"Did you come in your car?" she asked Claudia now.

"Yes, I did," Claudia replied, giving her a puzzled look.

"Why?"

"Good. Can you give me a lift back to London? On the way you can explain just what you've been doing these past few days sharing a bedroom with a man," she added mock-severely.

Smiling, Claudia took a step forward, then stopped, hanging back.

Gravely, Tara watched her. Suddenly, feeling immeasurably moved, she closed the space between them, hugging Claudia as though she were the mother and Claudia the child.

"It's all right. Everything's going to be all right," she reassured her quietly.

But as they walked back through the churchyard, Claudia noticed sadly that Tara was unconsciously putting a slight distance between them instead of holding on to her arm as she normally did. And she noticed, too, that Tara had not called her Ma as she always so affectionately had before.

they're boarding my flight," Ryland told his parents, turning to hug first his mother and then his father.

"I'll be back just as soon as I've spoken to Tara."

His aunt's funeral had taken place and yesterday he had spent most of the day in meetings with various legal and financial advisers following the reading of her will and the confirmation that she had indeed left the bulk of her estate to him.

As he got on board the plane and settled in his seat a little guiltily, Ryland admitted that his thoughts were not on what he was leaving behind but on what or rather whom he was going back to. He had missed Tara like hell, all the more so because he had not been able to even reach her by phone. The discovery, via her mother's assistant, that Claudia was away for a few days had caused him to guess that Tara must have taken advantage of his absence to spend a few days with her mother.

If he was honest, he was occasionally just a little jealous of the closeness that Tara shared with Claudia. Not that he wasn't close with his own parents, but he wasn't an only child. Tara shared a special bond with Claudia that in no way was that of an overly possessive parent for a much loved child. Claudia, it was obvious, both expected and encouraged Tara's independence and Ryland knew that she liked him and welcomed their relationship. It was just that the two of them had something that was so damned special.

They would be able to return to England for frequent visits, though, and have Claudia over to stay with them whenever she wished.

Claudia. She was one sassy, independent lady with her own business to run and, from what he had observed, not much free time to fill. His own mother would like her and enjoy her company even though, in many ways, they were very different.

Tara. Ryland closed his eyes and settled down to while away the few remaining hours that separated him from her. How was she going to react to what he had to tell her?

It had been relatively late when Tara got to bed. Her parents had taken her out to dinner, her father insisting that he wanted her there as a witness when he formally proposed to her mother. She was pleased about the way things had turned out for them, of course, but it had been hard. As she watched them, she had been wondering bleakly how she was ever going to fill the empty space in her life where Ryland should have been.

She could accept now just how much Claudia loved her and even to some extent understand why she had done what she had done. Claudia, on her part, had suggested gently that she might want to join a support group of other adopted adults, where she could freely discuss her feelings of pain and betrayal, but Tara had refused, not wanting to add to Claudia's obvious guilt by telling her that very soon she was going to be called upon to deal with a pain potentially even more devastating than discovering that Claudia had not given birth to her.

She was certain that Claudia would blame herself, but she hoped that she would understand the reason why she had to end her relationship with Ryland. She simply couldn't bear to be the cause of a rift between Ryland and his family. His aunt and Ryland, too, belonged to the elite of Boston society--a society that she had heard attached great importance to family background. How would they feel about Ryland marrying her? Tara already knew the answer. That Ryland loved her, she didn't for one moment doubt, but sometimes love was just not enough.

She hadn't dared allow herself to ring him in Boston, frightened that if she did he might hear what she was feeling in her voice and demand to know what was wrong. When she told him, she wanted it to be in person. She wanted, if she was honest, to hold him, to be held by him one last time before she revealed the truth. She wanted. She wanted Ryland, she admitted, closing her eyes on the pointless tears she knew she was going to shed.

* * ii- It was gone three in the morning when Ryland let himself into Tara's flat. There had been a delay at Heathrow before they could land and then another with the luggage, but finally he was here--home.

Dropping his case and his jacket, he picked his way through the darkness of the sitting room and opened the bedroom door.

Tara was lying star fashion, arms and legs outstretched, across their bed, her eyelashes ridiculously long against her sleep-flushed skin, her hair curling wildly in glorious abandon around her head, one deliciously rounded breast exposed where the duvet had slipped away from her body.

Ryland discovered that his throat had suddenly gone dry in the flood of aching arousal that gripped him. He had noticed Tara's breasts the first time they met, noticed them and wondered . wished. He started undressing without taking his eyes off her. He couldn't take his eyes off her; he was afraid if he did she might disappear, a mirage conjured up by his intense longing for her. One pink foot had escaped from under the duvet. Grinning to himself, he bent towards it.

