Forbidden Surrender

Sara shrugged. ‘There’ll be plenty of other nights.’

‘Why don’t you change your mind and come to the party, Michael?’ Dominic suggested smoothly. ‘My mother was very disappointed that you weren’t coming. She’s already looking forward to meeting Sara.’

Marie pouted. ‘But I wanted to give a party and introduce Sara to everyone.’

Her father smiled indulgently. ‘You can still have your party, there’ll still be plenty of people for Sara to meet. I doubt your mother has invited all of London, has she, Dominic?’

‘Not quite,’ the other man smiled at him, joining in his teasing of Marie.

‘There you are, then,’ their father grinned. ‘You’ll still have hundreds of people to invite, Marie.’

‘I don’t want to intrude on your evening,’ Sara told her sister. ‘And I can surely meet your mother some other time, Dominic,’ she added stiltedly.

‘Then why not tonight?’ he asked, his eyes narrowed.

‘Because—well, because—–’

‘She’s a little shy.’ Her father put his arm about her shoulders. ‘Diane will make you very welcome, Sara. And I did originally have an invitation, I turned it down because of my worry over you. But now that you’re here with us I think we should all go. I’m sure the party isn’t to be a big one, is it, Dominic?’

‘About thirty people.’

Thirty people at the moment seemed like the whole world, but she raised no more arguments. She was just embarrassing herself and everyone else. Besides, what was one evening?

‘You were going to ask me something earlier, Sara,’ Marie reminded her partway through dinner. ‘Something you said I was sure to remember.’

She felt a little foolish about her idea now, especially in front of Dominic, feeling sure he would just ridicule her. Dominic was a man who dealt in facts, a man of logic, and what she was suggesting certainly wasn’t logical.

She looked down at her succulently cooked chicken, wishing she had an appetite for it. ‘I just wondered what the date was when you fell down the stairs,’ she shrugged dismissively. ‘It isn’t important. I’m sure you don’t even remember it.’

All humour had left Marie, leaving her face haunted. ‘I remember exactly,’ she said hollowly. ‘It was the twentieth of December.’

Once again Sara’s interest flared. ‘The same day!’ she told her father excitedly. ‘Don’t you see, it’s the same day!’ She clutched his arm.

‘But a different time,’ he shook his head. ‘It has to be a coincidence.’

‘You’ve forgotten the time difference, Dad.’ She didn’t even notice she had called him that in the excitement of this discovery, but the other occupants of the dining-room table did. Her father flushed with pleasure, Marie and Dominic smiled approvingly. ‘It was five-thirty here,’ she explained, ‘but twelve-thirty in Florida.’

‘The same day as your accident,’ Dominic suddenly realised.

‘Yes!’ She looked at him, her eyes glowing. Then she frowned. ‘But how did you know that?’

‘The file,’ he reminded her.

‘Oh yes,’ she nodded absently. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’

‘Extremely so,’ he surprised her by agreeing.

Over the next few minutes they discovered that these similarities had occurred several times during the last twenty years, a case of them both having measles at the same time, both having their tonsils out within days of each other. The list was endless once they started comparing notes, and each new discovery added to their amazement.

‘Maybe we’ll both fall in love with the same man,’ Marie said mischievously, not knowing how near the truth she was, or Sara felt sure she wouldn’t have said it. Marie wasn’t in the least vindictive or cruel, and the remark would have been both those things if she had known of Sara’s feelings. ‘How would you like that, darling?’ she teased her fiancée.

His expression was grim, his mouth a thin taut line. ‘I wouldn’t like it at all,’ he said curtly.