"No? Is that why you divorced him? Because you discovered that he had a habit? A habit of using prostitutes?" Tara demanded of Claudia.

"Or was my conception some far-sighted social experiment... an innovative method or attempt at surrogacy? Perhaps you paid my mother to inseminate herself with my father's sperm?" she demanded with bitter cynicism.

"No, of course," she answered her own question, 'that wasn't the way it was, was it? You paid her for the use of her body and she got pregnant. That must have been a shock for you. I'm surprised you didn't try to persuade her to have me aborted--' "It wasn't like that, Tara," Claudia interjected desperately.

"You must understand--' " I must understand? " Tara gave a bitter, high pitched, jarring laugh.

"My God, what kind of people are you? One of you, my father, uses a drug addict and a prostitute for sex and the other, my so-called mother, then steals the resultant by-product of that act. I don't know which of you I despise the most."

"Tara," Garth told her warningly, 'there's a lot that you don't know, a lot that--' "So tell me."

Claudia could see him giving her a quick, questioning look. She nodded her head. This was all so much worse than she had feared and she couldn't help wondering how she would have felt had she been standing in Tara's shoes.

She ached to be able to tell her how guilty she felt, how . how helpless in the face of Tara's justifiable anger and pain, how much she longed to be able to wipe them away, but instead she simply listened while Garth tersely explained the circumstances of Tara's conception, deliberately leaving out the fact that both of them had come to believe that Katriona, out of drug-induced jealousy or spite, had intentionally tried to conceive his child.

For a few seconds after he had finished speaking, the room was completely silent. Then Tara burst into a peal of wild, angry laughter, exclaiming contemptuously, scoffing, "You really expect me to believe that? Oh, come on."

"It's the truth," Claudia told her quietly.

"The truth. What do you know about that? You are a liar and a thief.

You had no right to do what you did," she told Claudia.

"You took me, stole me from my dying mother, and then kept from me, concealed from me, the truth surrounding my own birth. You didn't just steal from my mother, you stole from me, as well, Claudia. You stole my right to my own past and I shall never, ever forgive you for that."

Claudia bowed her head. That cold, deliberate "Claudia' instead of Mum or Ma had hurt her more than anything else Tara had said. But she deserved to be hurt, didn't she? After all, Tara was being hurt. Tara was hurting. Tara was... " I'm going now," Tara informed them, 'and I never want to see either of you again. Not ever."

As Claudia made a small involuntary protest, Garth took hold of her as though to physically restrain her from going to Tara, shaking his head as Tara snatched up her bag and ran towards the door.

"Garth, we can't let her go like that," Claudia protested miserably as they heard Tara opening the door and slamming it hard behind her.

"She needs--' " She needs time on her own to come to terms with what we've told her," Garth interrupted.

"None of this should have happened," Claudia told him weepily, 'and it's all my fault that it has. You were right. I should have told her years ago when she was young enough to listen and accept. Oh, Garth, what have I done? "

"What you've done is be her mother," Garth told her softly.

"The best mother any child could ever have, and ultimately Tara is going to recognise that."

"Is she?" Claudia's mouth trembled.

"Right now, so far as she's concerned, Katriona is her mother and I'm just someone who stole her and..." She stopped speaking, her emotions overwhelming her, and she started to cry.

"Hush, hush, it's all right," Garth comforted her tenderly.

"As you say, right now, Tara is angry-with both of us--but she's your daughter, our daughter, Clo and--' " I can't forget the look on her face when she asked us about Katriona.

Should we have told her so much. Garth? Couldn't we have. "

"Couldn't we have what? Lied to her some more, pretended that Katriona wasn't what she was?"

"They weren't what she was," Claudia pro and Betray 377 tested.

"Drugs and prostitution were what she did... what she was was a young, vulnerable girl who felt rejected and unloved by her father.

Oh, Garth. Garth, I'm so afraid for Tara. Where will she go. what will she. "

"Tara isn't Katriona, Clo/ Garth reminded her.

"She's older for one thing, and for another... Tara knows that she is loved and wanted.

She's also got Ryland, don't forget. Just give her time. "

"Perhaps we ought to ring Ryland and warn him," Claudia suggested anxiously.

Garth frowned.

"No...1 think we should let her tell him herself."

"Garth, what if she never comes back, if she...?"

"She will," Garth reassured her.

"Once she's had time to calm down and assess the situation, Tara will realise how much we love her."

After she had left her father's apartment, Tara headed blindly and instinctively for her own flat and Ryland.

Despite the fact that it was a relatively warm day, she was literally shivering with shock and reaction, her mind, her emotions, still barely able to take in what she had just learned. It was impossible for her to analyse or assess her feelings, impossible almost for her to even begin to comprehend the enormity of what she had been told.

Impossible even to imagine that someone as close to her as her mother--no, Claudia--could have managed to keep something so important a secret from her for so long.

