THE EDGE OF HEAVEN

“The Six Nations Championship or The Guinness Six Nations offered rugby fans another great show. Today, Ireland and France left their best on the field. The Irish Lions and Les Bleus (French for The Blues) gave us a lesson about fair play and commitment. With a nail-biting finish like that, I think we can safely say that this tournament is wide-open and set to be one of the most exciting yet. This is Cassandra Applegate, reporting live from Croke Park in Dublin. Back to you in the studio, Stanley.”          Cassandra kept the smile pasted on her face until she could hear the chatter die away in her earpiece and then handed her microphone to her assistant, Ciara, with relief once she knew she was off-air.          She avoided looking to where she knew the man was still standing, his shoulder propped nonchalantly against the wall, hands in the poc

          The gesture was fleeting but absolutely earth-shattering. He broke their eye contact, leaving Cassandra feeling curiously emptied. With a brief, succinct excuse muttering something about getting drinks, James left them alone.          The rest of the crowd Sébastien Monfort had been talking to melted away too. He turned back, fixing on her with that intense gaze again.“You’ve had time to change, I see. Tell me, is this work too?”          Cassandra's body got taut. Hot, burning irritation was rising.“Of course, I changed… It’s a party. And, yes, this is still work.”          His eyes swept down, taking in what she knew to be a perfectly suitable although very unexciting dress. It was a black shift, high-neck

“I don’t appreciate being manipulated into this kind of situation, Monsieur Monfort.”           Sébastien looked at Cassandra’s tight-lipped profile from across the other side of the car and had to subdue the urge to show her exactly how much she might appreciate being manipulated.           He knew she felt the simmering tension between them too. At one point during the interview earlier, when she’d had the temerity to dig so deep, way too deep into his life, their eyes had stayed locked together for long seconds and he’d read the latent desire in those amber depths even if Cassandra tried to deny it. “I prefer to think of it as a gentle nudging.”           She cast a glimpse at him and made some kind of inarticulate sound. “There was nothing gentle about it. Your unspoken threat was very clear, Monsieur Monfo

          By the time Cassandra was standing in her tiny kitchen the next morning drinking her usual cup of tea, she felt much more in control. She only had to look around her small house to feel on firmer ground. This was reality. This was all she’d been able to afford after Brian had died.          Her mouth tightened. Contrary to what everyone believed, she hadn’t been left a millionairess after her football-star husband had died in the accident. She was still picking up the pieces emotionally and financially from her five years of marriage.          And, while her emotional scars might heal one day, the financial ones would be keeping her in this tiny cottage and working hard for every cent for a very long time. The truth was that Brian had left astronomical debts behind him and, because their divorce hadn’t come

          Happy that she’d justified her actions to herself, and not willing to pay attention to the buzz of something in her blood when she heard the strains of her favorite blues CD coming from the sound system, she found it soothing rather than scary.“I hope you don’t mind?”          Cassandra looked over to where Sébastien was bent down at the system, the material of his trousers and shirt straining over taut, hard muscles in his thighs and back. She shook her head, her mouth feeling very dry.“No… no… Cass, stop…” she whispered almost imperceptibly and took another quick sip of wine.            The dinner was extremely pleasant and by the time Cassandra was taking his cleared plate from him, and apologizing again that their dinner had been on