Luke's unnerving gaze jerked her heart back into action.

'Is something the matter?' he demanded, brusque suspicion in his voice as he took in her expression of stunned disbelief.

Kate struggled to regain her composure. There was absolutely no recognition in his eyes; she could see that now. It was just that he had occupied her thoughts so much since she had seen '":m at the theatre that it seemed incredible that he had not been just as aware of her, and as astonished to find the gauche, clumsy girl who had stumbled away from his kiss sitting in front of him now. As astonished as she was to find that the village rebel had somehow transformed himself into a successful businessman! It was the last thing she would have expected.

But the awareness was one-sided now, just as it had been last night, just as it had been ten years ago. Kate should have been glad, but a quite irrational feeling of pique at finding herself so utterly unmemorable helped her to pull herself together.

'I'm sorry if I was staring. I was merely surprised to find myself addressing a man instead of a chair,' she said, pleased at the cool way she was able to meet his eyes. Preoccupied with the shock of coming face to face with him again so unexpectedly, Kate had forgotten that she was here for an interview, but Luke evidently had not.

`Doesn't take much to surprise you, does it?' Luke said with something of a sneer. He reached out and pulled a sheet of paper off the pile in front of him; Kate recognised it as the CV she had sent to Paula Stephens and wondered if anything about her name would jog his memory.

He was frowning as he scrutinised her details. Kate sat, outwardly calm, dreading the moment when he would look up and recognise her, but he only grunted non-committally as he tossed her

CV back dismissively on to the pile.

Sitting back in his chair, he twirled a pen between his fingers and studied her with opaque slate eyes narrowed appraisingly. Kate forced herself to return his look with composure, and her chin tilted in instinctive response to the challenge in his silence.