In the past, when she had found girls for him, she had done so by scouring the clubs where she had known she would find the kind of girl he was looking for. What Blade was demanding that she provide now was a completely different ball game and one she wasn't quite sure she wanted to get into, Grimly, she finished getting ready for work.

As she removed her rings from her sore and swollen nipples, she flinched. Blade had been rough this time, even for him. She was going to set up an appointment later on this afternoon with one of the company's clients. If she didn't wear a bra, he would be able to see her swollen nipples quite clearly through the silk shirt she was planning to wear. She pursed her lips. He was only relatively small fry and she wasn't sure she wanted to waste her time dangling any bait in front of him. On the other hand, she still had the monthly payments to meet on her BMW, and Blade had probably emptied her purse of all her cash before he left.

She could tantalise him a bit without committing herself. It never did any harm to keep a bit of something in reserve. Soon it would be time for her to start looking around for a new job. She had suspected recently that Garth was on to her and he wasn't a man who would take too kindly to her using his business and his clients in the way she had been doing.

Pity, really. Had he been a different type, she could have quite enjoyed adding him to her client list and even offering him a specially reduced rate, but she had realised within weeks of joining the partnership that he was one man who was not open to the kind of sex she put on offer although that didn't stop her hoping she might find a way to change his mind.

He probably never does it any other way but the missionary position, she had decided witheringly when he had brushed off her first discreet attempt to interest him. But deep down inside that vital female part of her, she had known that while Garth might not be interested in the kind of sadomasochistic sex that Blade had taught her to enjoy, he was very definitely a man who knew how to arouse and satisfy a woman, albeit with rather more tender and gentler methods than she was accustomed to. Her father had been on the phone again but she had no intention of ringing him back. It pleased her to think of how he would feel--how he would react--if he discovered how she really lived. That would be something for him to tell his precious Rebecca about. Just for a second, her eyes gleamed with pleasure at the thought of procuring her for Blade, but she quickly dismissed the idea as unworkable. A pity, she would have loved to have seen her father's face if she had been able to involve her.

It was fortunate that the other girl she shared her small office with was away on leave, Tara acknowledged shakily as she started to open the drawers in her desk and remove her personal belongings. Beside her computer was the framed photograph she had had enlarged from the Christmas before last, showing her with her mother and both sets of grandparents. Her fingers trembled betrayingly as she reached for it, turning it face down as she rammed it into the nearly empty drawer and slammed it shut. It had no place in her new life. How could it?

Outside her half-open office door, it seemed strange to see the normal activity of the office go on around her despite the traumatic change that had taken place in her life. There was no sign of her father. No doubt he was still with her. Claudia.

How ironic that after all the time she had spent, or rather, wasted, believing that her parents ought to be together, now that they quite obviously were, it meant so little to her.

As she opened another drawer, quick, helpless tears filled her eyes and splashed down onto the desk.

Estelle paused as she walked past the open door and saw Tara bent over her desk, tears running down her cheeks. Curious, she pushed it open even farther and walked into the office. After firmly closing it behind her, she went up to Tara and placed her hand comfortingly and restrainingly on her arm, asking her, Tara, what is it? What's wrong? "

The shock of realising that her distress had been witnessed by someone else robbed Tara of the ability to do anything other than shake her head in silent misery as the tears kept filling her eyes.

Using Tara's silence and obvious loss of composure to seize control of the situation, Estelle put her arms around her, holding her close, firmly ignoring all Tara's attempts to break free of her 'comforting' embrace. All her instincts told her that she might just have found the answer to her problems.

"Oh, you poor thing," she murmured mock n tenderly, her sharp eyes quickly noting the fact that Tara wasn't wearing her customary ring.

Personally, had she been Tara, she would have insisted on being given something far more expensive and show-of fable than the tiny heart shaped diamond Tara had seemed so happy to wear.

"Come on, you have a good cry. Men! They're all the same." As she had anticipated, this female empath ising resulted in Tara's body heaving with fresh sobs.

Estelle smiled triumphantly to herself. It worked every time. Show a vulnerable overemotional sister a bit of sympathy, and before you knew where you were, you had bonded for life. From the evidence in front of her, though, Tara was taking things a bit too far. Being reduced to tears by the loss of a man was one thing; being reduced to clearing out your office desk was quite another. To Estelle's experienced eye, Tara's office bore all the hallmarks of a woman who was on the point of running away.