While she had been growing up, all those times when she cherished the closeness, the bond that she believed existed between them, no doubt Claudia had secretly been remembering that she was not really her child; that she was doing the charitable, the right thing, in giving a home. respectability to her husband's bastard baby. the baby he had fathered on one of life's losers, a junkie and a prostitute, a woman who sold her body to men for. "No!" Almost screaming the word as the tears poured down her face, Tara clenched her fists, oblivious to the shocked and curious stares of other pedestrians.

All those years Claudia had claimed, pre tended, to love her. How could she have loved her? Tara closed her eyes in pain. That was what hurt her the worst. Knowing that Claudia could not possibly have loved her in the way she had always believed. How could she? She wasn't her child.

"I loved you the moment I saw you," Claudia had claimed. But of course, Tara knew better than to believe her.

"There was a special bond between us."

What special bond? The fact that Garth, her husband, was her father?

Some bond. And her mother, her real mother, how had she felt about the fact that she was pregnant? Had she felt any thing at all or had the baby simply been an un wanted inconvenience?

"She wanted me to take you," Claudia had said.

"She knew she was dying," she had added gently.

"She wanted you to be safe, to be loved."

Had she? Tara doubted it. How could she believe anything that Claudia and Garth told her now after what they had done, the way they had concealed the truth from her?

All those years and she had never guessed, never suspected. All those years when they had known and she had not. She hated them, despised them, and she never wanted to see them again. The sooner she and Ryland left for America, the happier she would be. There she could have a fresh start, put the past. "Ry... Ry..." She was crying his name as she unlocked the door and hurried into the flat.

The smell of his shower gel still hung tantalisingly in the air.

Eagerly, Tara hurried through the empty sitting room and into the bedroom. She came to an abrupt halt as it slowly began to dawn on her that the flat was empty.

Blinking back her tears, she returned dejectedly to the sitting room, then frowned when she saw the note he had left her. Her hand was trembling as she picked it up and started to read it. By the time she had put it down, her face was ashen, fresh tears welling up in her eyes.

Ryland wasn't here. He had gone. summoned home by his father.

He had left her a number to ring. Frantically, she started to dial it, then stopped and replaced the receiver.

Ryland had been summoned home by his family and that family included his aunt. Everything that Ryland had said to her about his aunt abruptly came back to her, including his own rueful admission that she had very strong views on the type of woman she wanted him to marry.

Numbly, she sat down. How would she feel when she discovered the truth about Ryland's prospective bride? How would his mother, his parents, feel? Did Tara really need to ask herself? Painfully, she swallowed the hard lump threatening to close her throat. She couldn't put Ryland in a position where he was forced to choose between them. She loved him too much for that, knew too well that if she allowed him to choose her, there would be a part of him that would always feel guilt at having to let his family down and she didn't want their marriage to be marred by guilt or regrets. She wanted it to be whole and healthy, perfect, but how could it be like that now? How could anything ever be the same again?

Her mother, a prostitute and a drug addict.

Helplessly, Tara started to rock herself to and fro, her arms hugging round her knees in a timeless gesture of self-comfort. But there was no escape from what she had learned as she mentally relived the recent meeting with her parents.

"Since you didn't see fit to tell me before, why have you decided to tell me now?" she had challenged Claudia, demanding bitterly at one point, "Did you just suddenly decide you were bored with playing the role of loving mother, wanted a change, a different way of life? You wanted me out of your life, is that it?" she had accused wildly, watching as Claudia's eyes filled with tears.

Claudia had turned helplessly towards Garth before saying brokenly, "I... I was afraid that there might be a problem with Ryland's aunt, that she might somehow discover the truth. Your visa--when it didn't come through immediately, I didn't want ... I wanted you to be prepared."

"It didn't come through because the computers were causing problems... not because they had discovered your lies," she had told her coldly.

A part of her wished that they had left her in ignorance, that they had kept their secrets to themselves. But why should she expect Claudia to consider her feelings? It wasn't as though she really meant anything to her. She wasn't really her child . her daughter.

Clambering to her feet, Tara picked up the note Ryland had left her with his number in Boston and, before she could give in to the temptation to redial it, she tore the paper into pieces and threw it into the waste-paper basket.

She couldn't stay here. Not now. She didn't have the right. She wasn't the person to whom this flat had been home any more. She was someone different, a stranger who, as yet, she didn't even really know. The child of a stranger. She felt she had no home, no past, no future, no real identity.

Even the belongings around her, the clothes in the wardrobe, suddenly seemed alien to her. She was completely alone now. She had nothing. no one. Shaking her head to banish the tears she could feel threatening to flood her eyes, she stumbled towards the door of the flat. She had no clear idea of what she intended to do, only that everything that comprised what she had thought of as her life had suddenly been taken from her. Her belief in herself as a person had proved to be a fiction, a falsehood, a sham. She was not and never had been the person she had always believed. She was. nothing.

