'It looks as if he couldn't bear for anyone else to find happiness if he couldn't. So he deliberately set out to scotch whatever feelings Miles and I were beginning to have for each other.'

'But all you had to do was confront Miles about his alleged affair with your sister. Why didn't you?'

'With hindsight it seems madness that I didn't, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt angry with him for a while, and ... you probably won't understand this, because you don't know our history, but believing him to be in love with Felicity made me feel second best. And of course I believed Dominic when he said that unless I had proof, his brother would probably deny the affair.'

'So instead of questioning Miles, you went on the hunt for evidence?'

She nodded. 'I kept going through Felicity's emails looking for something that would give Miles away, while all the time keeping him at arm's length.'

'Meanwhile I came along. I might be jumping to conclusions, but did I become part of what you were going through?'

Ashamed, she turned and looked into the flickering flames. 'On top of being ditched by my last boyfriend because I now came with two non-negotiable complications, and feeling second best, I felt horribly rejected. Pathetically, I needed to prove to myself that I was attractive, a person in my own right. Does any of that make sense to you?'

'Yes,' he said.

She could see the hurt in his eyes, though, and it pained her. 'I'm sorry. I soon realised I'd got myself into a situation that was all wrong. I was getting too fond of you and I hated myself for having used you to bolster my stupid ego. You deserved better. You're the nicest, kindest, funniest, most generous and straightforward man I've ever met and I shall always regret the way I treated you.'

'I'd have made do with just being the s.e.xiest man you've ever met.'

She gave him a tentative smile. 'That's a given. And before you ask, there was no faking on my part. Every moment we spent in bed together was genuine.'

He briefly closed his eyes. 'What more could a guy ask for?' He suddenly looked and sounded extremely tired.

Bored of talking about her own troubles, she said, 'So how have you been? And no glossing over anything. The truth.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y awful is the truth. I feel detached from the outside world, as though it's not really happening.' He let out his breath. 'I don't think I'm handling this at all well, if I'm honest.'

'There's a lot of rubbish spoken about being stoically resilient and hanging in there. We're all different and have to handle things at our own pace. For what it's worth, I reckon you're not doing too badly. Have you been into work much?'

'Once or twice. To prove I can still do it, and to please Jarvis. Some mornings I wake up feeling like I'm made of gla.s.s; one b.u.mp and I'll fracture into a thousand pieces. When does it start to get better?'

'I can't answer that. But some day soon you'll catch yourself thinking about something else, and then you'll feel as guilty as h.e.l.l because you'll think it's wrong to be happy. Or even distracted.'

She'd left him a short while later, sensing that he'd had enough company and wanted to be alone. 'No need to see me out,' she'd said. 'I know the way.' She'd squeezed his hand and closed the front door quietly after her.

She may have escaped the immediate aftermath of her public confrontation with Dominic for those few hours she'd been with Will, but it was waiting for her when she got home. As indeed it had been ever since. Two days on and her father was in bed suffering from mental exhaustion, as the doctor had described his condition; she and her parents would never be welcome at the McKendricks' again - Eileen said this might well turn out to be a blessing - and there was still Miles to talk to.

There was also Dominic to deal with. She hadn't finished with him yet. Not by a long way. Which was why she'd hurried Joel with his packing; she'd arranged to meet Dominic later that evening. Unbelievably he hadn't got the first train back to Cambridge, and even more unbelievably, he was staying with Miles in Maywood. He'd phoned her that morning to say that he wanted to talk to her. She'd told him he had lousy timing, but she'd agreed anyway to meet him at the wine bar in Maywood.

He was waiting for her at the same table they had used the night she'd thrown her drink in his face. He looked dreadful. Bruised and battered, his nose was swollen, his right eye blackened, his top lip sporting a couple of st.i.tches. She felt moved by the sight of him but reminded herself that he deserved every bit of the pain he was experiencing.

'I can't even say you should see the other guy,' he quipped when she sat down and he indicated the gla.s.s of wine he'd already bought her. 'I risked a gla.s.s of Pinot Grigio for you,' he added.

'Thanks.' She took off her jacket, but kept her scarf on. Odds on she'd lose her temper with him before long and would want to leave in a hurry. 'You look awful,' she said matter-of-factly.

'But perhaps not as bad as I'd have turned out if you'd got your hands on me.'

'You're right; you could have wound up dead with Felicity.'

He took a mouthful of wine. 'I'm impressed; you said that without a hint of remorse.'