Tara's next words confirmed her thoughts as she heard her hiccuping, "Please let me go. I've got to get away... I've--' " Of course you have," Estelle soothed, her mind working quickly.

"Here, let me help you with all of this."

Before Tara could either stop her or refuse, she had started to neatly stack all the small personal possessions Tara had removed from her desk.

"Look, let me help you out with these," she suggested.

"You can't carry them all yourself."

Before Tara could protest, she was opening the office door, her arms piled high with Tara's belongings as she martial led her protectively in front of her, keeping her from any close inspection by anyone in the outer office as she shepherded her towards the lift.

Tara's car was parked in the underground car park and listlessly she allowed Estelle to take the keys from her and open the boot.

"Look, where is it you were planning to go?" Estelle asked her, adding, when Tara made no response, "I can't let you drive anywhere in this state. It would be on my conscience for ever. Look, I've got an idea. I'm due to break for lunch, so why don't we go somewhere quiet and...?"

Immediately, Tara shook her head. She and Estelle had never been particularly close; there had always been something about the other girl that made Tara feel slightly repelled by her, an air of sexuality and knowingness that, without understanding why, Tara had always found off- putting. There had been rumours in the office about Estelle's supposedly slightly unorthodox sex life, but Tara had always firmly dismissed as envy and office gossip any suggestions she had heard that Estelle used her undoubted sex appeal to boost her more conventionally earned income.

"I'm not taking no for an answer," Estelle told her firmly.

"There's no way I'm letting you go anywhere like this. Your father..."

Tara flinched, the colour fading from her face. The last thing shewanted was for any kind. any kind of contact at all with Garth.

"Yes... all right... FU come with you," she agreed.

When she saw the slightly nervous and very betraying look Tara gave over her shoulder, Estelle smiled cynically to herself before urging Tara into the passenger seat of her car, telling her determinedly, "I'll drive. It'll be safer that way."

Tara, who had been assuming that they would walk to wherever it wasthey were going to have lunch, simply couldn't find the energy to arguewith her. She felt totally overwhelmed by the other girl's tenacity.All she really wanted to do was to get in her car and drive and keep ondriving until she found somewhere no one knew her and where she knew noone, somewhere where she could start afresh, where she could beherself. The last thing she wanted or needed right now was sometedious lunch with a woman she barely knew, but to tell Estelle sowould take too much effort, use more strength than she had left. Itwas easier, simpler, to just go along with her.

Leaning her head back, Tara closed her eyes and let Estelle manoeuvre her car out of its parking space.

As she watched Tara's eyes close, an idea was beginning to form inside Estelle's brain, an idea so challenging and dangerous that to think of it made her shudder deliciously inside with a mixture of fear and excitement.

"They want someone with class... style..." Blade had told her, and

Tara had both of those and much, much more. Oh, she couldn't wait to see her face as she lay there spreadeagled await and Betraying the entrance of her torturer. She wouldn't cry or scream, not at first, but that would only heighten the delicious anticipatory sexual pleasure of the onlookers who were there to watch her and often to pleasure themselves in orgiastic release at seeing her vulnerable naked body being subjected to the placement of the pretty but oh, so deceptive gold rings that the piercer would decorate her naked body with.

Those delicate gold rings weren't just ttiere for ornament, not even for the teasing play of a lover; they could be used as a means of constraint and imprisonment threaded through with fine thin wires.

Estelle started to smile and then to laugh. She had found Blade exactly what he had asked her for and more besides. She couldn't wait to see his face when he realised what she had brought him. It wasn't going to be easy, of course, but there were always drugs that could be used to soften and weaken a person's resistance and who knew better where to get them than Blade.

They were out of the car park now, Tara's eyes still closed. Estelle thought quickly. If she could pump her with enough to drink at lunch-time, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to get her to agree to go back to her flat, and once there. To take her straight there now as she was tempted to do could be a bit tricky, though. No. Lunch first, and then. In the seat beside her, Tara was too absorbed in her pain to pay much attention to what was going on around her.

