Until, eventually, you believed it yourself and, unless someone took a risk to save you, took a step into their own darkest place to release a lifetime of unwanted, unused love and give all they had, you would shrivel up until something vital inside you died.

Nick Jago had saved her from certain death. What would it take to save him from the living death to which he’d condemned himself?

He’d answered her question, but could it really be that simple?

‘A kiss?’ she repeated.

The air was still and, above them, in the small patch of sky that was visible, Venus shone like a beacon of hope.

‘Would that be a kissing-it-better kiss?’ she asked, softly, lightly, matching his careless tone. ‘Or are we talking about a make-the-world-go-away kiss?’

Jago had been deliberately provoking. He’d counted on that to divert her, keep her from the saying the words he did not want to hear, to force him to face a situation that he had blanked from his mind.

He’d anticipated a swift response too. The seemingly endless pause between presumption and response was unexpected, a touch unnerving.

But then her teasing tone as, finally, she’d repeated, ‘A kiss?’ had reassured him and, braced for whatever she chose to visit upon him, the butterfly touch of her fingers on his cheek, the caress of her thumb over his lips as she took him at his word, asked him what he truly wanted, warned him that this was anything but a reprieve.

He’d barely drawn breath, determined to apologise, reassure her that he’d been joking-put a stop to something that had, in the time it had taken to say it, spun out of control-before her lips touched his with a pressure so soft that he could almost have imagined it.

And then breathing seemed an irrelevance as the slow, penetrating warmth of it heated his lips, seeped into his veins, spread through his body like liquid silk until he was feeling no pain.

It was a kiss of almost unbearable sweetness that gave and gave, growing in intensity while the tips of her fingers slid down his neck, seeking out the pulse point beneath his jaw. And her touch, when she found it, sent a current of pure energy through him, as if she was somehow concentrating her entire being into that one spot.

It was as if, for years, his entire body had been somehow lying dormant, barely ticking over, waiting for this. Waiting for Miranda Grenville to come down into the dark to kiss him into life. Wake him with a touch.

Only her feather-light fingertips, her breath, her lips, touched him, seeking out the hollows, the sensitive places beneath his chin, his throat, stirring not just his body, but something deeper.

She took endless time, her lips, her tongue, lingering as she made her way down the hard line of his breastbone, slipping shirt buttons as she moved lower, her silky hair brushing against his chest as she laid it bare to the chill night air.

For a moment she lay her hand over his heart and it, too, leapt to her touch. Then it was not her hand, but her mouth against his breast, breathing her warmth, her life into the cold, angry core that had for so long masqueraded as his heart. It was an almost unbearably sweet agony, like that of a numb limb coming painfully to life.

‘Miranda…’

He gasped her name out but whether he wanted her to revive him or leave him in the safety of the cold and dark place where there was no feeling he could not have said.

‘Nick?’ Jago was aware that Manda was speaking to him, that there was an edge of concern to her voice. ‘Are you okay?’

Was he? He was feeling a touch light-headed. Not particularly surprising under the circumstances. That hadn’t been a mere kissing-it-better kiss…

‘Nick!’ she repeated more urgently.

‘Fine,’ He murmured. ‘More than fine.’ He hooked his arm around her. ‘Lie down,’ he said, pulling her up to lie against him, her hair against his cheek. ‘Try and get some sleep.’

Manda lay with her cheek against Nick Jago’s chest, his arm pinning her down so that she couldn’t move without disturbing him. And he seemed to have drifted off almost as soon as he’d said the word.

If it was sleep.

For a minute back there she’d thought he’d drifted out of consciousness. But his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear and his breathing seemed okay…

She closed her eyes. Tried not to think of the aches and pains that she’d temporarily managed to block out, but now she’d stopped concentrating on Nick had returned with a vengeance.

The fact that she was hungry. Thirsty. She hadn’t had anything to drink other than a few sips of water since lunch. A lunch she’d done little more than toy with. Sleep, if she could manage it, would be a great idea.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on the slow, steady beat of Nick’s heartbeat until, gradually, it began to lull her.

It was the light that woke her. Searingly bright against her lids, she moved instinctively to escape it, for a moment completely disorientated. Hurting everywhere. Her neck stiff.

She lifted her head to ease the ache and realised that she was lying against the supine figure of a man.

Nick Jago…

She sat up with a gasp as it all came back with a rush. Tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, her lips cracked and it took a couple of goes before she could manage his name.

‘Nick? Wake up! It’s morning!’

Manda disentangled herself, scrambling quickly to her feet, forgetting all aches and pains in her eagerness to explore this promise of a way out.

Then, when he didn’t respond, she looked back.

‘Jago?’ He was drowsy, slow to stir. Slow to stifle a groan. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, remembering his hurt shoulder. That he’d had a bang on the head.

‘Barely,’ he muttered. ‘There are alarm clocks that use fewer decibels than you. Your wake-up technique could do with a little polishing, Miranda.’

‘I just haven’t been putting in the practise,’ she said, glancing back.

The sun, barely over the horizon, had found a chink in the shattered walls and for a moment it was concentrated on their corner of the dark interior and she caught her first real glimpse of the man with whom she’d spent the long night. Whose hand had brought her from the depths. Whose arm had held her safe.

