Outside the window, Copper saw her father's car slide to a halt and she raised a hand in acknowledgement. Locking the door behind her, she went over and got into the car, summoning a smile as she turned to thank her father.

But he wasn't there.

Mal was.

Copper's heart stopped and all the air went whooshing from her lungs as the world tilted alarmingly around her. Mal was there, quiet and contained and unbelievably real. He was wearing his moleskin trousers and a dark green shirt open at the throat, and there was an expression in his eyes that Copper had never seen there before. She might even have thought that it was anxiety if her gaze hadn't dropped to the piece of paper sticking out of his shirt pocket.

Copper recognised that paper all too well, and cold, cruel reality wiped out that first dazzling moment of joy with a brutality that clutched agonisingly at her throat. Mal had brought the contract with him and was going to try and force her to its terms.

Bitterness closed around her. There had been times when she had thought that it would be enough just to see him again, but she hadn't wanted it to be like this. 'What are you doing in Dad's car?' she asked him through stiff lips. It was the first thing that came into her head, and even as she asked the question she thought how irrelevant it was.

'He lent it to me.' Calmly, Mal put on his indicator, glanced over his shoulder and pulled out into the traffic. 'Did you think I had stolen it?'

'You've been to see my parents?'

He was concentrating on driving, not looking at her. 'I got here earlier this afternoon. I had to endure an unpleasant session with your father, but once I'd had a chance to explain what I was doing here he gave me the car and told me to come and pick you up myself.'

'And what are you doing here?' Copper cast a bitter glance at the contract. 'As if I don't know!'

'I would have thought it would be obvious, yes,' said Mal. 'We need to talk.'

She looked out of the window. How could he sit there, coolly manoeuvring through the traffic, when her world was reeling? 'We've said everything we had to say,' she said bleakly.

'I haven't,' he said.

'Well, I have!'

'That's all right,' said Mal. 'You can listen.'

He drove her to the beach and parked the car facing the sea. Copper felt curiously detached, too shaken by Mal's unexpected appearance even to wonder how he knew the way. It had been a sunny day, but not particularly warm for late summer, and the beach was almost empty-except for an occasional jogger and a few seagulls squabbling over scraps, their cries drifting on the sea breeze.

For a while they sat there without speaking, watching the waves rippling against the sand. Mal seemed to have forgotten that he wanted to talk to her. He was staring through the windscreen, his hands resting on the steering wheel and his shoulders tense.

'Well?' said Copper eventually. 'What is it that you want to say?'

'I wanted to know why you left without saying goodbye.'

'You must know why I left,' she said bitterly. 'You made it very clear what you thought of me the night before and I thought you'd be glad to find that I'd gone.'

Mal turned at that. 'You thought I'd be glad to come home and find that my wife had walked out on me?'

'But I wasn't ever really your wife, was I, Mal?' said Copper. 'Oh, I know we went through a ceremony, and said all the right words in the right places, but it takes more than that to be married. I was only ever a housekeeper as far as you were concerned, and I knew you'd replaced plenty of those before. You didn't even have to go to the trouble of ringing up the agency when you had Georgia there, on the spot, ready to take my place. Why don't you try and blackmail her into marrying you? She'd be a far better wife than I ever was!'

Mal half smiled. 'She's certainly ideal-' he began, but Copper couldn't bear to hear any more. She jumped out of the car, blinded by tears, and began to stumble towards the beach. But Mal was cutting her off from the other side.

'Don't you walk away from me again!' he shouted. 'Why do you think I came down here to find you?'

'I don't know!' She tried to brush the tears angrily from her eyes but they kept spilling over. 'I suppose you're going to try waving that contract at me. What are you going to do, sue me for breach of promise?'

'No.' Mal pulled it from his pocket. 'I did bring the contract with me, though. Look, here it is,' he said, and then, very deliberately, he tore it into tiny pieces. The lightest of breezes lifting off the sea caught them and they fluttered away, to be pounced on by a seagull who carried it away, screeching in triumph.

Copper stared blankly across the bonnet, her tears forgotten. 'That was the contract!' she said stupidly.

'Not any more.'

'But…don't you want it?'

