Out of Control

'Goodbye, see you,' were her only words before she hung up, then felt mean as she stood there in the silence. She wished she had never let Bruno take her to dinner in the first place; she wished she had never let him into her life, even as a friend, because this was a stupid mess she had got herself into, and it wasn't going to be easy or painless getting herself out.

She put away her purchases in the kitchen and made herself a salad lunch which she ate with the blinds down, because the photographer was hanging around and she did not want to look up and find herself being snapped with a forkful of lettuce half-way to her mouth. She could stay indoors and ignore their noisy comings and goings; from her cottage to the pub and then to the river to check on the latest state of affairs among the anglers and then back to check on her and see if they could persuade her to open the door. She could turn a deaf ear to what they were up to, but the quiet and peace of the cottage was totally shattered. She was irritable and fed up and she couldn't stand any more of it, so in the end she packed her case again, and as soon as the coast was clear she got into her hired car and drove back up to London.

At least nobody would know where she was now. They would all think she was at the cottage, so she might be able to get a few hours peace, which was what she did, from Saturday afternoon until Sunday lunchtime, when Bruno arrived at her flat, flushed and agitated, because he had driven down to Essex to see her, only to find her gone and the cottage empty.

Liza opened the door because she recognised his voice. 'Bruno, what on earth are you doing here?' she asked, letting him walk past while she stared hurriedly around the hallway. 'How did you know I was back?'

That was when he told her that he had been to the cottage, and Liza looked horrified. 'You didn't run into the local press? They didn't get a picture of you at the cottage?'

'No, I met a policeman,' Bruno said. 'Nice chap, he told me he'd seen you driving off and you hadn't been back. I thought he was going to turn nasty at first, because when he saw me hanging around the cottage, banging on the door and peering in the windows, he came over as if he was going to hit me or arrest me or something, but then he apparently recognised me, because he stopped looking ferocious and asked if I was Bruno Gifford and I explained that that wasn't my name, but I was who he thought I was, and then he told me about seeing you leave and I guessed you must have come back to London.' He was breathless and she took him into the kitchen and gave him a chair while she made some coffee.

'Are you OK?' Bruno asked anxiously, looking at her like a worried little boy, and she ruffled his hair and smiled at him although she should have begun her new policy of freezing him off. How could she, though, when he looked so helpless and unsure of himself?

'I'm fine. How about you? Any bruises?'

He seemed baffled. 'Bruises? Why on earth . . .'

'From your family? Did your uncle read you the riot act?'

'He was in one of his dry moods,' Bruno said. 'More in sorrow than in anger, you know the tone. He said it was a pity to get myself into the gossip columns and he asked me if I planned to marry you. He wasn't quite as tough as I'd expected, but my mother was pretty upset. She'd got a crazy idea of you from the newspapers. I told her she just didn't know you and she shouldn't jump to conclusions until she'd met you, but . . .'

The phone rang and Liza handed him his coffee and said, 'Excuse me, I'd better answer that." He didn't have to finish what he had been saying about his mother, anyway, because she had a shrewd idea that his mother would not want to meet her and did not want to change her ideas about her.

She picked up the phone and said 'Yes?' coldly, hoping to scare off the Press, if it was them, but the deep, intimate voice at the other end made her pulses leap in shocked surprise.

'Hello, Liza. I rang the cottage, but got no reply so I thought I'd try your London number.'

How had he got it? She had given him her office card with the office telephone number and address, she hadn't (old him her London address, and it wasn't in the directory—so how had he got it?

'What do you want?' she asked and he laughed.

'Not very friendly, are you? I've had the estimate on my car—the damage isn't as much as I'd expected. Two hundred pounds, though, I'm afraid. Shall I tell them to go ahead?'

'Of course,' she said offhandedly.

'Right, and I'll send you the bill when it comes.'

'Yes.' She wanted to him to get off the phone, because hearing his voice made her feel hot and cold at once and she was afraid. No, that was an understatement; she was terrified—not of him exactly, but of how he made her l «-el. If he ever touched her again she had a sinking suspicion that she would go crazy, she wouldn't be able to think straight or stop him. He could make her feelings explode and send her out of control, and she was appalled by how she felt.

She didn't even know him; he was a stranger, a man she'd only spent a few hours with, yet he had somehow managed to pierce her defences, get to her—and she had been so sure she was safe, locked up behind high, icy walls. She hadn't been. He had reminded her of how she had felt once before, when she was young, and hadn't learnt to keep a tight hold on her emotions. She had blazed then, gone up like dry straw when a match is dropped into it. It had been a wild, fierce conflagration for a little while and then she had been left dead and blackened and destroyed, so she had learnt to fear fire and dread emotion.

'What are you doing later on?' he asked softly, a smile in his voice. 'Can I see you?'

Liza was shaking and feverish; she was mentally running, too, getting away from him.

'No, I have a date,' she said. 'I'm going to watch a game of polo.'

Then she hung up and Bruno was standing there watching her, frowning. 'Who was that?' he asked and she shook her head.

'Nobody important,' she said, which was a mistake because her evasiveness made Bruno even more suspicious.

'Did you mean it? Are you coming to watch the polo and meet my mother?' he asked, still frowning, and she sighed and nodded, because it would distract him from asking about Keir Zachary. All she wanted to do was forget she had ever met him.

CHAPTER FOUR

'What's the time? Only ten past twelve?' Bruno looked surprised. T thought it was later. I'm starving—have you had lunch yet?*

Liza shook her head. *I was going to have a sandwich.'