The Pleasure and the Pain

the long version

Five years ago Raphael Madralena had left Laura Fleming, renouncing everything they had had together – and theirs had been a passionate relationship – to return to Spain to marry the girl he had been bethrothed to since childhood. His involvement with Laura had indeed been passionate, yet fleeting, ruled by his head and not by his emotions. When the call of duty had come he had not hesitated to leave her without a backward glance…And now he was a widower and Laura was going to work for him in answer to an advertisement in The Times – although he did not know that it was Laura who was coming. Five years is a long time. Would those old fires be relit?