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let out a frustrated moan. She winked at
    him saucily and vanished into the hall with her suitcase rolling behind her. He turned to survey the cottage for the provisions
    he’d requested. The caretakers had stacked wood in the hearth
    per his request, and as he lit it, he heard her footsteps on the stairs. He took some cheese, fruit and a bottle of wine from the icebox and popped the cork. Doubt wriggled in the back of his
    mind. Should he pop the question here and now and have the
    moment be theirs alone? He could whisk her away to the Carib-
    bean for a wedding on the beach, just the two of them and the
    setting sun. As appealing as this idea was to him, he quickly
    dismissed the idea. Someone like Stephanie Brier required some-
    thing bigger and flashier than that.
    He sent a quick “thank you” text to the caretakers for their
    impeccable attention to detail. Slipping his phone into his jacket, he took it off and tossed it over the arm of the closest chair. Now where the hell had she disappeared to? He was certain he’d heard her come back down the stairs, so he wandered into the master
    bedroom. Her suitcase was open on the hope chest at the foot of
    the bed. He heard the shower running in the bathroom, so he
    kicked off his shoes and collapsed onto the king-sized bed with a 13

    TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE
    contented sigh. Closing his eyes, he slowly felt the weight of the day lift from him. She was here. Here was perfect. The stars had aligned, and all was right with the world.

    Freshly showered, Steph was blow-drying her hair upside
    down, but uprighted herself as a flash of vertigo gripped her. As she steadied herself on the sink, she blinked at her reflection in the mirror. Flashing lights floated across her vision as she
    watched her flaming waves fall around her shoulders. Thankful-
    ly, the ninja dizziness vanished as quickly as it appeared. In the past twenty-four hours, she’d almost fell down on two separate
    occasions. She scrambled to pop an Andes Mint in her mouth.
    and the queasiness lessened. It was probably low blood sugar
    from lack of food. Lately she’d been way too busy to eat right.
    She’d been traveling a lot, including a recent laborious jaunt to Japan. She’d only been back in her New York apartment for a
    couple of days when she got the call that Cheyenne’s water had
    broken, so she had assumed her abdominal issues were probably
    due to jet lag, exhaustion, and bad sushi.
    However, since arriving in the U.K., she’d had some dull
    pains in her right side. Fucking cramps. Her period wasn’t due
    for another month, and the last thing she wanted was to have it
    early. She glanced at her pill case. Steph had often wished she’d invested in stock in the pharmaceutical company that created her birth control pill that let women have only four periods a year. If she ever met the scientist who’d created the drug, she’d kiss him right on his geeky little mouth.
    It probably didn’t help that she was experiencing a serious
    lack of appetite. She knew she should have eaten something to-
    day, but hospital vending machine food turned her stomach. So
    at the moment her body was fueled on wretched day-old coffee,
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    RAGE
    two crackers, and the mint she’d just had. A shower to wash
    hospital germs off of her had been much higher on her list of
    priorities. She suspected she looked hideous, based on Phillip’s responses to her. Lately he seemed a bit put off by her appearance, even though she’d been on a diet for the last two months.
    She’d just wanted to drop ten pounds, but somehow she’d over-
    shot her goal and lost 20. She figured she should just be happy
    about it. Even if it was a losing battle, with a boyfriend like Phillip, she’d have to try keep up with those models who were al-
    ways hanging around backstage.
    Phillip had been acting distant and distracted last month
    when he met her in New York and the month before that when
    she’d come to his flat in London. On both