With her hand on the door handle, she stopped and turned around.

Walking back towards the telephone, she pulled from her finger the ring Ryland had given her shortly after he had declared his love.

A single tear splashed down, but Tara didn't notice. With the removal of Ryland's ring, she was distancing herself from the Tara she had previously been. She was no longer that person. How could she be? And how could Ryland or anyone else, including herself, love or want the Tara she had become? The Tara who carried in her genes the blood of a stranger. What had she been like, her mother, the mother who had taken money from men in exchange for the use of her body?

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Tara headed back to the door, not daring to turn round and look at what she was leaving behind just in case she weakened and changed her mind.

"Have you thought any more about what I said?" Estelle frowned as she looked into Blade's sleep-softened face. He had turned up late the previous evening high on drugs, insisting on being let in and, for once, satisfying his sexual appetite had not been the focus of all his attention.

He had given her some garbled tale about being in trouble with 'the big man' as he called him, and Estelle's heart had sunk as she listened to him. That he both used and dealt in drugs was no secret to her. She had used them with him herself--harmless recreational stuff that had given an added edge to their sex. She could see nothing wrong in it just so long as you knew what you were doing--and what you were taking--but she had noticed recently that Blade was becoming increasingly involved in the drug scene.

Now he was pushing her again, demanding to know if she had found another girl yet that they could have sex with--someone classy enough to command a high price from the punters once he and she had trained and taught her.

"Straight three-in-a-bed stuff isn't what the kinds of guys I'm talking about are interested in," he had told her when they had just discussed the subject.

"They've done all that. No, they want something special, something really hot."

"Like what?" Estelle had asked him, intrigued but also, she surprised herself, irritated at the same time.

There were occasions, increasingly lately, when she felt not just irritated and, yes, bored by Blade's obsession with sex, but also almost actively repulsed by it--but she had learned to quickly dismiss such thoughts. They were too dangerous, too frightening. She had to stay loyal to Blade because without him she had nothing-was nothing!

"Oh, you know," he had answered her.

"They want something... someone... exciting, original. Someone discreet and fresh. They don't live in this country and they want to take home with them some video souvenirs to remind them. They're willing to pay very well, very well indeed, but they're beginning to get impatient. You must know someone we could use. They don't want the usual stuff you can buy on the street. They don't want some jaded, overused hooker who's just going through the motions."

"Well, if it's a virgin they're looking for..." she had begun dismissively, but he had shaken his head.

"No, not that. They want someone who understands, enjoys pain. You understand and enjoy pain, don't you?" he had whispered to her, his libido returning as the effect of the drugs he had taken started to wear off.

"You understand and enjoy it very, very much."

He had laughed as she started to evade him, playing the game she had played with him so many times before, her senses responding as they always did to the sharp thrill of fear that went through her as he overpowered her.

With Blade there was always this delicious edge of not quite being sure how far he would take things, how much he would frighten and hurt her, how much she dare trust him.

"You've been having someone else," he had told her once he secured her wrists to the bed head.

"No/ she had denied, flinching as he knelt astride her and tugged painfully on her hair be fore biting sharply into her breast.

"Don't lie to me he had warned her.

"I can smell him ... taste him on your body. What did he do to you? Did he do this?"

She had cried out sharply as he tugged pain fully on her nipple, using his teeth on the gold ring he had given her as a birthday present along with the visit to the body piercer.

"What we need is someone new and... adventurous," he had reminded her, continuing to arouse and tease her body.

"These men are close friends of the big man and they've ex pressed an interest in seeing an extra-special performance he added as he tugged sharply on her nipple ring.

"It won't be easy finding someone for that," she warned him.

"You'll have to," he insisted.

"These men are major league players and they're beginning to get impatient. There's no way I can disappoint them. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She had understood all right. There had been an occasion in the past when she hadn't been able to supply him with what he wanted. She hadn't seen him for almost ten weeks. She shivered now, remembering how much she had missed him. How much she had ached for him. No other man ever came anywhere near as close to satisfying her sexually in the way that he could. No other man would.

Til do my best," she promised him now. Her body ached all over from their sex session and the last thing she felt like was going to work.

But it was her work that provided her with the opportunity to meet the kinds of men who were prepared to pay generously for the extracurricular activities she provided, and besides, it gave her a fierce fris son of pleasure to relate to Blade just what they had done to her, these men she had found for herself rather than men he had sent to her. After all, she didn't get paid for the ones she serviced for him and the money was extremely important to her, almost as important as the sex.

"Make sure you do," he ordered, adding warningly, 'and remember, these guys want somehing with class, the kind of woman who looks and acts expensive. They won't be satisfied with some cheap tart. " Someone classy and expensive--and where the hell was she supposed to find someone like that who'd be willing to do what his clients wanted?