Chapter One

One would think that an image with the power to break loose a wall of stifled passion would be bold and shocking to the senses. But this image was neither bold nor shocking. She was passing through a neighborhood with tall, leafy, sun-drenched trees and large stately homes, some trimmed with neat iron fences painted black or white, some without fences but with great lawns that stretched out open and inviting. Marianne Ridgeway suddenly stopped short and stared, going into a dreamy trance for a time, while her memories slowly converged. It was just a gate, a black wrought-iron gate with a snarl of bushes behind it—there was something a little wild and reckless about those bushes. Something about stumbling through a gate like this to reach the other side… no, no! she corrected her memory with a subtle shift; it was more like the black gate leading to a hideaway she shared with Havel and Miklos. So long ago.

She remembered the sweetness of the flowers and the briars.

Her heart began to beat a little faster than was normal. Her hands began to sweat. Fear trickled through her veins like the creeping vines entangling the entrance to that lover’s sanctuary, long ago.

She gulped and caught her breath then started out walking faster than she had before, frantically gazing at house numbers until she reached her destination where she delivered the package she clutched firmly to her chest like an act of self-protection.

Returning home, she walked three blocks out of the way to avoid the gate… and the memory.

But memories are not so easily dispatched.

Returning home to the big two-story city house, her belly ached, belligerently churning, tearing away at her firmly practiced calm with reckless disregard for all she’d tried to do these last few years. The façade began to crack like dinnerware and threatened to shatter altogether. The house was empty, but like a womb—mellow, comforting and throbbing with expectation. The afternoon sun cast shadows of flickering leaves across the warm chestnut woods and the creamy plastered walls danced with light.

Marianne sank down on the couch feeling the leather swallow her body, sending her deeper into places of memory and fear. Her mind began to unravel a scene knit so tightly she’d been certain it would never work loose… and yet now, it appeared in her mind in exacting detail …

She moved through the gate, barely hearing the metal clang as it hit the fence behind her. Running gracefully up the path and the six creaky wooden stairs she shoved the door with her shoulder and entered the big wide room. Clutter was everywhere—books, piles and piles of books both neatly shelved and haphazardly stacked, beer cans, wine bottles, plates of day old food, clothes thrown without thought to where they landed. Havel and Miklos were there, too. Miklos, as if he were waiting for her, spoke sharply as soon as their eyes met …

“You sorry bitch, you’re late.”

“I am sorry,” she bowed her head with a sheepish grin, thinking of the news she had to tell him. But he didn’t give her time to speak; instead, he strode across the floor and grabbed her long dark mane of hair in his fist.

“You bring me what I asked for?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer.

“No, but—”

“But nothing,” he snarled.

He pulled her to the saddle—his make-shift punishment bench—and thrust her roughly over the bar. “Told you what you’d get.”

She didn’t want this. In fact, she had the antidote to his vicious mood. But by then the scene was set in motion and unalterable. Already, she could feel th