BECAUSE SHE'D promised Sadie and Grace that she would eat, Claudia dutifully nuked the Chinese food in her microwave when she got home and sat in front of the TV chewing mechanically on whatever happened to wind up on the fork whenever she stuck it in the box. By the time she'd hit her limit, she'd put a sizeable dint in the huge portion Grace had packed her. She figured that covered her obligation to her friends, and dumped the rest in the trash.

She couldn't stop thinking about Leandro and the Other Woman. About what would happen when they left the restaurant. Would he drive back to her place and make love to her? Or would he be so worked up, so hot for it that they'd do it in the car, the way she and Leandro had on more than one occasion? Maybe he'd take her back to his place and wash her slowly in his big, deep tub. And maybe then he'd lay her out on his bed and use his tongue and hands to send her thundering toward climax again and again and again.

Claudia was caught between being aroused at the sensual memories she was reliving and nauseated by the thought of him touching another woman. G.o.d, she hadn't even looked at another man in the past month, let alone gone on a date. So much for him loving her, wanting to have a future with her.

Realizing how screwed up her logic was, she groaned out loud and switched the television off. No man had ever turned her life upside down the way Leandro Mandalor had. He'd rampaged in, shaken her up, and then left her reeling. And here she was, four weeks later, still staggering around trying to work out which way was up.

A feeling that only intensified when she began preparations for bed. Brushing her teeth at the vanity, she opened a drawer to search for floss and caught sight of the full pack of tampons she'd bought last week in preparation for her period.

And never used.

Because her period had never come.

Her hand froze mid-brush, toothpaste dripping down her front as she did a mental check. She'd been due last week, and it was now Thursday of the following week.

She was late. A week late. She was never late. Ever.

Spitting the toothpaste out in a flurry of panic, Claudia gave her mouth a half-a.s.sed rinse and strode out into the living room to grab her briefcase. Leafing frantically back through her diary, she stared at the small red cross she'd placed in her diary six weeks previously.

She was definitely late.

She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea swept over her. A memory flashed across her closed eyelids-Leandro coming home from his three days in New York, the two of them not even making it past the foyer before they dropped to the floor to make love. Without a condom. Her own words sounded in her head: I'm safe.

Apparently not.

On top of discovering that Leandro was seeing someone else, the realization that she could, in fact, be pregnant was the final encouragement her stomach needed. Hand pressed to her mouth, she barely made it to the kitchen sink before she threw up.

Rinsing her mouth out afterwards, she tried to calm her crazily circling thoughts.

The first thing to do was to confirm that she actually had something to throw up about. s.n.a.t.c.hing up her car keys and purse, she shot out the door. She was so harried she couldn't remember the location of the nearest late-night drugstore, and she drove twenty minutes in the wrong direction before she remembered there was one near her house. Inside, the fluorescent lighting was too bright, the aisles too long, the signage incomprehensible. The last thing she wanted to do was ask for help, however, and she finally tracked down the right aisle through a process of elimination.

Another daunting task awaited her-choosing a pregnancy test. There were no less than six brands on offer, and she glared at them, resenting the world for making this situation even more stressful than it needed to be. Swearing under her breath, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the nearest one and took it to the register. It wasn't until she was back home, her heart beating a rapid, panicky tattoo against her breastbone, that she read the back of the pack and realized she would have to wait until morning to do the test.

"s.h.i.t," she said, throwing the box across the room in frustration.

Immediately she dashed across to inspect the contents of the box for damage. All she needed was to wait all night and then find out that her temper tantrum had rendered the stupid test unusable.

As far as she could tell she hadn't broken anything, and she placed the box carefully on her kitchen counter and spent the next fifteen minutes reading the simple instructions over and over. In a nutsh.e.l.l, all she had to do was wake up in the morning and pee on a stick. Not rocket science.

It was the results that were going to be hard to take. If she was pregnant.

If she was pregnant, she would have a termination, she told herself briskly. There was no question about it. h.e.l.l, it wasn't even an issue. Right? Just so she'd have all the information at her fingertips tomorrow morning, she grabbed the phone book and looked up the location and number of the nearest family planning clinic.

Then she booted up her home computer and spent an hour surfing the net, checking up on any health issues she should know about. But it all seemed pretty straightforward. Day surgery, in and out. She'd need a single day off work. No one would need to know. No one like Leandro, for example.

This last thought resounded in her mind as she stripped down to her panties and pulled on an oversize T-shirt for bed.

As soon as she settled beneath the quilt and closed her eyes, her thoughts went to the one place she'd resolutely refused to let them go.

She might be pregnant with Leandro's baby. Unbidden, an image popped into her mind's eye-a little boy with big dark brown eyes, curly black hair and a mischievous smile.

She erased the image through an act of will and rolled onto her side, punching her pillow into shape. If only it were as easy to pummel her thoughts into submission.