'I never wanted it,' he said.

'But you insisted on it! You only ever opened your mouth to quote it at me! Why would you do that if you didn't want it?'

'God, wasn't it obvious?' cried Mal in sudden despair. 'I did it because it was the only way I could make you stay!'

The words rang between them, echoing in the sudden silence. Copper couldn't move. She could only gaze at Mal in disbelief as he walked round the front of the car to take her very gently by the elbows.

'I never wanted the contract, Copper,' he said. 'I only ever wanted you.'

'Y-you wanted a housekeeper,' she corrected him. She was trembling, terrified of facing the bitterness of disillusion again but incapable of ignoring the hope that was flickering into life against all the odds.

'I told myself that, but it was only an excuse. I'd been looking for one ever since I looked across the yard and saw you sitting on the steps next to Megan.' His thumbs moved tantalisingly over her inner arms, caressing the soft skin. 'It was like a miracle, to find you again after seven years.'

'I didn't think you even remembered me,' said Copper unsteadily. 'You can't tell me that you'd been waiting for me all that time!'

'I hadn't been waiting, no,' said Mal, 'but I had been regretting. I'd accepted that I would never see you again, and then I met Lisa. I wanted her to make me feel the way you had done, but she could never be you and the marriage was a disaster from the start. I can't tell you how many times I'd find myself thinking about you, about the way you smiled, the way you closed your eyes when I kissed you, the way you felt in my arms.'

He paused, looking down into Copper's face, and the expression in his eyes made her heart beat faster. 'I used to wonder what my life would have been like if my father hadn't died just then, or if you'd been in when I called, but I knew there was no point in wishing that things had been different, so I tried my best to forget you. And then, just when I thought I'd managed to push you to the back of my mind, suddenly there you were.'

'Why didn't you tell me this then?' she asked uncertainly, and Mal's fingers tightened around her arms.

'I wasn't sure that the time we'd spent together in Turkey had meant the same thing to you. You'd obviously got on with enjoying your life and you didn't seem to have any regrets.' His mouth twisted. 'And Lisa taught me to be wary. It was a blow to realise that you were so determined about your business, but I thought that if I could just get you to stay a little longer we'd have a chance to get to know each other again. When you offered to stay on as housekeeper it seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't long before I realised that wasn't going to be enough. You'd made it clear that your business was your priority, and I knew you wouldn't stay just because I asked you.'

'So you thought you'd try a spot of blackmail?' said Copper, with the beginnings of a smile.

Mal grimaced. 'It was all I could think of, but it just made things worse. I felt guilty at having forced you into a marriage that you didn't want, and the very fact that you'd agreed made it obvious that your business meant far more to you than I ever could.'

Could he really have been so blind? 'Did it seem like I was thinking of business on our wedding night?' she asked, and he slid his hands slowly up her arms.

'I wasn't sure,' he confessed. 'When I made love to you, I was sure that you had to feel the same, but I'd watched you with Glyn at the wedding, and I remembered what you'd said about still loving him. I was afraid you'd just been trying to forget him, and when I woke up the next morning and saw the contracts I realised what an impossible situation I'd put us both in. I knew that I'd no right to touch you unless you asked, because that's what I'd agreed, but you've no idea how hard it was to lie next to you night after night.'

'Don't I?'

She smiled at him as she spoke and Mal gripped her shoulders. 'Copper,' he said with sudden urgency. 'I've said a lot of stupid things about love. I pretended that I didn't want anything more to do with it after Lisa, when all the time I was just afraid to tell you how much I loved you. I came down because I knew I had to apologise for the way I treated you, but all I really want is to ask you to come back.'

He hesitated, and Copper marvelled at the uncertainty in his expression. 'I've got no right to ask you, I know, but Birraminda isn't the same without you. It isn't like before. You're not just a special memory any more. I need you now, and Megan needs you too.' He gestured at the scattered pieces of paper. 'The contract doesn't exist any more. I want you to come back because you want to, not because some lawyer says you have to.'

His hands cupped her face lovingly and his voice was very low. 'Will you come back, Copper? Not as a housekeeper, not as a wife-not as anything but yourself?'