‘Ouch, there’s my aunt with that awful hat!’ Lucas declared with a wince and Sofie glanced over at the huge group picture he was looking at. It had been taken in the church grounds, which had, thankfully, been extensive. ‘I don’t remember inviting all these people, but we must have. Who’s this? He isn’t on my side, so he must be one of yours,’ he asked her a moment later, and Sofie frowned.
‘Where?’ She tried to see who he meant in a sea of faces.
‘Just there,’ he said, pointing to the figure of a man standing at the end of one of the back rows.
Sofie looked where he was pointing and, the instant she did so, an icy hand grabbed at her heart. No! she cried out in silent despair. Dear God, no! She recognised who it was and all the joy went out of her as an arctic chill pierced her soul. How could he have been there? How could she not have sensed it?
‘Don’t know him?’ Lucas prompted from beside her and she very nearly jumped because she had forgotten he was there, so caught up was she in the horror of the discovery.
Feeling the old shaking starting up inside her, Sofie gathered as much of her composure as she could in order to answer him and not make him aware that anything was wrong. ‘No. No, I don’t. He must be one of the boyfriends or husbands we never got to meet,’ she responded reasonably, and was glad she sounded almost normal. She didn’t feel it, though. The shaking was getting worse and she knew from experience that it would get the better of her soon. She didn’t want Lucas to see that. Didn’t want him to ask questions. She had enough of her own spinning around in her mind.
Glancing at the bedside clock, she gasped. ‘My goodness, look at the time! We’ll be late if we don’t get a move on!’ she added as she threw back the sheet. Scrambling from the bed, she snatched up the robe she had draped over a chair. ‘You have that early meeting with…thingummy. You know who I mean. You’d better use the bathroom. I’ll take a shower down the hall.’
She didn’t give him time to argue the toss, but collected together some clothes and hurried out the door. Safe inside the bathroom in a spare bedroom, she shot the lock, dropped her clothes on the floor and sank back against the door, the shaking now a visible. Sofie pressed a hand over her mouth, but a whimper escaped all the same, and she sank down to the floor, dropping her head on her knees and wrapping her arms tightly around her waist.
Why now? she wanted to know. It had been some years since she had last seen that man. So many years that she had believed herself free of him, but that photograph proved how wrong she had been. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she rocked backwards and forwards. It made her feel physically sick to know that he had been there at the church. Waiting. Watching. Then he had joined on the end of a group photo, just as if he belonged there, knowing that she would see it and realise he was still around.
Her stomach heaved then and she scrambled to the toilet just in time. Afterwards she wiped her face with tissue and sank back weakly against the tiled wall. The shaking had stopped, thankfully, and probably wouldn’t return now the first shock was over.
Her heart ached. She had dared to be happy. Had dared to look forward, not back. To what end? Nothing had changed. Gary Benson was still there. And to think she had once thought him sweet and kind!
She had been nineteen when they’d met, and they had been photography students at the same college. He had seemed normal enough, but before long she had discovered he wasn’t. He was an ill man who was fixated on her. She had ended their relationship after only a few dates because he had smothered her with feelings she didn’t share. He had been convinced she had to love him because he loved her, and so he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He would ring her at all times of the day or night, or turned up at her house and simply stood outside, waiting until she was compelled to come out to tell him to go away.
She had thought he had finally got the message when he’d stopped ringing her, but instead he had started following her. Of course her family had called the police and obtained a restraining order, but that hadn’t stopped him stalking her. Nothing had, because he’d vanished before he could be caught, only to turn up on another day in another place.
Life had been a nightmare for almost two years, and then it had stopped. She had never known why. Over time she had come to believe that he had given up on her and transferred his ‘affections’ to some other poor woman. She was just grateful that her life had returned to normal.
Except normal wasn’t the normal it had once been. The experience had shredded her confidence. She could no longer trust any man, for fear that they would turn into another Gary Benson. She had become reserved and cautious, preferring to concentrate on her work, and it had been a very long time before she had been able to stop looking over her shoulder to check if ‘he’ was there.
Time had been the healer, and the appearance of Lucas in her life. With him she had finally dared to trust again. So much so that she had forgotten about Gary Benson completely—until that photograph had turned up. She knew now that whatever had kept him from her had been temporary. He hadn’t forgotten her. He still thought of her as his.
The presumption angered her as never before. How dared he think he could do this to her again? She wouldn’t allow it! She would tell the police. Even if they had been unable to stop him before, that didn’t mean they would fail her this time. Yet Gary Benson had done nothing except appear in a photograph where he shouldn’t have been. That could hardly be described as stalking.
What should she do? Instinct said she ought to tell Lucas, but he had so much on his mind at the moment, with the planned takeover of another company, that she didn’t want to bother him. She could wait a few days. Just knowing Lucas was here gave her the confidence to do that. He was the exact opposite of Gary Benson—upright, honourable. He had never given her a moment’s doubt, and she was slowly but surely coming to believe he never would.
Yes, that was what she would do. Nevertheless, it sent chills through her to know that Benson must be around, watching her. She knew he was probably biding his time. The photograph was a reminder. He would crawl out of the woodwork when he was ready, and come knocking on her door. However, this time she wasn’t the defenceless young woman of before. She had a strong man to protect her now.
As she thought it, Lucas knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Hey! Have you fallen asleep in there?’
Having jumped a mile, Sofie shot to her feet, hand pressed to her heart. ‘I’m almost ready,’ she lied, stripping off her robe and stepping into the shower. ‘Put some toast on for me.’ She didn’t think she could force even a bite down, but she knew she had to behave as if everything was normal. Just for a little while, until the pressure was off Lucas.
After she had washed and dressed in record time, Sofie went down to the kitchen, where Lucas was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. Her heart turned over, for he was so very precious to her.
Lucas looked up, frowning a little when he saw her standing watching him. ‘What’s up, caro?’
Smiling to hide her worries, she shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking how much I love you,’ she told him, and he immediately held out his hand invitingly.
‘Come over here and tell me that.’
She went, allowing him to pull her down on to his lap. Combing her hand through his hair, she looked deeply into his eyes. ‘I love you, Lucas. Nothing will ever stop me loving you.’
He smiled. ‘I’m glad you feel that way, because it’s how I feel, too. I couldn’t imagine life without you now. I’d show you, if I didn’t have that meeting in an hour.’
How Sofie wished they could simply go back to bed and shut out the world, but they couldn’t. So she cocked her head flirtatiously and smiled back. ‘Well, you can give me a little something on account, couldn’t you?’
Laughing, he moved so that she was lying back with only his arm to support her. ‘Oh, yes, I could most certainly do that,’ he growled