Free A Secret Until Now by Kim Lawrence

expectations.’
    ‘But some curiosity.’ The speculation was pretty much proved when she couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Don’t feel bad. Everyone wants to ask. Few do—death is one of those subjects that people tiptoe around. Emma died of MS, an aggressive form she had been ill with for some time.’
    Angel could only marvel that he could sound so detached while revealing this tragic sequence of events. For all the emotion he was displaying he could have been recounting the story of a stranger’s life.
    ‘It was lucky we had no children.’ He sketched a sardonic smile. ‘Now your turn...?’
    She got that he rejected sympathy—hard not to—but she felt it anyway, a strong surge of empathy that she couldn’t repress. She would have felt the same for anyone in his situation; the difference was she hadn’t spent the past six years hating anyone. Not to do so, even briefly, felt odd...uncomfortable, and required some major mental readjustment.
    ‘One.’ She couldn’t pretend that Jasmine didn’t exist.
    He stiffened. ‘In most countries that is all a person can have at one time.’ The joke, it seemed, was on him. Why the hell hadn’t she just told him she was married up front?
    Why didn’t you consider the possibility, Alex?
    Her bewildered-sounding response cut across his inner dialogue. ‘One...?’
    ‘You’re not wearing a ring,’ he clenched out, feeling cheated.
    Anchoring her hair against a sudden flurry of wind, she followed the direction of his gaze and drew the hand down to look at it, turning it over as she blew away the errant raven strands that immediately plastered themselves across her face. She was of the school of thought that said less was more when it came to jewellery and she rarely wore rings when working. Her hand went to her neck where she wore her father’s signet ring on a chain. Her brother had inherited a Scottish estate complete with castle, and she, being a woman, had got only the ring. She didn’t resent it half as much as her brother felt guilty about it.
    ‘Why should I...?’ She stopped as the penny dropped. ‘God, not a husband! I have a child, a daughter.’
    This was only slightly less astonishing to him than her having a husband. His eyes went to the fingers that were rubbing the chain she wore around her neck. Through her fingers he recognised the disc he had initially taken for a pendant nestled between her breasts as a ring.
    ‘You have a baby?’ His eyes drifted down her slim body and he felt a kick of lust that made his strong-boned features clench.
    Hard not to recognise this as the perfect opportunity to speak. So why aren’t you, Angel?
    We have a baby. It didn’t matter how hard she tried, Angel couldn’t visualise his reaction to this bombshell.
    ‘She’s hardly a baby.’ Her expression softened. Jasmine had been a lovely baby, though it might have been easier to enjoy her loveliness if she had ever slept. The first eighteen months had passed in a blur of sleep deprivation.
    ‘But she must be young, and you’re a single parent...?’ Did the ring have some significance? A token from the father?
    Angel instantly prickled with antagonism; her chin went up. She was pretty secure when it came to her parenting skills, able to shrug off and smile her way through well-meaning advice, but when the source of the criticism was the absent father of her daughter it turned out she couldn’t.
    ‘Yes, I am, and I really don’t think my childcare arrangements are your concern,’ she tossed back, realising as she spoke that this situation might change very soon. When he knew he might think that he should have a say. The idea appalled her.
    Blinking at the level of belligerence in her attitude, he made a pacifying gesture with his hands. Her eyes followed the gesture—he had lovely hands.
    ‘I am hardly an expert on the subject.’
    He watched as her hunched shoulders flattened. He could almost feel her willing the tension away. Her tense smile was a clear