Imogen couldn't pin-point exactly when she had first started to regret turning her back on her inheritance-not in any way for her own sake, but for what it could mean to the charity she worked for and the children she so much wanted to help. Now, thanks to the small private charitable organisation she worked for, some of those orphans at least were being given a roof over their heads, food, education and, most important of all in Imogen's eyes, love.

You didn't do things like that when you had spent the last few years working to help destitute orphans who lived in a world where children under five would fight to the death over a scrap of bread. Imogen closed her eyes and lay back in her seat, an economy-class seat, even though she could technically at least have flown home first class. Looking back over the last four years, it seemed almost impossible that she had anything left in common with the girl she had once been. No she was a woman now, a woman of twenty-two, who knew exactly what the real world encompassed, exactly how much pain, poverty and degradation it could hold, as well as how much love, compassion and sheer generosity of spirit.

She reminded herself as she did so that she wasn't a naïve girl of just eighteen any more, who knew virtually nothing of the real world or the shadowed, darker side of life, a girl who had been sheltered and protected by her father's love and concern. Throughout the flight from Rio Imogen had been rehearsing exactly what she was going to say, and the manner in which she was going to say it.

The Blackmail Baby by Penny Jordan