the time?

Yes, at the time, he realised dazedly now as he looked at her, because he wasnt still
in love with Dee; time,
and absence, had made that impossible to sustain. It was the memory of what they
once had together, those
fierce, snatched times together, that had kept her memory so much alive.
She had been so young, only twenty, on the way up in the world of acting,
pressurised by her stepmother and
stepsister into becoming engaged to and marrying Jerome Powers, then a man of
forty and even more
powerful in the world of media and entertainment than the Prince brothers.
Rik had argued, Dee had been stubbornly adamant, tearfully pleading with him to
understand that she had to
marry Jerome in order to get away from her grasping stepmother and stepsister. His
promises that he could and would - protect her in the same way, had all been tearfully rebuffed.
No, he wasnt still in love with Dee, but the anger he felt towards her stepmother
and stepsister was still
there!
Dee-Dee, you have to come and look at the most beautiful little purse and
pocketbook we found you! a
mans deep voice interrupted.
Rik didnt need to turn to know who that man