Forbidden Surrender by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

like one too. You’re very easy to be with, Sara,’ Eddie said suddenly. ‘And I mean that in the nicest way possible.’
    ‘I know,’ she accepted huskily. ‘I’ve enjoyed today.’
    ‘So have I.’ He seemed surprised by the fact.
    ‘It’s just like having a brother,’ she said sleepily, leaning tiredly back against the headrest.
    ‘It’s okay,’ Eddie laughed, ‘I wasn’t moving in for the kill.’
    Sara smiled at her own conceit, then dozed off in the warmth of the car and the monotonous hum of the engine.
    She woke with a jerk, a curious feeling of foreboding hanging over her.
    * * *
    The feeling persisted over the next few days, so much sothat she found she wasn’t sleeping at night. The doctor had warned her of this delayed shock, the long air flight on top of her already weakened state sapping what little energy she had, and she spent the next three or four days resting, not going far from the house.
    Consequently she was at home when Marie Lindlay telephoned her, and answered the call herself. The idea of meeting for lunch appealed to her, and the two girls arranged to meet at a restaurant in town.
    There was no sign of Marie when she arrived at the arranged time, although the doorman insisted on calling
her
‘Miss Lindlay’. Sara found the situation too complicated to explain, leaving him under the misapprehension that she really was Marie. The poor man would think himself intoxicated when Marie did arrive.
    She came into the restaurant twenty minutes later, and the first five minutes of their conversation were taken up with her apologies.
    ‘It was Dominic,’ she sighed, ordering a Bacardi and Coke from the hovering waiter. ‘Whenever Daddy’s away he seems to think he has to keep checking up on me. It’s nonsense, of course, but he still does it. He kept me on the telephone ten minutes trying to find out where I was going.’
    ‘When are you getting married?’ Sara asked, wondering what she was doing here now that she was actually here.
    ‘Oh, not for ages yet,’ Marie dismissed, nodding at the waiter as he put her drink on the table. ‘Dominic’s in no hurry, and neither am I.’
    ‘But surely you’ve been engaged for almost a year,’ Sara frowned, not seeing Dominic Thorne as the patient type.
    ‘Just under six months,’ Marie corrected. ‘And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’d be very good as a wife for Dominic. He’s such a perfectionist.’
    Sara smiled. ‘I’m sure he would make allowances for a new wife.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Marie dropped the subject. ‘I love your accent. Where in America do you come from?’
    Sara told her, also explaining about the accident that had killed her parents and injured her. She found it so easy to talk to the other girl, and Marie seemed to feel the same.
    ‘How sad!’ Marie looked genuinely upset. ‘I hate death,’ she shuddered. ‘My mother’s dead too.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    Marie seemed to shake off her dark mood, and gave a dazzling smile. ‘Let’s order lunch.’
    Sara was amazed at the other girl’s capacity for passing from topic to topic, from mood to mood, and it seemed that during lunch they discussed every subject possible. By the end of the meal Sara felt that they were friends.
    ‘I still can’t get over our likeness,’ said Marie as they went from the restaurant into the lounge for coffee. ‘Dominic’s convinced it’s all a trick on your part,’ she giggled.
    Sara stiffened. ‘I’m well aware of your fiancée’s opinion of me.’
    ‘And he’s aware of yours,’ Marie grinned. ‘Did you really hit him?’
    Sara kept her eyes down on her coffee cup. ‘Did he say I had?’
    ‘He didn’t need to, it was pretty obvious. God, he was in a foul temper the rest of the evening! I’ve never seen him in such a black mood.’ Marie didn’t seem perturbed by the fact, grinning widely.
    ‘He deserved it,’ Sara said tightly.
    ‘I’m sure he did,’ Marie nodded. ‘The trouble with Dominic is that