His face was craggy rather than handsome, not helped by the fact that he needed a shave. His nose was, as they’d already discussed, interesting. His chin, stubborn. His eyes, she saw, in the moment before he blinked and lifted a hand to shade them from the light, were a fine grey. As for his mouth…

His mouth, she thought, looked exactly the way it had felt as she’d traced it with her thumb. The way it had felt when he’d kissed her. Tender, determined, sensuous. As if it had been a long time since he’d smiled.

He leaned his head back against the wall and, suddenly concerned, she said, ‘Are you really okay?’

‘I’d be better if you sat down instead of flirting with that big empty space out there in the dark.’

She glanced at the wall, with its tantalising promise of light, then dropped to her knees and pushed his hair back from his forehead to check his injury. There was a brutal graze, bruising, a slight swelling. Then, as the rising sun moved, the light suddenly disappeared, plunging them back into deep shadow.

‘I think you’ll live,’ she said, dropping her hand.

‘I know I will,’ He replied softly. ‘You gave me the kiss of life.’

‘Did I? When we get out of here…’

‘When we get out of here you’ll find the child you filmed on the streets. And I’ll get in touch with my parents. Is that a deal?’

‘It’s a deal,’ she said.

And, as if to seal their pact, he reached out and touched her lips with the edge of his thumb. ‘Hello, Miranda Grenville.’

‘Hello, Nick Jago.’

‘No!’

‘What? I’m sorry…’

‘When someone has saved your life they have the right to know who you really are.’ There was a pause, during which she swallowed desperately. ‘I was born Nicholas Alexander Jackson-the good, solid English name that my grandfather chose for himself within weeks of arriving in England.’

Jackson…‘But…’ She’d actually met his father at some reception or other. Ivo had introduced him, told her afterwards that he and his wife worked quietly these days, without any public fanfare, to raise funds for a charity that helped runaways. Used their own wealth, inherited from the same grandfather who’d gone on to found a giant food conglomerate…

‘What?’

She shook her head. Telling him that his father had changed would be pointless. He had to be open to the possibility before he could hear it. See for himself. And he’d made that commitment. It was enough.

‘Nothing. Just, thank you for telling me. Nick,’ she added.

He drew in a deep breath and it was her turn to say, ‘What?’

‘It’s just been a very long time since anyone’s called me that.’ Then, briskly, ‘Right. So, what do you say? Shall we get out of here?’

‘Yes. Please.’

Jago made it to his feet. Last night he’d thought he’d never make it out of here, but now, with even the small amount of light filtering through the broken walls, seeping down the shaft, anything seemed possible.

He looked around. He’d hoped for a way out through the original entrance but, even if it hadn’t been completely blocked by falling masonry, it was on the far side of the gaping chasm where the great eagle below had broken away. But above them was the promise of a small patch of sky and he stood up to take a better look.

‘Careful,’ he said, reaching back to offer a steadying hand as Miranda rose beside him. ‘I don’t want to lose you now.’ And then, as she took it, he turned back.

With the narrow beam of sunlight behind her, her face in shadow, all he’d seen of her had been the halo effect as it had lit up hair that was no longer sleek but suffering from the effects of twenty-four hours without the benefit of a comb.

Thick, dark, tousled.

He’d guessed that she was tall, but not quite how tall. No more than half a head shorter than himself. Tall, slender but with a steel core of strength about her. Well, he knew that. He’d experienced that. As a girl she might have broken down under the twin assaults of rejection and guilt, but this woman had come through a living nightmare with courage, humour, compassion.

Now, the light from above shimmered through the haze of dust motes and he could see that her black halo of hair was veiled with stone dust. There were streaks of dirt, like warpaint, decorating her cheek, her neck.

She did not have the instant, softer sensual attraction of a woman like Fliss. She had a different kind of beauty-taut, tempered in the fire-and she’d still be beautiful even when she was ninety.

She was beautiful now.

‘What?’ she asked, catching him staring, lifting her hand to her cheek, suddenly self-conscious of how she must look and that was when he saw her hands.

They were small, the fingers long, slender, elegant, well cared for-the remains of polish still clung to what was left of her nails-were a mess. The skin torn, knuckles bruised and broken.

She saw where he was looking and, mistaking his reaction, she spread her hand, regarding it with distaste. ‘My manicurist is going to have a fit when she sees this,’ she said, taking a step back to that woman who’d roused him with her scream, God alone knew how many hours ago.

Putting the mask back in place before she returned to the outside world.

‘Don’t!’ he said. He was not a man given to fanciful gestures, but he would not let her slide back into that dark place any more than he would have left her to fall and he reached for her hand, holding it across his palm. ‘Don’t do that, Miranda. You don’t have to pretend. Not with me. We have no secrets. We know one another.’ And then he bent and kissed her fingers, saluting her wounds as a badge of the courage she’d shown last night. ‘We will always know one another.’ ‘I…’

He saw her throat move as she swallowed, for once lost for words.

He waited.

‘I…Yes.’ And it was not the sophisticated woman of the world but an echo of the shy young woman she must have been. ‘Thank you.’

In danger of saying-doing-something that was totally out of place, he turned and looked up the shaft to the outside world. It seemed a very long way and, having seen the state of her hands, he wondered if she was up to this second climb.

If he was.

But he knew there was no point in suggesting she wait while he went for help.

‘Are you ready?’

She nodded. Then said, ‘No! Wait!’

And she took her tiny cellphone from her pocket, opened it and quickly entered a brief message. Then, when she saw him watching her, she started to shrug, stopped and said, ‘It’s not that I doubt we’ll do this, Nick. But I could get knocked down crossing the road. Or the plane could-’