She didn't want children. They'd never been a part of her plans. She'd spent half an hour tonight explaining exactly why she couldn't-wouldn't-have children to Sadie and Grace. End of debate, discussion over.

All she wanted was to go to sleep and wake up and be able to know for sure one way or the other. Instead, for the next few hours she lay staring at the ceiling, her thoughts and stomach churning. She thought about Leandro and the beautiful woman. She thought about her mother. She pressed her hands to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and tried to decide if they were tender or if she was just imagining it.

For a while, she seriously considered going back to the drugstore to buy a test she could use immediately, but by then it was so late she figured she only had a few more hours to wait until she could legitimately call it morning.

She must have eventually drifted off to sleep, because she woke with a jerk when she heard a car door slam out in the street and saw that it was nearly seven in the morning. Her dreams had been a disturbing muddle that she didn't want to examine too closely. She didn't want to examine anything too closely. She just wanted to find out the truth, and get on with doing what had to be done.

Adrenaline racing through her body, she reread the instructions just to make sure that she hadn't forgotten anything. She hadn't-peeing on a stick was still the order of the day.

Hands shaking, she padded back into the bathroom, removed the test stick from its wrapper, pulled down her underwear and sat on the toilet. She was about to get down to business when she registered the blood on her underwear.

She had her period.

She'd just been late.

She wasn't pregnant with Leandro's baby.

Out of nowhere, a flood of tears washed up and over her, taking her utterly by surprise. Sitting on the toilet, pants around her ankles, she tasted the bitter irony of the moment.

Because she wasn't crying with relief-she was crying with disappointment.

"G.o.d, you're such an idiot!" she sobbed into her hands.

She'd had her bluff called in the most spectacular of ways-and been busted for the fraud she was.

Deep down inside, she wanted children. She craved a family. She wanted all the warmth of hearth and home that her brothers enjoyed.

Beneath the bravado, beneath the fear, she wanted it all. Worse, she wanted it with Leandro, the man she'd rejected, the man who was now dating another woman because Claudia had sent him packing.

He'd been right about her from day one-she was a coward. She'd been so scared of having the same weaknesses as her mother that she hadn't been prepared to take the leap of faith. All her posturing about how different she was from her mother, how independent she was, all her bravado and tough talk-all just part and parcel of her running scared from the real challenges of life.

Grace had said it last night. Breaking the cycle wasn't about not having children-it was about having them and ensuring they never knew what it was like to have an alcoholic for a mother. Because wasn't Claudia paying the ultimate price for her mother's illness if she curtailed her life's experiences out of fear?

"Talk about a screwup," she said to her bare knees. "Way to go, Einstein."

Dragging a loop of toilet paper off the roll, she blew her nose noisily and mopped at her eyes. Pulling off her T-shirt, she stepped into the shower and scrubbed away the last remnants of years of self-delusion.

The woman she saw in the mirror afterward looked chastened and scared and angry at herself. And she was-because she'd blown it big-time. She'd had the love of an amazing man and all the ingredients for a lifetime of happiness and contentment. And she'd stuffed it up. She'd cut Leandro loose, and pushed him into the hands of a voluptuous siren.

Hands down, it was the dumbest thing she'd ever done. And the truly terrible thing was, she'd have a lifetime to regret it.

LEANDRO WAS TAKING his first mouthful of coffee for the day when his publicity head rapped on his open office door.

"We've got a problem," Michael said, looking grim. He held out an unlabelled CD-ROM. "I've just burned this off the Net, you need to see it."

A tickle of prescience raised the hairs on the back of Leandro's neck. He had a feeling that he already knew what was on the disk. The wonder was that it had taken this long to gain notoriety.

Keeping his face carefully blank, Leandro inserted the disk into his computer and waited for the media player to pop up. The sounds of a man and a woman having s.e.x filled his ears before the image came on screen, and he knew his fears had been justified.

Wes and Alicia's bedroom antics had gone public. A veritable s.h.i.t storm was about to rain down on Heartlands and Ocean Boulevard. And, insanely, his first thought was for how he could protect Claudia from the worst of it. He shook off the impulse impatiently, angry with himself. Claudia was tough. She'd just shown him exactly how tough and cool she could be. She didn't need him to protect her.

"She's eighteen, right?" Michael asked worriedly. "Please tell me she looks eighteen."

"She's seventeen, I'm pretty sure," Leandro said.

Michael peered more closely at the screen.

"Are you sure? I think we can sell her as eighteen," he said.

Leandro opened his mouth to tell Michael that it would be hard to dispute the actress's well-known birth date but stopped as a thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Do we know who she is?" he asked carefully.

"Some bimbo with great t.i.ts, same old, same old." Michael shrugged. "The important thing is how we spin this. We need to get Wes in, get our stories straight, and handle this right."

Leandro stared at his PR guru for a second, then turned back to the video footage and tried to look at it through new eyes. He couldn't quite believe that Michael hadn't recognized Alicia. It was true that what she was doing on camera was almost in direct opposition to the way she normally appeared to the world. But was it really enough to ensure that no one else would recognize her either?

