True Colours Read Online Free PDF Page A

frown, he’d reckoned the odds were fair that it was the same girl. Not that he was a betting chap – the one and only time he’d ever been in a bookmakers had been with her, with Alex, a flutter on the Grand National, a tip from her dad. Their horse Love Match had come romping home that day; surely a sign that their union would endure, would win out over the odds.
    But that was before…before she had disappeared without a word. Before she had left him alone, confused, and totally and utterly in love. Anger seethed inside him like a serpent awakened, its tail lashing. Betrayal. Loss so huge it was like a bereavement. Pain so deep it still ached like an old rugby injury. Thank goodness Sebastian had had a few minutes to prepare himself, to still the hot rush of emotion that had sent his heart rate off the scale when he had heard her name, had taken away his breath for longer than he would have liked.
    And Alex had left at what turned out to be the worst possible time. Only a month later his mother and father had been killed in a traffic accident in South Africa. The tears he had cried had been more for her than for the parents who had sent him away to school at five, his malaise put down to grief. Did she even know they had died? Had her father told her?
    Calling up to the gamekeeper’s cottage every day for a month, in the end Sebastian had given up, Tom Ryan’s sad shake of his head as he answered the door was more than he could take. And whatever about Alex leaving him, how could she leave her father like that? Still grieving over the premature death of his terminally ill wife the year before. Alex had told him that it had always been her mother’s dream to live in the country, a dream that Tom had realised for all of them, convinced that the clean air of Kildare would prolong his beloved Carmen’s life. But her breast cancer had been aggressive, and even after surgery, her prognosis poor. So, she had lived her dream for only a few short months, loving every minute of the tiny stone cottage, sitting out in the spring sunshine listening to the woods around her breathing, living, as they would continue to live after she was gone.
    Sebastian was renowned for being tough in business, had inherited a poker face from his grandfather, the ruthless Guy Wingfield, learning how to disguise his thoughts from a master. But whereas the current Lord Kilfenora was cold steel through to the core, his only pretence at emotion reserved exclusively for his grandson, and that only a pat on the back and a half smile when he had received his MBA - Sebastian knew he was human in the middle. Soft. Too soft. And right now, as he sat at his desk, his soft core was molten, heaving like a volcano about to explode.
    What on earth was she doing coming back now? When he was getting married in eight weeks. The news had been in all the society rags, was hardly a secret. What did she want?
    And why had she looked so shocked when she saw him? Surely she must have known this was his company? Massaging his temples, Sebastian stared blindly at the gold fountain pen he kept on his desk. All my love…She’d never been a good actress, had never been able to hide her emotions, had sobbed her heart out every time Bambi’s mother died until the video tape had stuck in the machine and they had both fallen about with laughter, waiting for the tears.
    With images of the past and present careering around his head, Sebastian didn’t hear the door open and Jocelyn sweep in, her soft soles silent on the marble. He jerked his head up with such force when she spoke that she almost took a step back.
    ‘ The Minister’s delayed. Emergency cabinet meeting. He wants to reschedule.’
    Only half-listening, Sebastian waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘Whatever. Book him in sometime towards the end of the week. I’m in Cannes on Friday.’
    ‘ Are you alright? You look a bit pale.’
    ‘ Me?’ Sebastian looked at Jocelyn, momentarily confused. ‘Of course.