She hated his touching her feet, she always claimed. She was so sensitive, they were so ticklish, that even his breathing on them sent her into paroxysms of giggles.

Very, very carefully he kissed one pink digit. In her sleep, Tara's lips parted as she gave an al and Betray 457 most soundless soft sigh, her mouth starting to curl upwards.

Smiling himself, Ryland cupped her foot and slowly started to suck on her toe.

"Mmm..." Ryland could feel the shiver of pleasure that curled her toes and tightened the muscles in her leg as she responded to the sensuality of his embrace. He stroked the bare skin with his fingertips and sucked a little harder.

"Ooooh..." Tara shot up in bed, her eyes wide open as she stared in disbelief at Ryland.

"Ry! Ry ... oh, Ry, when did you get back?" she demanded, flinging herself into his arms, torn between tears and laughter.

"Just now," he told her mock-complainingly.

"Why did you have to go and wake up? I was just beginning to enjoy myself."

"No, you weren't, you fibber. You were trying to torment me," Tara said, giggling.

"Mmm... talking of torment," Ryland murmured in between the hotly passionate kisses they were sharing, 'have you any idea just how much I've missed you? "

"Missed me, have you?"

"Mmm... want to know how much?"

Their kisses were growing longer and deeper, the words that separated them shorter and more breathless until they weren't talking at all, the only sound to break the silence of their bedroom the heightened tension of their breathing and the soft sound of their mouths meeting and fusing.

Tara shivered in delight as Ryland cupped her face to kiss her more intently and then broke away to look into her eyes before kissing her again, watching her this time as she was watching him. Her eyes closed only when his hands started to lovingly stroke the full length of her body.

She loved it when Ryland made love to her like this, slowly and oh, so thoroughly, taking his time, making her wait, making them both wait.

She gave a small, soft groan as his hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs rubbing sensuously against her tight nipples, her stomach muscles already tensing in expectation and anticipation.

"Ry ... Ry ... I can't wait any longer," she moaned as she reached out for him.

"I've missed you so much. I want you so badly... so very, very badly."

Later, holding her tightly, watching the dawn break across the sky, Ryland took a deep breath. It couldn't be put off any longer.

"No, Ry, please let me speak first. There's something I have to tell you."

The tension he could feel in her body even more than the anxious uncertainty he could hear in her voice alerted him immediately, causing his own stomach muscles to clench on a sharp sensation of doom.

Although he had firmly pushed such thoughts to one side, the fact that she had not rung him while he had been in Boston, coupled with his own inability to reach her, had caused him to feel uneasy and concerned, to worry that she had somehow already discovered the truth. Despite the fact that the lovemaking and intimacy they had just shared had been so intensely close and special that it had almost moved him to tears, he was suddenly conscious of Tara's distancing herself from him. Not so much physically--she was still lying close within his arms, her body resting against his--but emotionally. He could virtually feel her withdrawing herself from him.

"Tara..." he began, but she shook her head firmly.

"No, Ry, please don't say anything. Just listen to me," she begged.

"This is going to be the hardest thing I have ever had to do, the hardest thing I have ever had to say, and I need you to listen and to to understand."

She had rehearsed this conversation over and over inside her head so many times these past few days, but she still stumbled over some of the words, still had to pause and hesitate, to search for what she wanted to say, all the while avoiding looking directly into Ryland's face, knowing that if she did, once she did. that if she should see the morning light illuminating his beloved face, she could never, would never. Taking a deep breath, she began.

"Oh, God, Tara. I should have been here for you," Ryland burst out, interrupting her at one point as she was telling him what she had learned.

"Please don't hate me too much for not being here. If I had known..."

"I don't hate you, Ry, I could never hate you,"

she assured him, her voice choked with tears as 1 she mentally added to herself, but soon you'll ^ hate me.

She could sense the different quality to his silence when she revealed just what kind of person i her mother had been, but to her relief he made no attempt to interrupt her or say anything.

Tor a little while, I really hated Claudia for what she had done, but.I think I understand her now. There was this woman on the train when Iwas going to Dorchester. It was so odd. fate, really, I suppose. Sheturned out to have adopted a little girl herself, and listening to her, I. " She stopped, hesitant. She was waiting, deliberately putting off the moment she was most dreading.

"I've done a lot of thinking while you've been away, Ry and..." Her head dipped down as she turned her face completely away from him.

"I... I can't marry you, not now... not after what I've learned. It wouldn't be fair to you. Oh, I know you'll say that it doesn't make any difference, that it's me you love and that I'm still the same person no matter who gave birth to me, and if there was just you and me to consider then it would be different, but there's not. There's your family and... and the business. I'm not the kind of woman they would want you to marry--to have in the family."

