CHAPTER ONE
<p style="margin: 0cm 0.75pt 2.9pt -0.75pt; text-indent: 0cm;">'I think that's all for today, Jaime.' Felix Haines got up from his desk to flex his aching shoulder muscles, grimacing when he saw his secretary's sympathetic smile. 'You can laugh,' he added, 'but playing squash twice a week is going to do me good. As soon as I master it, that is.'
<p style="margin: 0cm 0.75pt 2.9pt -0.75pt;">'So long as it doesn't master you first,' responded Jaime drily, folding her shorthand notebook, and slipping her pencil into the metal spiral that secured the pages. 'Honestly, I can't see the sense of beating yourself to death just to prove you're still active! I'm sure you'd find it simpler to join a golf club.'
<p style="margin: 0cm 20.55pt 3.2pt -0.75pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 101%; -ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph;">'Perhaps so.' Felix was a little irritable. 'But Lacey would think I was taking the easy way out--and I would be. As she says, forty-six isn't old. I've just let myself get lazy, that's all.'
<p style="margin: 0cm 8.45pt 3.2pt -0.75pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 101%; -ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph;">Jaime reserved judgement on Lacey Haines's opinion. Since she'd broken up Felix's first marriage, and married him herself eighteen months ago, Lacey seemed bent on changing him from the easygoing middle-aged man she claimed she had fallen in love with to one of those ultra-fit sporting types you frequently saw on television. Men with trim figures, and sharp, hungry faces, men who Jaime privately thought were striving desperately to hang on to their youth. Talk about women being the vainer sex, she mused, watching Felix, as he endeavoured to throw off the stiffness of over-worked muscles. Still, Lacey was more than fifteen years his junior, so perhaps he felt compelled to make the effort.
<p style="margin: 0cm 0.75pt 2.9pt -0.75pt;">'Haven't you ever thought of joining a keep-fit group?' Felix asked now, as Jaime rose from her seat and began walking towards the door that led into her office. 'Lacey goes to an aerobics class every Wednesday. You should join her.'
<p style="margin: 0cm 0.75pt 2.9pt -0.75pt;">'Oh, I--don't think so,' said Jaime finally, softening her refusal with a rueful smile. She could almost hear Lacey's reaction to a suggestion like that. Lacey had never forgiven her for taking Margaret Haines's side during the divorce proceedings, and if there had been any way she could have persuaded Felix to find another secretary she would have done it. But happily for Jaime, Felix was fond of her, and their twelve-year partnership had stood the test. 'I--er--I don't really have that much time,' Jaime appended now, realising belatedly that Felix might misunderstand her motives. 'I mean--what with Tom, and everything. I--just never seem to have a moment to myself.'
<p style="margin: 0cm 0.75pt 2.9pt -0.75pt;">Felix regarded her a little dourly now. 'You don't like Lacey, do you?' he exclaimed, out of the blue.
<p style="margin: 0cm 12.5pt 3.2pt -0.75pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 101%; -ms-text-justify: inter-ideograph;">'Oh--' he lifted a hand to silence her, as she opened her mouth to protest '--you don't have to say anything. I know. I'm not entirely without perception, Jaime, whatever you think. I just wish it weren't so.'
<p style="margin: 0cm 0.75pt 2.9pt 22.5pt; text-indent: 0cm;">Jaime's tongue circled her lips. 'Felix, I--'
