'After all,' Alex continued with honeyed persistence. How could you ever trust him again? Or her?'

The darkness sank back down over Sara where for an instant she had seen a wild, hopeful chink of light.

'Were you thinking of giving him another chance?'Alex enquired in a tone of polite astonishment.

Sara flinched. 'No,' she muttered sickly, duly forced to see the impossibility of ever trusting again.

Yet she could not believe that she was actually having such a conversation with AlexRossini, who was not known for his concerned and benevolent interest in his employees' personal problems. Indeed, the Rossini credo was that the best employees left their private life outside the door of Rossini Industries and never, ever allowed that private life to interfere with their work.

'Why are you talking to me like this?' she whispered helplessly.

'Do you have anyone else to confide in?'

Sara tried and failed to swallow. It was almost as if he knew, but how could he possibly know how frighteningly isolated she now was? She could not turn to

Antonia's parents and she had no other relatives, no close friends who were not also Brian's friends or colleagues. 'No, but-'

'Nothing you have told me will go any further,' Alex asserted, his night-dark eyes, sharp and shrewd as knives, trained on her, but those eyes were no longer cutting, no longer cold, no longer grimly amused.

'You're being so…so kind,' Sara said in a wobbly tone as she fought to conceal her disbelief, for this was a side of his character that she had never thought to see, indeed never dreamt existed.

'You have had a traumatic experience and, naturally, I am concerned.'

'Thank you, but I don't need your pity,' Sara bit out painfully.

'The very last thing you inspire is pity,' Alex assured her, unleashing a wry smile of reproof on her. 'You should be celebrating your freedom. Life is far too short for regrets. You've already wasted two years of it on that little salesman. The future has to offer far more entertaining possibilities-'