She tried to deny it but the treacherous warmth was already filling her body, weakening her will, making her want things she had no right to want. She'd sworn this wouldn't happen, but the memory of his passion still lived in her flesh, recalling her to life. She had once loved him so much, and though love might be finished, she was what that love had made her, and the past could never be destroyed completely.

For a few treacherous moments her body moulded itself to his, burning with remembered desire and need. She'd belonged to him completely, but that was a long time ago-although it seemed only yesterday-this very moment-for ever-

'It's not so easy, is it, Faye?' he whispered. 'It's not so easy to forget the truth…'

But the arrogant words shouted in her brain like a warning. Faye shuddered as she saw how close she'd come to weakening. Garth was a clever man and this was no more than a cynical mockery of love. She took a deep breath and forced her head to clear.

'The truth is that everything is over between us,' she said emphatically. 'Can't you understand that?'

'Why should I?' he growled. 'You don't kiss me as though it was all over.'

'I'm in love with another man…'

'Little liar!'

'And I'm going to marry him. You can't stop me.' Putting out all her strength, she broke free of him. 'You thought it was going to be easy, didn't you, Garth? When I arrived tonight you were sure I was going to drop into your hands. But I'm not like that any more. I've made my own life and there's no room in it for you.'

Garth was very pale. 'We'll see about that.'

But he was talking to empty air. Faye had fled the house.

CHAPTER TWO

'Faye, you shouldn't have been alone with this man. He's a monster.'

Faye smiled at Kendall Haines, the man she planned to marry as soon as she was free. 'Garth isn't a monster,' she protested. 'He just steamrollers over people.'