'What can I say? I've learned at the feet of the master.'

'Okay,' he said in a bored voice, 'it's official, I'm a monster. Can we move on?'

'Yes, but on my terms. For starters, I want to know exactly what was going on inside that twisted mind of yours when you made me suspect Miles was Felicity's lover. Did it give you some kind of sick pleasure knowing that you were playing G.o.d with our lives?'

'You know me; I get my pleasure any which way I can.'

She drummed her fingers on the table impatiently. 'Look, I get the whole s.e.xually ambiguous thing, that you're capable of s.h.a.gging your own shadow if the wind is blowing in the right direction, but why the double-bluff games? Why pretend you were gay when you're clearly not?'

'Why, do you fancy your chances with me now? Now that you know I could find you attractive after all? That I could be as equally aroused by your body as I could with that guy over there?' He tipped his head towards an attractive, dark-haired man at the bar.

'Just tell me what I want to know.'

He smiled. 'I'm unnerving you, aren't I? That's the great thing about a strong s.e.xuality; it delivers such a powerful punch. You see, Hat, I've always known I could have had you in bed any time I wanted.'

His arrogance made her want to get up and leave right away, but she had to stay, to know everything that had gone through his mind and brought them to this moment. 'So why didn't you have me,' she asked, 'as you so delicately put it?'

'I don't know. It's a mystery that's puzzled me for some time. Perhaps I was leaving the best till last.'

She snorted. 'Rubbish! It's because your so-called prowess never really worked on me. I'm the one person who could see through you.'

'But not entirely.'

'True,' she conceded, knowing that would always annoy her. 'But answer my question. Why pretend you were gay?'

'Queer. Straight. Gay. Bi. They're all just words. I'm me. This is the way I am.'

'You're not answering my question.'

'Okay. It was part of the subterfuge. A game Felicity liked to play. I could openly kiss her in front of Jeff and there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing he could do about it. Gay men are notorious for flirting with women; it's practically de rigueur.'

'But you professed to be gay before Jeff came into Felicity's life.'

'True. I guess I hadn't made up my mind just where I stood until she got serious about another man. I was shattered when she told me she was going to marry Jeff. I could have killed them both. I asked her to marry me instead but she said no, that like Maude, the only woman Yeats ever really loved, she wanted to have my love for the rest of her life. She believed that marriage would kill what we had.' He paused to take another mouthful of wine. 'If you were more literate, you'd know exactly what I'm talking about.'

'Pardon me for being such an ignorant oik.'

'You're forgiven.'

'So why all the secrecy in your emails? You went to extraordinary lengths.'

'Again it was what Felicity wanted. She got a thrill out of creating a special world in which only the two of us existed. She loved secrets. She particularly enjoyed the idea of us pretending to everyone else that it was only men I was into; it heightened the bond between us, you could say. She knew I was devoted to her and would do anything for her. For her part, she loved the power she had over me. So long as she was in the world I could only ever be truly happy when I was with her. There was a wildness about her that only I saw.'

'You make her sound like that crazy piece from Wuthering Heights.'

'That crazy piece was Cathy; please don't overplay the dumb card.'

Ignoring the put-down, she said, 'So when did the affair start?'

'Do you mean when we first made love?'

'I'm a.s.suming you did that before we all went away to college. No, I'm talking about when the pair of you started sneaking around behind Jeff's back.'

'That was the day they returned from their honeymoon.'

Having just taken a sip of her wine, Harriet nearly choked on it. 'You're joking!'

'No. I was there waiting for her. Jeff had to go away on a course and I made love to her in their bed. It was what she wanted, in case you're thinking I forced her to do it. You see, what you never realised about your sister was that she was a lot like me. She had an intensely strong s.e.xual nature. So strong that it emasculated dull old Jeff. He just wasn't man enough for her.'

'But you were?'

'In every way.'

'Were you faithful to her?'

'In mind, yes.'

'Meaning that when she wasn't available you carried on with other men or women in Cambridge?'

'You probably won't understand this, but in recent years I only slept with men. To sleep with another woman would have seemed unfaithful.'

A sudden burst of laughter from a nearby table had them both looking over. 'You're right,' she said, when the laughter had died down, 'I don't understand. You're beyond the realms of my comprehension. But I'm intrigued: how did you feel knowing that Felicity was betraying you by having s.e.x with Jeff?'

'I hated it.'