Ryland. What would he think, what would he do when he came back and found her gone? He would contact her parents, of course, and then they would tell him. She swallowed hard. What would they tell him? That she wasn't fit to be his wife. to be the mother of his children. that she. A hot tear ran down her face, followed by another.

Seeing these signs of her grief, Estelle gleefully laughed inwardly to herself. Stupid bitch. Well, she'd soon learn what real pain was all about. Very soon, no doubt, if Blade had anything to do with it. Some people might consider him to be warped but Estelle didn't. She knew what motivated and drove him. Pain. Pleasure. Call it what you would, it was the only sure thing in life. Far more sure and reliable than a lover's promises or a parent's--especially a parent's!

liis father was the first person Ryland saw as he came through the arrivals gate and he hurried to greet his son, embracing him fiercely when he reached him.

His father, Ryland recognised with a sudden sharp stab of concern, had aged in his absence. He looked greyer, shorter somehow, his body, his whole stance, now that of an older man. His face anxious and furrowed, he took Ryland by the arm and hurried him towards the exit.

Tops, what is it, what's happened? " Ryland demanded.

Shaking his head, Jed advised him, "Wait until we're in the car, son."

The freeway was already busy with traffic as they pulled onto it, his father's concentration apparently given to his driving, leaving Ryland edgily irritated.

"Look, Dad..." he began. His body was starting to suffer the effects of the long journey, that and the shock of being summoned home so dramatically.

"I'm sorry, son," Jed apologised, recognising his growing impatience, 'it's just. well, it's all been such a. such a shock. "

"What's been a shock?" Ryland demanded to know.

"There's been an accident on the island... a fire. By the time the fire department got out there--' " A fire, but what . how. "

His father shook his head.

"When we get home," he replied sombrely.

"But who, who was there? Are they...?" Ryland stopped and swallowed, still unable to take in fully what his father was saying.

The small island off the New England coast that had come into the family with his aunt on her marriage to his uncle had been the scene of many happy family holidays for him while he was growing up. Even after her husband's death off its coast in heavy seas in his racing yacht, his aunt still continued to visit the island.

There was a tradition that the whole family spent Labour Day there, and this year he had hoped that he and Tara. He swallowed again.

"Margot was there... and... and Lloyd," his father told him gruffly, going silent for a moment before adding quietly, 'and your aunt Martha was there, as well. It was the housekeeper's day off so at least Esme. " "And Margot, Lloyd and Aunt Martha...?" Ryland started to question him but the words were sticking in his throat as though deep down inside he already knew the answer.

Jed's hands tightened on the wheel, then he told him thickly, "All gone. The fire chief says it's more than likely that the smoke--'

"The smoke? But surely they must have known, had some warning ... had time to get out?"

"I don't know, son. There is evidence that... The fire department and the police are still investigating. It seems likely that the fire started late at night and if they were all asleep..."

"I can't believe it," Ryland whispered, his voice cracking.

"I just can't..."

"I know, son. I know," his father consoled him.

"Let's wait until we get home to talk about it properly. Right now..."

"It's okay. Dad, I understand," Ryland told him.

They were off the freeway now, taking the familiar road that led to the small New England town where Ryland had grown up. It seemed so ironic now that while he had been living in London, he had believed that the next time he made this trip it would have been with Tara at his side, his mood one of jubilation and excitement at the thought of introducing her to his family as his wife-to-be. He had pictured the smiling, happy faces of his parents, his siblings; he had visualised even his aunt's stern stiffness melting beneath the warmth of Tara's natural charm and loving nature. He had, he realised now, very much wanted his aunt to meet Tara and to see in her eyes the belief, the conviction that in Tara's hands and in the hands of the children she would give him, the future of the business and, more important by far, the future of the family would be safe.

Tara might not be happy when she knew about the constraints that so much money would place upon her children but she had, beneath her outer softness, Ryland realised, a certain steely strength that was a combination of all of her mother's and her father's best characteristics, and he knew she would be steadfastly loyal, not just to him and their love, but to the concept believed wholeheartedly by his aunt that great wealth brought with it a responsibility to use such wealth wisely and for the benefit of mankind.

Tara. God, but he needed her desperately beside him right now. He needed her strength, her warmth, her compassion, but most of all he needed her love.

