The Man She Should Have Married

It hadn’t been planned—she knew that. On the drive back down to the cottage she had actually thought it was over, that one night of hot sex had finally done what time and absence had failed to do. She’d started to think that maybe she had a chance of finding happiness.

Then everything had slipped away from her.

Her heart thudded as she thought about the huge, glossy black car parked outside in the drive.

Back in the bothy, it had been easy to tell herself that, however wild and urgent and incredible it had been, it was still just sex.

But then she’d found out what Farlan had done.

And just like that the fact that he had been thinking about her in some way that didn’t involve sex, that he cared not just about giving her pleasure but keeping her safe, had made the prospect of moving on dissolve like early-morning mist.

All she’d been able to think about was that he would be leaving soon, and the thought of that night being their last had felt like a hot knife pressed against her skin.

Gazing up into his eyes, she had thought he felt the same way.

Only he hadn’t.

She had misread the signs.

Too many years spent managing her parents’ whims had blunted her ability to read people. To read men. They had made her doubt herself, and sadly there was no one to fulfil their high expectations except her; nowhere to hide from their gaze.

And, despite neither of them ever having worked for a living, they had an antipathy to idleness in others, so Nia had never had much time for fun.

Except with Farlan.

And since him she had been too busy, too distracted by the day-to-day demands of running the estate and managing her parents, to do more than take the occasional day off.

Her cheeks burned.

And she had been celibate for so long.

No wonder everything had got snarled up inside her.

Like every human, she craved intimacy and touch, and with her body so recently reawakened, still aching from their lovemaking, she had wanted more.

She jumped.

The phone was ringing—the landline, not her mobile.

As usual, it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and after searching for some moments she found it on the windowsill by the front door.

‘Darling, why do you never answer your mobile phone?’

It was her mother.

‘I always answer, Mummy. I was just out in the garden and I left my phone there,’ she lied.

Her phone must have slipped out of her pocket when Gordon had been talking to her, but to explain that would mean explaining about Gordon, and she didn’t want to risk something slipping out about Farlan.

‘Then you must have been out in the garden for a very long time,’ her mother said waspishly. ‘I’ve been calling for hours.’

‘How is everything?’ she asked quickly, hoping to distract her mother. ‘How’s Daddy and Aunt Catherine?’

‘Catherine’s exhausted. Run off her feet as usual. But Daddy’s fine. We’ve been playing bridge most afternoons at the club, with Fergus and Margaret Cavendish.’

Her mother paused for just a shade too long to be natural.

‘David is here too. He asked after you. I think he was rather hoping you might come out and join us.’