He decided to test his theory a little.

"I don't know, I think she looks a little familiar," he said slowly.

Michael stared at the screen again. "Blond, big b.o.o.bs, nice a.s.s-she looks like every other wannabe in town," he said dismissively.

For a moment Leandro was gripped with an utterly inappropriate urge to laugh. All the trouble he and Claudia had gone to, to ensure this footage never saw the light of day, and Alicia Morrison was apparently unrecognizable. With only one star in the offing, the footage became a h.e.l.l of a lot less t.i.tillating. In fact, he was willing to bet that Wes's reputation would only receive a boost from distribution of the scenes. After all, he was only doing what most guys dreamed of doing-making it with a gorgeous girl. A gorgeous, anonymous girl. If they played this right, there'd be no trading off the fact that Ocean Boulevard and Heartlands were in opposition, no fuss made about the known disparity in Wes and Alicia's ages. The story would still be tabloid-worthy, of course, but it would be a flash in the pan, over in a day or two. In a few months' time, Wes would join the ranks of Tommy Lee, Rob Lowe and Charlie Sheen as a bona fide pants man.

Getting a grip on his wayward sense of humor, Leandro reached for the phone. Wes was scheduled to be on set this afternoon, so he was probably already in makeup or lounging in his dressing room. His finger poised to dial, Leandro looked up at Michael. The less anyone knew of the truth, the better.

"You should go start on a statement. I'll break the news to Wes," he said.

Michael nodded his understanding and strode out the door, a man on a mission. Rising to shut the door for privacy, Leandro dialed Wes's extension.

To his credit, Wes sounded disturbed by the idea that Alicia was about to become tabloid fodder.

"She's a nice lady," Wes said in his soft Texas drawl once Leandro had filled him in on the situation.

Leandro averted his eyes from the not-very-ladylike pose Alicia had a.s.sumed on-screen.

"I think we can weather this if we just play it cool," Leandro said. "Most people are going to find it hard to reconcile who they think Alicia is with what's on that tape. If anyone makes the leap, we'll just deny it. When it's just about you, this will be a two-day story and die a natural death. Think you can do that?"

"Are you kidding? I'm an actor, man," Wes said confidently. "I lie for a living."

Satisfied that Wes's end of things was covered, Leandro ended the call and picked up his cell phone. He'd never actually got around to deleting Claudia's numbers from his phone memory, and he had her number on screen in a blink.

He was about to press speed dial when he realized what he was doing-protecting her. Going out of his way to shield her despite the fact that five minutes ago he'd just decided she could fend for herself.

There was only one word for it: pathetic.

Despite his misgivings, his finger descended on the b.u.t.ton. He couldn't help himself. For good or for ill, he wanted to help her. Probably that made him a sap, and hearing her voice would probably set him back four weeks in recovery time, but he was powerless to resist the urge.

Sir-b.l.o.o.d.y-Galahad, he thought sourly. Gallant to the death.

"CLAUDIA."

Her hand convulsed around the phone receiver as she recognized the low ba.s.s of Leandro's voice.

"Leandro," she said, her voice shaky. She almost dropped the phone as she tried to loosen her death grip. After the epiphany she'd had this morning, hearing his voice was almost too much.

"We have a problem, but I'm calling to let you know I think we've got it covered," he said. "Wes and Alicia are on the Internet."

"No," Claudia breathed. This was the last thing she needed right now. Hadn't life thrown enough c.r.a.p at her lately?

"Relax. Like I said, I think we've got it covered. My PR guru Michael is the one who brought it in. He has no idea it's Alicia," Leandro said.

Claudia was so busy savoring every low syllable that came from his mouth that she almost missed the meaning of his words.

"What, you mean...you mean he didn't recognize her?" she asked.

"That's right. I hinted around a bit to see if he would twig, and he didn't. And this guy is a PR mastermind. He knows everyone, keeps on top of all the gossip. If he doesn't recognize Alicia, I think we've got a solid case for denying her involvement, should her name ever come up. If we stick to the line, no one will ever know for sure if it's her or not."

Claudia frowned. "That's very generous of you," she said.

He was doing her a favor. A big one. It was the last thing she'd expected of him given the way they'd broken up.

"Alicia's just a babe in the woods. And Wes is keen to protect her," he said offhandedly.

The small flare of hope in Claudia's heart wavered at his cool tone. She reminded herself that she'd seen him out with a beautiful woman last night. She'd had her chance and blown it.

"I take it you'll be working with Wes to release a statement?" Claudia said.

"We'll wait till it makes the tabloids first. There's no point handing the story over on a silver platter. We might get lucky still and the tabloids miss it altogether."

They both knew that was highly unlikely, however. The tabloids fed off scandal; it was their bread and b.u.t.ter. They had people trawling the Web constantly, looking for gossip, innuendo, images.