Alison Fraser - The Strength Of Desire

Cover Page

Excerpt “How long was it, that last time you and Jack were reunited?” “Five weeks.” Hope prayed it would shut Guy up. “Five weeks? Long enough to conceive, have a pregnancy confirmed and get the divorce papers drawn up….” “That’s not the way it was! I never intended going back to Jack….” Guy’s lips formed a thin, cruel smile. “Maybe you should have stuck with me…. But then you couldn’t be quite sure I could give you a baby, could you? Whereas my brother already had….”

About the Author ALISON FRASER was born and brought up in the far north of Scotland. She studied English literature at university and taught math for a while, then became a computer programmer. She took up writing as a hobby and it is still very much so, in that she doesn’t take it too seriously! Currently Alison still lives in Scotland, with her two young children, two dogs, but only one husband!

Title Page The Strength of Desire Alison Fraser www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

“Five weeks.” Hope prayed it would shut Guy up.

“Five weeks? Long enough to conceive, have a pregnancy confirmed and get the divorce papers drawn up….”

“That’s not the way it was! I never intended going back to Jack….”

Guy’s lips formed a thin, cruel smile. “Maybe you should have stuck with me…. But then you couldn’t be quite sure I could give you a baby, could you? Whereas my brother already had….”

ALISON FRASERwas born and brought up in the far north of Scotland. She studied English literature at university and taught math for a while, then became a computer programmer. She took up writing as a hobby and it is still very much so, in that she doesn’t take it too seriously! Currently Alison still lives in Scotland, with her two young children, two dogs, but only one husband!

The Strength of Desire

Alison Fraser

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TEARS streamed down Hope’s face as the radio played the song for which Jack was best known:

‘The sun in your hair,

Pure gold.

The sky in your eyes,

Cloudless blue.

How can I not love you?

The stars in——

She switched it off, and sank down on a chair. It was a shock. Not the song, but the announcement beforehand: ‘Jacques Delacroix died last night in a road accident.’

Why had no one told her? Why hadn’t Guy? The thought of Jack’s brother could still make her angry. Her mind quickly moved elsewhere.

Maxine. She needed to tell Maxine before anyone else did. How would she react? She was difficult at the best of times.

My fault, Hope acknowledged, all too aware of the way her daughter was going. At twelve she could pass for fourteen—a moody, resentful fourteen. My fault because I was too young.

Seventeen she had been when she’d met Jacques—or Jack, as he’d been called. Just turned eighteen when she’d married him. Pregnant shortly after. Ridiculous.

That’s what Guy had said, of course. Guy DelacroixJack’s little brother. Hope’s lips twisted at the term. That was what Jack had called him and that was what Hope had expected. A younger, paler version of Jack. But Guy had been in no one’s shadow.

She remembered their first meeting. It had been at a London restaurant. Jack had invited him to lunch to meet Jack’s future bride. He’d driven up from Cornwall where he lived and had arrived late. Jack and she had already been seated at the rear of the restaurant and had not noticed his approach.

He had appeared at their table and Hope had just stared in surprise. Jack’s little brother had turned out to be anything but little.

At six feet two, he was several inches taller and broader than Jack, and, on first glance, actually looked older, with his dark hair and steel-grey eyes and a slightly weathered complexion.

The brothers were totally unalike. At thirty-five Jack could have passed for twenty-five. Blond, boyish and handsome, he was a slim five feet ten. He had all the charm of an older man with the outlook of a much younger one. The age-gap between Hope and Jack-seventeen years—seemed nothing.

Nothing until Guy Delacroix pointed it out. He stared at her, long and hard, then spoke to Jacques, excluding her.

He said, ‘Es-tu fou, Jacques? Elle est une enfant.’

He did not look at Hope. If he had, he might have seen from her face that she wasn’t stupid. She could certainly translate basic French: ‘Are you mad, Jack? She is a child.’

She waited for Jacques to deny, to resent, to explode, but he just laughed. ‘Peut-être. Mais une très belle enfant, n’est-ce pas?’ He smiled at his brother.

Hope could translate that, too. O level French was one of the few she’d managed to acquire at the trendy boarding-school where her father had sent her.

‘Perhaps,’ Jack conceded. ‘But a very beautiful child, isn’t she?’

Guy’s eyes slid back to her. From the expression on his face, he didn’t agree.

Hope didn’t care what he thought of her looks. She responded, ‘Je ne suis pas une enfante ni stupide.’

‘I am not a child or stupid,’ she informed Guy Delacroix, blue eyes narrowing in temper.

Jack looked surprised, then laughed again. He had not known she could speak French, but was unembarrassed by it.

If anything, his brother looked even further down his long French nose, his thin lips twisting. Hope’s first impression of a powerfully handsome man was rapidly forgotten, as she thought him mean-eyed and cold.

‘Do you wish me to apologise?’ he directed at her, not one degree warmer.

‘Not if it’s going to kill you,’ she retorted in a careless tone.

They exchanged looks again, registering their true feelings. Hate at first sight.

Jack seemed amused as he suggested, ‘Shall we start again? In English, this time, I think…Hope Gardener, meet Guy Delacroix. My fiancée. My brother.’ He nodded from one to the other.

After a moment’s hesitation, Guy Delacroix muttered a scrupulously polite, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ as he extended his hand towards her.

His personality seemed to change with his language. From Gallic temper to English dispassion in one easy move. At any rate, it was the first and last time he ever spoke French in front of her.

Hope wondered which was real as she reluctantly returned his brief handshake and he sat down. She recalled what Jack had told her about the Delacroix family. Their mother was English, from Cornwall. She had married a Frenchman and they had spent their early years in Paris. When their father, Armand Delacroix, had died, Jack had been twelve, Guy seven. A couple of years later they had returned to live in Cornwall.

On first impression, Guy had seemed the more French, but, as she listened to his ensuing conversation with Jack, she revised that opinion. He was a lawyer who talked in dry, lawyer terms. Jack allowed him to handle his business affairs. With Guy based in Cornwall, inconveniently far from London, Hope assumed Jack did this as a favour.

Not that Guy Delacroix appeared particularly grateful. If anything, his tone to Jack was one of reproof as they talked of contracts and percentages. Jack, in contrast, was his usual affable self, uninterested in money or the business matters behind his work as a performer.

Hope was on his side. Jack was an artist. He sang in a gravelly voice that was adored by millions of women, and wrote love-songs that wrenched the heart. Who could blame him if he didn’t want to discuss the boring mechanics behind the brilliant concert performances he gave?