Vacation with a Commanding Stranger

Richard…Richard was here!

‘Livvy,’ she heard Gale saying to her, ‘Livvy, I want you to meet George’s employer…Robert Forrest.’

Livvy stared at her blankly. No need now to question the guilt and discomfort she could see in her cousin’s eyes. No need now to wonder at Gale’s odd nervousness and insistence that she didn’t leave.

Richard Field…Robert Forrest. Why on earth hadn’t she realised, recognised…?

She felt too sick to move or speak, but Richard—Robert was moving closer towards her, and if she didn’t do something soon she would be imprisoned…trapped.

She turned to Gale, two angry spots of colour burning on her cheeks.

‘How could you do this to me?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘How could you…?’

And before Gale could say anything she turned on her heel, almost running past Gale and Robert, ignoring the politely curious glances of the other guests and the embarrassed apology George was trying to give her as she wrenched the front door open and left.

The first thing she did when she got back home was lock the doors and unplug the telephone, silencing it in mid ring.

Her stomach was churning nauseously, and she had the most violently painful headache. Her body seemed to be out of her own control, and when she turned on the tap to run some cold water for a drink, her hand was shaking so much that it took her several attempts to fill the glass.

Her teeth chattered as she raised it to her lips, and yet she wasn’t cold. In fact she felt almost suffocatingly hot.

Richard was Robert Forrest, and Gale had obviously known it…known all about his deliberate deceit. And the rest as well?

No wonder her cousin had been behaving out of character. Why on earth hadn’t she told her…warned her…?

Because Rich—Robert Forrest had asked her not to.

So much for family loyalty, Livvy reflected sourly, her top lip curling.

Gale wasn’t totally to blame, though. She ought to have guessed that something was wrong. Richard Field…Robert Forrest… She had thought it odd that Gale had not seemed to want to discuss the man whose buying the farmhouse she had been so bitterly opposed to. Knowing Gale as she did, she had half expected her cousin to have something to say about him.

Because of her own anguish, her own fear that Gale might guess what had happened, she had been too grateful to question Gale’s unusual silence.

For Gale to guess what had happened… Gale already knew, didn’t she? Otherwise…

How much had he told them? What exactly had he said…that he was sorry but he had had to destroy her, Livvy’s life? That she had been expendable, an unfortunate victim he had had to sacrifice?

On what? The altar of his own need to revenge himself against her sex? Not because it would in any way aid George and Gale’s marriage. She couldn’t have made it plainer that she wanted them to stay together.

Why couldn’t he have told her who he was? Why had it been necessary for him to lie to her about his identity?

Perhaps he had enjoyed deceiving her. There couldn’t surely be any other reason.

What difference would it have made to her, knowing that it was Robert Forrest who wanted to buy the farmhouse and not Richard Field?

She frowned… Why, if he had been so keen to preserve Gale and George’s marriage, had he deliberately tried to cause problems between them by encouraging George to go behind Gale’s back and sell him the property?

She wondered bitterly what Gale would say if she knew the things he had said about her…the criticisms he had made. No doubt she wouldn’t think him so wonderful then.

And what had he told them about her? How had he explained her departure?

She had simply left a message on Gale’s answerphone saying that she couldn’t stay any longer. Had Gale challenged him, asked him why it had been so necessary for her to leave? If she had, Livvy doubted he would have told her the truth.

She tensed as she heard a car draw up outside. The sight of the familiar lean, dark-haired man uncoiling himself from the driver’s seat made her shake with nervousness. As she backed away from the window so that he couldn’t see her, she saw him pause and look towards her home.

What was he doing here? What did he want? To reassure himself that what had happened between them was something he could safely ignore? To warn her that it had meant nothing and that as far as he was concerned she meant nothing?

Her mouth curled into a tight, bitter smile. Did he really think she was stupid enough to need that kind of warning?