It was that time of the year when summer was beginning to end but fall had not yet properly begun, the green leaves of the trees listless and tired-looking, worn out, rather like his father, he acknowledged as he took a sideways glance at the older man.

The New England countryside never looked its best at this time of the year, Ryland considered. m these last days of summer, it always had an air of weary waiting and dullness before the burst of colour as the leaves turned in the fall. The pretty clapboard New England house that his great-great-grandfather had built for his bride and set in its own grounds overlooking the lake just outside the town looked as it always did around now, he noticed as his father swung the car into the drive and the house came into view--in need of a coat of paint. Painting it was something of a family tradition, a chore his father always carried out himself and one that ever since he could remember, Ryland had always got roped into helping him out with.

As a boy, his task was simply to stand at the bottom of the ladder, but the last summer he had spent at home, he had been the one to clean and paint the gutters while his father painted the lower portion. It struck him as he studied the house that his progression from the bottom of the ladder to the top was very much in line with the progression his aunt had been taking him through vis-H-vis his role in the business, but of course his aunt was now no longer around to guide and support him. Soberly, he focused on the house.

Even before his parents and the girls had moved into the family home--in the days when first his maternal grandparents and then after his grandmother's death when his grandfather had lived here alone--his father had still spent the last weeks of every summer repainting its large, rambling exterior.

It was a comfortable family house, if perhaps a little on the large side for modem-day living, but Ryland had already visualised, lying in bed beside Tara in her cramped London flat, the two of them buying a similar type of property close by that of his parents. He, too, would spend the last days of summer painting it with the help of his and Tara's sons and daughters--Tara would insist on that. Briefly, he smiled--just thinking about her warmed his heart and was almost as comforting as though he had been able to reach out and take hold of her hand.

His aunt had a large, grand house in Boston's Back Bay, but he knew even before they discussed it, that Tara, like him, would prefer the quieter environment of the New England town in which he had been brought up.

As his father stopped the car, Ryland could see his mother standing outside the house waiting for them, his sisters by her side, startlingly grown up now even though it was only just over twelve months since he had last seen them, their expressions betraying the sense of shock and disbelief he himself was experiencing.

"Oh, Ry, son, I'm so sorry you've had to come home to this," his mother told him as she hugged him tightly.

"I hope your Tara will understand and forgive us for calling you home like this."

Ryland hugged her back. His mother didn't need to explain to him that when his family met Tara, she didn't want that meeting to be overshadowed by the tragedy they were now having to face.

"Fortunately, your grandfather is away visiting an old friend," his mother told him as he glanced automatically towards the path that led to the smaller adjacent house where his maternal grandfather lived.

"He thought a lot of Martha. They used to argue politics together and..." His mother's voice trailed away.

"Come on, let's get inside. Police Chief Amory has been on the telephone, Jed," she told Ryland's father as the whole family headed for the house, arms wrapped comfortingly around one another in instinctive support.

"I told him that you'd gone to pick Ry up from the airport and that you'd call him back just as soon as you could. Why don't you take Ry into your study and tell him what's been happening while I go make both of you some hot coffee?"

Ryland's father waited until his mother had brought them both a large pot of coffee and quietly closed the door behind her before beginning to talk.

"I didn't want to start discussing this in the car, Ry, but it seems like the fire that killed... According to the evidence that's already been examined, it seems like it must have been started deliberately."

"Deliberately?" Ryland stared at his father.

"Are you trying to say that this was the work of an arsonist... someone who...? But why... and how the hell did they get on the island in the first place?"

Tiredly, Ryland ran his fingers through his hair.

"I guess because of her wealth. Aunt Martha could have been a target for... I know there was a time when Margot was a baby that kidnap threats were made against her."

"This didn't have anything to do with Martha's wealth, Ry," his father countered quietly.

"It's..."

Ryland waited as his father stopped speaking to pour them both a cup of coffee. His hand shook, Ryland noticed, and beneath his healthy tan his skin had a pinched grey tinge of shock and grief.

"It looks very much as though the fire was started by ... by Margot."

"Margot!" Ryland almost dropped the cup of coffee his father was handing him.

"But that's im- possibleV " It's no secret in the family how Margot felt about Lloyd," his father started to explain painfully.