"Tara, Tara. My God, don't you know that you ... you are far, far more important to me than anything, anyone, else," Ryland declared passionately.

Even though she couldn't bear to see his face, Tara could hear the anguish and the love in his voice.

"You are the woman I love, the only woman I will ever love, and I don't give a damn about anything or anyone else!"

"You say that now," Tara countered, finally turning to face him, 'and I know you mean it, but I know, as well, how much your family means to you, and I can't stand the thought that one day you might come to regret marrying me. Your aunt--' "My aunt's dead, Tara," Ryland told her heavily.

"She was killed by her own daughter."

He hadn't meant to tell her quite so abruptly and he could see from her expression just how much he had shocked her.

"That was why I had to go home so unexpectedly." He quickly explained what had happened while Tara listened in loving concern and dismay.

"Oh, Ry, how awful for all of you," she exclaimed.

"There's something else, something I should have told you weeks ago... months ago," Ryland said slowly.

Tara could feel her heart starting to race with sick apprehension.

Whatever he was about to disclose, she knew it must be serious. What was it? Had he been married before and never told her. had a previous serious relationship. a child. children. ? Frantically, her mind raced.

"Ryland..." she began, but he shook his head.

"You've just told me about... about the circumstances of your birth, Tara, and I truly meant it when I said that they don't make the slightest difference to the way I feel. You are the one I love. yom.

And you are the same person you have always been to me. I love you for yourself, not because of your family background. You could have told me that your parents were criminals of the worst sort and it still wouldn't change my feelings, my love, for you," he told her emotionally.

And as she looked into his eyes, Tara knew that he was speaking the truth. The knowledge that he loved her so profoundly, so deeply, so all- encompassingly, was like a cool, soothing balm being applied to a rough, sore place. She reached out to touch his face, but he caught hold of her hand, stopping her.

"No. You haven't heard everything I have to say yet," he said roughly.

"When you were talking about Katriona, you said that what hurt more than anything else was that Claudia had deliberately concealed the truth about a very important part of your life from you." He took a deep breath.

"There's a very important truth about myself that I have kept a secret from you; Tara. Not because... I wanted to tell you... fully intended to tell you, but... but I was so afraid that it would make you turn away from me, that I would lose you."

"What is it ... what are you talking about?" Tara asked him, her mouth dry and her heart pounding.

"We've talked about the fact that I would take over the family business when my aunt retired," Ryland began quietly.

"Yes," Tara agreed.

"You told me that when you said that you were over here to study the British publishing industry, but I don't see--' " What I omitted to tell you was that in addition to inheriting my aunt's controlling share of the business, I also knew that ultimately I would inherit the bulk of her personal estate. "

When he saw that she was frowning at him in bewilderment, he explained quietly, "My aunt was a very wealthy woman in her own right, Tara.

She. she inherited a good deal of family money and she is. was. We're not talking here about a comfortable inheritance we could tuck away to give to our kids. We're talking. " He took another deep breath.

"My aunt's estate runs into many millions of dollars."

"Millions of dollars?" Tara stared at him in disbelief before repeating shakily, "Millions of dollars. You mean... is that why she, your family...? Is that why... she wouldn't have wanted you to marry me?" she asked uncertainly.

"Not--' " The money had no bearing at all on her concern about whom I might ultimately marry," Ryland interrupted her firmly.

"She simply wasn't like that. What worried her... well, she was worried because of Margot, because of Margot's compulsive and dangerous love for Lloyd.

Margofs problems hit her very hard and hurt her very badly and I guess I've kinda grown up feeling that I owed it to her to try to make it up to her by--' "Marrying someone she would have approved of," Tara supplied quietly for him.

"She would never have approved of me, Ryland."

"You're wrong," he told her fiercely.

"She would have loved you."

Tara looked away from him, her eyes full of tears.

"No... no, she wouldn't," she argued, 'and you must have had doubts about. about me yourself. If you hadn't, you would have told me. about the money.

Why didn't you, Ry? Did you think I might turn out to be a gold-digger, that I might--' "No... don't be silly," he protested quickly.

"Quite the opposite.

You'd talked a lot about your childhood and about how much you wantedyour own children, our children, to grow up the way you had done, so Iknew. Tara, we live in a very dangerous world. Sometimes, in order toprotect our children, we have to curtail the amount of freedom we areable to give them. When I was growing up, I was lucky. My parents arewell off rather than rich, but for us, you and me, it will bedifferent. My aunt was an exceedingly rich woman. "

"And now you are an exceedingly rich man."