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PROLOGUE
I DREAMED OF her again last night. Of how she’d been on that last morning, her pale face blotchy from tears, her eyes holding apologies and lies, begging me to forgive her.
How could I, though?
She was leaving me. Just like everyone else.
I dreamed of my foster mother Julianne, and the dream was so real that in it I was able to reach out and hug her, to fall into her hug, to smile at her. To pull back through time and space and change the way the day had actually unfolded—to undo the way I had shouted at her and shoved her when she’d tried to draw me close.
In my dream I didn’t swear at her.
In my dream I didn’t refuse to go near.
It was just a dream, though: powerful enough to drag me from my fitful sleep, but futile in allowing me to change the past.
The past is a part of me and there is no escaping that.
CHAPTER ONE
THERE IS ONLY one word to describe the way he’s looking at me. With disdain. There is a hint of boredom that curves his lips, lips that I have looked at far too often in the five minutes since Noah Moore walked into this bustling café, just around the corner from my office.
I’ve heard of him, of course. Who hasn’t? Self-made billionaire, one half of the tech empire that’s completely taken over the world as we know it. In the last ten or so years he’s gone from strength to strength, his professional successes only outdone by his frequent outings in the society papers—for all the wrong reasons. Along with his business partner, he’s renowned for his ruthless instincts and fast-paced lifestyle. Luxury. Glamour. Wealth. Success. Wild parties on yachts in the Mediterranean, the after-party they throw every year at the Cannes Film Festival that draws all the big-name celebrities. They might have made their money in the tech industry, but they’re the epitome of Hollywood cool—the gritty, bad boy kind.
Yes, Noah Moore is a quintessential bad boy and, as if I needed any further proof of that, he arrived at our meeting in a leather jacket, black jeans, his dark hair a little longer than it should have been, stubble on his angular and symmetrical face, his brows thick, his lashes thicker, and with a hint of alcohol lingering around his very buff, very distracting frame. And it is distracting me. All six and a half feet of him, all muscled, big and tanned all over—or so I imagine—is making me forget that I am a professional.
‘This isn’t an appointment. I don’t need a shrink. I just...want to talk.’
It had been a confusing declaration, given that he’d called me—a shrink—but I’d made the appointment with him regardless, despite my growing waiting list. Curiosity, you see, got the better of me.
I didn’t get to be twenty-eight and divorced without learning that I have a predilection for bad boys. Specifically one—and he burned me, badly. Bad boys are my sinkhole, my quicksand. The longer Noah Moore looks at me with that scathing contempt, the more my pulse flutters at my wrist, hammering me in a way that makes me uncomfortably aware of the way he’s sitting, his legs spread wide, one arm bent at the elbow supporting his head, the other resting close enough to his cock that I know I can’t look anywhere near his hand. His gaze doesn’t waver from my face. He has a magnetic quality. He’s drawn the attention of most of the women in this place, and not because he’s well-known. It’s purely because of him.
I summon all my strength to hold his stare. ‘Well, Mr Moore.’ His lips flicker at the formal use of his name. I can’t help it. I feel I need every tool at my disposal to keep him at arm’s length. ‘We’ve covered the basics. Why don’t you tell me why we’re here?’
‘Why we’re here?’ Noah Moore is Australian and, though his accent has been flattened by the years he’s spent here in the UK, there’s still that hint of lazy sunshine in his inflection, enough to warm me unconsciously. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He lifts his brows, waiting for me to answer, turning the tables on me. His eyes, a green that would blend into the Mediterranean, narrow.
‘Usually, my patients complete a pre-appointment form,’ I say. ‘You didn’t email one back.’
His gaze doesn’t shift. Curiosity sparks in my gut.
‘You didn’t complete it?’
‘I’m not a patient.’
A frown pulls at my lips and I instantly wipe it from my face. I don’t show emotion when meeting prospective clients. This process isn’t about me and my feelings—it’s about them. ‘I see,’ I say, nodding calmly. ‘So why did you call me, then?’
