She wasn't the kind of girl who kept love letters, wrapped in pink ribbon, locked in an inlayed wooden box. Not that anyone sent love letters these days.

She would have no wild stories of her youth to tell her neices, no lost loves, no ones who got away.

She was, as she always had been, just her.

She had got so use to being on her own, the proverbial independant woman, that she ended up so afraid, afraid of being any other way.

And so , even though she was still young, she had stopped looking for love letters...

He ran into the room, his heart poundinf, and his clothes soaking wet. He had never felt sich all consuming fear as when he had walked into her bedroom to find her gone.

His darling, his little one, the part of him that was part of his wife as well. His Bella.

The ransom note was pretty standard so the police said. £5000000 pounds. Non sequential. Not marked.

He had the money, so he got it together and walked to the meet.

They got the money, but his Bella wasn't there. He heard no more from the kidnappers.

The police...

The conversation lasted only two words, for the rest there was no need to speak, her reprochful glance told the rest of the story. My apologetic eyes. Her anger and humiliation.

Two words:

"I can't"

It had started six months ago at work, She was beautiful in an understated way. Graceful and classy, and increadably sexy.

It started with the eyes, the longing glances, long before any words were spoken. It ended here, in this hotel room.

After months of planning, trying to get a weekend away, the same time off work without arousing suspision, from either of our spouses....

It was cold, and soulless. It was mechanical, drunken and above all else it was heartbreaking.

I couldn't beleive it when I saw him in the crowd after all these years. The proverbial one who got away. It was even less imaginable that he would be the one to reach out to hold my hand, that he would be the one to pull me into his arms just as our song began to play.

The tickets for this concert cost a fortune, I had stayed up all night just to get through on the phone. I had brought a date...

It was him. even now my breath drew short as I thought about it, all the things he used to do, all the million little ways that he would never let anything go, every little rumer that he spread or whisper behind my back.

Richard Delany had just walked into my board room. Mine.

I saw him look up and I know that he recognised me, I wished that I had chosen to wear the stilettos this morning instead of the practical comfortable shoes that are my fail safe whenever I know I am going to be in long meetings...

She was beautiful, her hair fell in raven waves down to the small of her back, there was a crimson ribbon taming it. She wore a long skirt and a half corset over a white sleeveless blouse, the srimson was the only colour she wore, everything else was dull greys and browns.

He was furious, how could they twist his words this way, corrupt what he wrote. It was his story, it was supposed to be new and revolutionary but all he got was the same tired cliche, over and over again. So much for modern reinterpretation.

So much for...

It was there in the cold, I didn't beleive what I was seeing at first. I felt the chill that he must have felt, tasted the salt that he must have tasted and beneath my feet felt the soft caress of the sand as the rushing tide pulled the sand from under me.

It was a hat, that was all that was left soaked in brine and covered in seaweed.
I could picture him, pulling off his clothes with a cold determination on a warm summers day. In sight of noone he walked to the bin and buried them underneath...