'A drink?' he asked.

'No thank you. I'm driving.'

His eyebrows raised a little. 'You've learned to drive?'

'Yes, I found it quite easy.'

'When you had an instructor who could keep calm,' he finished wryly.

'That helped,' she admitted.

Their very first vehicle had been a shabby third-hand truck to get Garth started as a builder. Later, when the money had flowed freely, he'd bought her an expensive car and had tried to teach her to drive, but it had been a disaster. She'd lacked the confidence to try again, and when she fled she'd left the car behind.

Disturbing feelings began to play back. Perhaps she shouldn't have come to this luxurious house, which he'd built 'for her' but which reflected his own tastes. Here, she'd shared a bed with Garth but nothing else, and she'd always disliked the place. Yet she'd smothered her true feelings, as so often in her marriage, and pretended delight to please her husband.

That, however, was in the past. Their marriage was over in all but name. She was her own woman now.

Once her heart had beat with eager anticipation at the thought of seeing Garth Clayton. With his dark hair, vivid looks and lithe grace, he'd seemed almost godlike to the eighteen-year-old Faye. He'd worked on a building site that she'd passed every day on her way to work in a dress shop. Sometimes she would stop and regard him from a distance, admiring the way he leaped over the scaffolding, never afraid of the drop, or lifted heavy weights as though they were nothing.

She was so innocent that she hardly recognized her admiration for his splendid body as the flickering of desire. She only knew that she had to make him notice her. When at last he winked at her, she blushed deeply and scurried away to the shop. For the rest of the day she was nearly useless, having to be recalled from a trance when someone spoke to her, and giving customers the wrong change. Her boss spoke sharply, but Faye barely heard. She was in seventh heaven.