Which was strange, because he was pretty sure he hadn't been alone when he'd fallen into a satiated asleep several hours ago.

Something about a goddess-?

Ah, yes, Hebe, the goddess of youth.

Tall, slender, with a long, straight curtain of silver-blonde hair and eyes of so pale a brown they were gold. Strange magnetic eyes, that gleamed with a multitude of secrets.

Not that he was interested in learning those secrets. Hebe had merely been a distraction, a way of putting the past and all the pain and the significance of the day behind him. He had wanted to forget, be diverted, and the presence of Hebe Johnson had certainly provided that. For a few hours, at least.

So where was she? It was still dark outside, and the tangled sheets beside him were still warm, so she couldn't have been gone long.

He frowned slightly at the thought of her having just disappeared into the night. That was usually his privilege! Wine, dine and bed a woman, but never ever become involved" least of all allow them into the inner privacy of his life.

Of course that was slightly more difficult when it was his bed they had shared!

Because she didn't live alone, he remembered now. Something about a flatmate. So after dinner he had brought her back to his apartment over the gallery for a drink instead" and other things!"breaking his cardinal rule in the bargain.

Two rules, in fact, he acknowledged with a grimace as he remembered that Hebe actually worked for him, two floors down, in the Cavendish Gallery on the ground floor.

But desperate times called for desperate measures, and so he had brought Hebe back here, needing to lose himself in the lithe beaut