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'Love can be pretty fatal at times, can't it?' Cherry agreed. 'I know how I felt
when I realised you and Adam had gone off together. I felt like death. You'll
never know how close I came to killing you last night. I really hated you,
Lisa.'
'Don't! You make me feel ashamed,' Lisa confessed in dismay.
'It was all Adam's idea,' Cherry said frankly. 'I'm aware of that. He admitted
as much.'
'He wanted to make you jealous.'
'He succeeded!'
Lisa laughed abruptly. 'I told Matt he was despicable for using me to cheat
his mother into thinking he wasn't interested in Livia Marlowe. Yet I let
Adam use me for similar reasons and it seems to have worked out very well.'
Cherry looked at her compassionately. 'Darling, if you want to get out of this
party, I'll cope with Adam.'
Lisa looked at her, tempted. It was a way out, and she badly wanted to find a
way out, yet something held her back from accepting it. Slowly she said,
'Maybe I ought to go. I have to find out how I really feel, how Matt really
feels& '
'But you aren't really thinking,' Cherry said swiftly. 'You know how you feel
already, and I think it's obvious that Matt Wolfe was just amusing himself
down in Saintpel. After all, a man like him must get bored in a small town.
He probably wanted to while away the time, and you were to hand. You
were almost engaged, which made you just interesting enough. Matt Wolfe
would enjoy the challenge of stealing you away from another man. So he
turned on the heat, and being the little innocent you are, Lisa, you fell for it.'
Lisa was white. 'You're probably right. At first I thought he was interested in
Fran& '
'Oh, Fran would be a pushover for someone like him,' Cherry dismissed
easily. 'You were far more of a challenge. His ego would need something
more than the fun of making a girl like Fran fall for him.' She looked at Lisa
pityingly. 'Darling, forget him. Where's your pride?'
'It's my pride that makes me think I should go,' said Lisa. 'I'm not running
away again. Adam said I should face the truth, and I think he's right. I'll go
there tonight just to see Matt for the last time. I want to see him with Livia
Marlowe. Maybe then I can put him out of my mind. I thought coming to
London would help me to forget him, but he followed me here, so it hasn't
done the trick. Every time I see him I fall further. I've got to cauterise the
wound.'
Cherry shrugged. 'You know yourself best. So long as you aren't fooling
yourself.'
'I don't think I am,' Lisa said flatly. 'You don't mind if I borrow Adam for one
night?'
'Help yourself,' Cherry said easily. 'I'll sit at home and plan my trousseau.'
Adam arrived a moment or two later and whisked Lisa away, kissing Cherry
briefly before they left. In his car he gave Lisa a long, appraising stare.
'You look even more fantastic than you did last night. Cherry is brilliant.'
'I feel like a stranger.'
'Good. That will help you to achieve a sort of distance from what happens.
Remember, you have to face the facts, Lisa whatever the facts turn out to
be.'
'I know,' she agreed quietly.
'This is a public performance. Forget Cherry. For tonight I'm your escort. I
think you ought to let Matt Wolfe believe I'm interested in you. Don't tell
him about Cherry. Let him go on thinking we're dating each other
romantically.'
'I hate all this deceit,' she burst out.
'I know, but I think this is necessary. I don't want you to hate yourself
tomorrow morning.'
She flushed deeply, remembering the way in which she had risen on tiptoe to
meet Matt's kiss. She certainly did not want to betray herself like that again.
Livia Marlowe had a flat in a modern block in Chelsea facing the Thames.
When they had packed the car they lingered on the Embankment, gazing
along the dark water at the reflections of light. The weather had turned
colder suddenly. A chill wind blew through the leafless trees, knocking the
moored barges together with a dull clang.
'There's the City,' said Adam, pointing back down the river. 'See the dome of
St Paul's? And there's the House of Commons.'
Lisa stared, entranced. 'How romantic it all is by lamplight!'
'The lamps along the Embankment are Victorian,' Adam told her. 'They've
been kept just as they used to be.'
'They're beautiful,' she sighed. Further down the river they could see a large
ship strung with lights which gleamed like will o' the wisps in the darkness.
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