The Strength Of Desire. Alison Fraser

       CHAPTER ONE

      TEARS streamed down Hope’s face as the radio played the song for which Jack was best known:

      ‘The sun in your hair,

      Pure gold.

      The sky in your eyes,

      Cloudless blue.

      How can I not love you?

      The stars in——

      She switched it off, and sank down on a chair. It was a shock. Not the song, but the announcement beforehand: ‘Jacques Delacroix died last night in a road accident.’

      Why had no one told her? Why hadn’t Guy? The thought of Jack’s brother could still make her angry. Her mind quickly moved elsewhere.

      Maxine. She needed to tell Maxine before anyone else did. How would she react? She was difficult at the best of times.

      My fault, Hope acknowledged, all too aware of the way her daughter was going. At twelve she could pass for fourteen—a moody, resentful fourteen. My fault because I was too young.

      Seventeen she had been when she’d met Jacques—or Jack, as he’d been called. Just turned eighteen when she’d married him. Pregnant shortly after. Ridiculous.

      That’s what Guy had said, of course. Guy DelacroixJack’s little brother. Hope’s lips twisted at the term. That was what Jack had called him and that was what Hope had expected. A younger, paler version of Jack. But Guy had been in no one’s shadow.

      She remembered their first meeting. It had been at a London restaurant. Jack had invited him to lunch to meet Jack’s future bride. He’d driven up from Cornwall where he lived and had arrived late. Jack and she had already been seated at the rear of the restaurant and had not noticed his approach.

      He had appeared at their table and Hope had just stared in surprise. Jack’s little brother had turned out to be anything but little.

      At six feet two, he was several inches taller and broader than Jack, and, on first glance, actually looked older, with his dark hair and steel-grey eyes and a slightly weathered complexion.

      The brothers were totally unalike. At thirty-five Jack could have passed for twenty-five. Blond, boyish and handsome, he was a slim five feet ten. He had all the charm of an older man with the outlook of a much younger one. The age-gap between Hope and Jack-seventeen years—seemed nothing.

      Nothing until Guy Delacroix pointed it out. He stared at her, long and hard, then spoke to Jacques, excluding her.

      He said, ‘Es-tu fou, Jacques? Elle est une enfant.’

      He did not look at Hope. If he had, he might have seen from her face that she wasn’t stupid. She could certainly translate basic French: ‘Are you mad, Jack? She is a child.’

      She waited for Jacques to deny, to resent, to explode, but he just laughed. ‘Peut-être. Mais une très belle enfant, n’est-ce pas?’ He smiled at his brother.

      Hope could translate that, too. O level French was one of the few she’d managed to acquire at the trendy boarding-school where her father had sent her.

      ‘Perhaps,’ Jack conceded. ‘But a very beautiful child, isn’t she?’

      Guy’s eyes slid back to her. From the expression on his face, he didn’t agree.

      Hope didn’t care what he thought of her looks. She responded, ‘Je ne suis pas une enfante ni stupide.’

      ‘I am not a child or stupid,’ she informed Guy Delacroix, blue eyes narrowing in temper.

      Jack looked surprised, then laughed again. He had not known she could speak French, but was unembarrassed by it.

      If anything, his brother looked even further down his long French nose, his thin lips twisting. Hope’s first impression of a powerfully handsome man was rapidly forgotten, as she thought him mean-eyed and cold.

      ‘Do you wish me to apologise?’ he directed at her, not one degree warmer.

      ‘Not if it’s going to kill you,’ she retorted in a careless tone.

      They exchanged looks again, registering their true feelings. Hate at first