'And the children. When they came along, how did that make you feel? After all, they were a special bond between Felicity and Jeff that you couldn't deny or take away from them.'

'You think so?'

His voice was so sure, his face so composed, Harriet stopped in her tracks. It's another of his twisted games, she told herself. Don't let him get away with it. 'Please don't insult my intelligence by hinting that Jeff wasn't Carrie and Joel's father.'

He shrugged and picked up his wine gla.s.s. 'Okay then, I won't.'

But the damage was done. She had to know. 'Go on. Tell me, and make it the truth or you'll wish you'd never asked to meet me here tonight.'

'It's possible Carrie is my daughter.'

'And?'

'And what? What do you want of me? A paternity blood test right here?' He pushed back his sleeve to expose the underside of his forearm and pressed a finger to a prominent vein. 'There, cut me open and watch me bleed some more.'

'Oh, stop being so melodramatic. Just give me a straight answer to a straight question.'

'I can't. And if you think it's that easy then you're living in cloud cuckoo land. This is real life: ends don't always get neatly tied up with a silk ribbon of convenience. Some things we just have to live with as unknowns.'

'Bulls.h.i.t! Who did Felicity think was Carrie's father?'

'Because she couldn't be sure, she decided to keep it that way. She once said she thought I'd make a terrifyingly inconsistent father. That was something Jeff was good at, apparently.'

'Was it why she stayed with him?'

'One of the reasons. She thought the children would have more stability that way.'

'How disappointing that must have been for you, to know that love doesn't conquer all.'

'Please don't make fun of me.'

'What about Joel? Why don't you think you could be his father?'

'Basic biology. We didn't see one another during the time he was conceived.' He drained his gla.s.s in one long swig. 'I need another drink. How about you?'

'No thanks, I'm driving.'

The moment he was back in his seat, she started interrogating him again. 'How often did you get to see each other? And where?'

'It varied. Once a month. Sometimes twice a month. I always went to her. For obvious reasons it was easier for me to get away than it was for her.' He suddenly laughed. 'We had our lovers' trysts in some h.e.l.lish places, I can tell you. I can never pa.s.s a Travel Inn or cheap motel without thinking of Felicity.' But as quickly as his face had brightened, it darkened. 'Oh, s.h.i.t, Hat, I miss her so much. I used to believe that no one could understand a person fully. But Felicity knew me inside and out. She shared every emotion I ever experienced.'

'Do you think she would have approved of you lying and manipulating me? How you deliberately set out to destroy a potential relationship between Miles and me?' It was only now that Harriet trusted herself to acknowledge that her original instinct about Miles wanting more than friendship with her had been correct. That she hadn't imagined the intimacy of that moment in the park with him.

'If you'd been serious about Miles,' Dominic said, 'it wouldn't have mattered what I said or did.'

'That's absurd. You nipped it in the bud before either of us really knew what was possible. You still haven't told me why you did it. Do you really hate your brother so much?'

'It's got nothing to do with hate. It's about love and happiness and being deprived of it. Why should you and Miles have what I couldn't?'

'You admit it, then? That it was purely a selfish motive? As soon as you suspected Miles might be interested in me, you put a stop to it.'

'But of course. What else could it have been? If you're dying from a disease, why would you wish others good health? You want that good health for yourself.'

'Destroying my chance of happiness would have made you feel better?'

'Do you feel better for punishing me here this evening? Does making me explain my feelings for Felicity make you feel any better? Yes, it does, doesn't it? Inflicting pain on others is really quite pleasurable when you get down to it.'

'That's the most depraved thing I've heard you say.'

'On the contrary, it's merely a matter of understanding and coming to terms with the innate treachery of the life we're given. One thing is for sure: I shall never again allow myself to become emotionally dependent on another person. From now on I shall be a confirmed tart. I shall be as promiscuous as I want and, as Byron said, I shall spend the rest of my life trying to save myself from myself.'

'I don't believe you. You're covering up the fact that the driest of souls got scorched by love. You've discovered the hard way that there's something more powerful in the world than your ego.'

'How exceedingly poetic of you. Are you talking from experience?'

'That's none of your business.'

'So be it.'

They sat in silence for some minutes while a group of people at a nearby table gathered up their coats and bags and made a noisy exit. It was getting late, the wine bar was thinning out, and by rights Harriet should be making a move herself, but she still had a list of questions she needed answering. 'How long did you think you could keep the lie going for?' she asked.