hers, but the discomfort was a focal point on which she could concentrate because he was just too close to her, and if she stretched out her left hand she would be able to touch him; draw one finger along the deep crease in his forehead and smooth away the tension in his face.

'I was too young, too.' She drew a shaky breath. 'I'm sorry, Prentice, but I can't give you a good reason for not disapproving of me, and . . .'

' . . . and it doesn't really matter anyway.' He released her hand and stepped back. 'It isn't important.'

It might have been. Dani sensed that if she had given him a valid reason for the failure of her marriage, valid in his eyes anyway, then he might now be holding her tightly.

'Whatever you say,' she agreed quietly. Her hand was throbbing where he had gripped her fingers, but it was nothing to the small sharp pain inside her that his last words had caused. 'Goodnight, Prentice.'

'Goodnight.' He nodded curtly and turned to go. 'Oh . . .' He turned back, as if he had forgotten something.'. . . these steps of yours aren't safe. I'll get Brian to fix them. I'd hate you to break your neck.'

'Thank you.'

One last exchanged glance that lingered on until Dani involuntarily held her breath with the tension of the silence. What did he want now? Why wasn't he going?

'Oh, hell!' He moved swiftly and Dani found herself enveloped in unyielding arms that pinned her own to her sides and almost lifted her off her feet.

'Don't!' Suddenly she was frightened of him, scared of the pounding pulse of her blood racing through her veins that his touch caused, scared of the man himself and the dark anger that was back in the raggedness of his voice.

'Goodbye, Dani.'

He kissed her. It was a hard, bruising, claiming kiss and Dani moaned as she felt his teeth cut into her lip. One of his arms circled her shoulders, the other her waist, and she was held against him as surely and as implacably as if they had been glued together. She felt the long line of his body against hers, quivered under the terrifying intensity of the embrace, and closed her eyes with the knowledge that he was taking from her without giving anything back. And there was no time to give. He tore himself away, and she shuddered as he raced down her flight of stairs, his footsteps sounding as angry as the man himself had been.