Daphne Clair - Lovers' Lies

Letter to Reader Dear Reader, What a pleasure and privilege it is to be part of Harlequin Presents ® twenty-fifth birthday celebration. For twenty-one of those years I have been a Harlequin author, and my fiftieth book is due in North America later this year. I hope that Harlequin and I will still be around for a long time yet, giving pleasure to millions of women around the world. Please write and tell me if you enjoy Lovers’ Lies, and ask for a newsletter so you won’t miss my next Harlequin Presents ® . Box 18240, Glen Innes, Auckland, New Zealand. Daphne Clair Title Page Lovers’ Lies Daphne Clair www.millsandboon.co.uk CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN Copyright

Dear Reader,

What a pleasure and privilege it is to be part of Harlequin Presents ®twenty-fifth birthday celebration. For twenty-one of those years I have been a Harlequin author, and my fiftieth book is due in North America later this year. I hope that Harlequin and I will still be around for a long time yet, giving pleasure to millions of women around the world. Please write and tell me if you enjoy Lovers’ Lies, and ask for a newsletter so you won’t miss my next Harlequin Presents ®. Box 18240, Glen Innes, Auckland, New Zealand.

Daphne Clair

Lovers’ Lies

Daphne Clair

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

BEIJING was the last place Felicia expected to meet Joshua Tagget again.

She had landed in China the night before, jet-lagged and in dire need of sleep following the eighteen-hour journey from New Zealand. After breakfasting in her room and coming down to the hotel lobby to meet her tour guide and the other members of her party, she still felt glassy-eyed and woolly-headed.

When her gaze lit on the well-remembered dark amber eyes under black brows, she was sure she must be hallucinating. The dreams in which Joshua Tagget used to feature had stopped, thank heaven, a few years after the events that had shattered her childhood.

His brows twitched upward in interrogation, and it dawned on her that he was dismayingly real, and also that her instant recognition wasn’t mutual. She was twenty-five years old and any resemblance to the impressionable, romantic thirteen-year-old he had briefly known had long since vanished.

Joshua had been the epitome of her ideal man, the fantasy figure that had woken her first immature stirrings of sexuality, and as unattainable to her as any pop star or film idol. Thank heaven she’d at least had the sense to hide her palpitating interest in him, hugging it to her like a delicious secret until her fragile feelings were cruelly shattered in heartbreak and disillusion.

He had barely altered; perhaps his shoulders were a shade broader, but otherwise he looked as lithe and lean as a panther. A small crease in his cheek emphasised the slight, enquiring lift at one corner of a chiselled mouth, and the tiny fanned lines by his eyes added an attractive maturity to his classic good looks. Even so, he appeared considerably younger than... She calculated rapidly that he must be thirty-seven or thereabouts.

‘Miss Felicia Stevens?’ the guide said, looking round the loose group of two dozen or so.

‘Yes.’ Felicia stepped forward. Now Joshua would surely recognise her. She could still feel his gaze—alert, amused, intrigued. Putting a totally wrong interpretation on her shocked stare.

The guide was a slim Chinese woman with smooth, pretty features and glossy bobbed hair, who invited the tour party to call her Jen or Jenny. She gave Felicia a dazzling smile and handed her a name tag, encased in plastic, and a linen carry-bag identical to those most of the group now held, before consulting her list again. ‘Mr Jo-sua Tagget?’

‘Here.’ Joshua took the plastic label and the bag the woman held out to him, his gaze sliding reluctantly away from Felicia. One of the other women spoke to him, and he bent his head slightly to listen, then threw it back in laughter.

Felicia heard the blood pounding in her head, felt the need to take an extra deep breath. He didn’t know her. Only two feet away from her, he hadn’t recognised her at all. Even her name had rung no bell of memory.

She ought to have been relieved, but her chief emotions was overwhelming anger. It was as if he had wiped all recollection of that hideous summer from his mind. Something she could never do. Never in a million years.

Shaking, she clutched the bag in her hand, her fingers clenching tightly on the limp straps. A middle-aged, dumpy woman standing nearby said in an unmistakably American accent, ‘Are you OK, honey?’

She must look pale. Mustering a smile, Felicia said, ‘Yes, thank you. It’s a bit hot.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ the woman agreed. ‘I hope the bus is air-conditioned.’

Jen was gathering her charges, hurrying them towards the door where a blue and white bus had pulled up a few minutes ago. ‘Miss Stevens?’ She had noticed that Felicia wasn’t moving along with the others. ‘Come,’ she said, flapping a hand with quick, anxious little movements, ‘please?’

Felicia hesitated. She could say she was unwell, that she couldn’t make the trip today after all. Then she’d contact her travel agent, see if she could transfer to another tour...

‘Miss Stevens?’ The guide was looking puzzled. ‘You have forgotten something?’

No, she wanted to say. I’ve forgotten nothing. If only I could... Joshua Tagget seems to have successfully forgotten. He didn’t even blink an eyelid when you said my name.

She’d prepaid in New Zealand for this tour. Three weeks, all expenses included. It had cost her a lot of money and, realistically, she didn’t suppose there’d be any chance of changing the arrangements at this late hour. The tour company wouldn’t look kindly on a request for a refund. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’ She walked forward as if moving through water, and followed the guide outside.

The bus was filling up. Joshua had got himself a window seat. That didn’t surprise Felicia. Nor was she surprised that the best-looking woman in the party, a fresh-faced brunette with long hair waving to her shoulders and green eyes accentuated by thickly applied mascara and eyeliner, sat beside him. Joshua was looking out the window while the woman settled herself, tucking her bag under the seat. Passing them, Felicia wondered if they were together, or if the woman was just hopeful.

A group of young women occupied the rear bench seat, three fit-looking young men nearby eyeing them with covert interest. Middle-aged couples, a family with two children, and a few apparently unattached singles of both sexes made up the rest of the tour party. The small American woman, with a seat to herself, beckoned Felicia. ‘You can sit here if you like. I’m all alone.’

‘Thank you.’ Me too, Felicia thought. It had been that way for years, and usually she didn’t mind. Perhaps it was being in a strange country, among strangers, that caused a sudden wave of melancholy.

‘I’m Maggie,’ the American woman said. ‘Maggie Price. And you’re Felicia. Such a pretty name. It suits you.’

‘Thank you.’ Felicia smiled, brushing back from her cheek an ear-level strand of hair the colour of dark manuka honey.

The door closed smoothly with an airy sigh as the driver pulled out from the hotel and veered around one of dozens of yellow taxis weaving through the bicycles thronging the broad road.

‘I hope we can go shopping here later,’ Maggie remarked as they roared past market stalls set out under spreading shade trees on the pavements.