The damn cat! He'd wring its neck himself when he found it! “I promise,” she said shakily.           It felt strange to be worried over… Alanis hadn't had anyone show any real concern for what she did for so long that she had forgotten how good it felt. “Okay, Alanis. Now, give me the torch you used and I'll go looking for an hour or two,” Brody said quietly, narrowing his eyes and noticing the exhausted drop of her shoulders and the downward tilt to her mouth. “I… I haven't got a torch,” she admitted guiltily, expecting a further lecture on the seriousness of her crime.           But Brody merely stared at her for another moment without speaking, shaking his dark head slowly as though he was lost for words, before turning to leave. “Brody, please… I want to come too…” “No.”    &nbs

         The next week passed, and then the next, and the only contact she had with Brody was by telephone or in brief meetings where he was very much the remote tycoon and kept everyone on their toes, bossing everyone around. Alanis flew out to France twice in the next few weeks but made sure her schedule could be accommodated in day trips which didn't necessitate more than a day and a half.           She informed Brody's PA each time she planned to go, but Brody didn't join her as she had half expected… and wanted. The period was pretty stressful. She was eating less, sleeping less, working harder, and more confused than she had ever been in the days following the accident.           August came, blazed brightly, and left, and in the second week of September, Alanis woke up one morning to the knowledge that it was her twenty-ninth birthday and she was

          After that evening, Alanis barely survived. For the next few weeks, the strain of keeping her pain hidden by trying to maintain a bright, efficient image at work, brought her near to breaking point. And the last week of October, when she was due to fly out to France to oversee the launch was even worse.          She hadn't seen or spoken to Brody since the night of her birthday. All their communication had been through e-mails, texts, and his icy PA, although she had had the strangest feeling more than once that a pair of unseen eyes were watching her every movement.          It was stupid, Alanis knew it was stupid, but the sensation persisted right up until the day she flew out to France, alone. She had reserved a room in a fairly mediocre hotel for the duration of her five-day stay, along with a hire car to be delivered t