Out of Sight by Isabelle Grey Read Free Book Online Page B

home that evening, she had no appetite and left the chanterelles to wither in their bag. Instead she rang her best friend Stella in London.
    â€˜Am I falling in love?’ she demanded.
    Stella laughed: ‘You’ve only set eyes on him, what—?’
    â€˜Four times. Okay. But isn’t that what being in love’s all about?’
    â€˜I guess so.’
    â€˜Being certain straight away that somehow it’s right?’
    â€˜Look, if you’re that stuck on him, go ahead and see what happens. It’s a chance to get laid, if nothing else!’
    â€˜It’s more than that,’ protested Leonie.
    â€˜Go easy, Lennie,’ said Stella. ‘What’s all the rush? You hardly know this guy yet, let alone what he might be after.‘
    â€˜Well, he’s not exactly trying to jump my bones, is he?’
    â€˜Maybe not. But is this really what you want? To feel so … nervy about someone. At least get a better sense of who he is before you start investing yourself like this.’
    â€˜I’m not handing him my life savings!’
    â€˜You’ve only just got back on your feet after Greg.’
    â€˜I’ve got to take a risk again some time.’
    â€˜Listen, I’m sure your instincts are good. Take care, that’s all. I don’t want ever again to see you as upset as you were last year.’
    Trying to ignore the obscure resentment evoked by Stella’s sensible warning, Leonie switched the discussion to her friend’s new job. After several stressful years working for an adoption agency, Stella had recently moved to a charity which reunited adopted adults with their original birth families. Hearing how her friend was already benefiting from a more optimistic working environment, her intrusive thoughts about Patrice took a back seat.
    And yet, in quiet moments over the next few days – driving to work, waiting for a kettle to boil, removing her make-up, falling asleep – Leonie found herself stubbornly turning over like a pebble in her mind the conviction that her heart had begun to nurture some renegade life of its own. Stella was right to urge caution; she hardly knew this man, and reassured herself that she could still as easily turn away from the startling feelings she had for him as welcome them in. But nevertheless she was intrigued, excited, fearful – not of Patrice, but of the prospect of some fresh dimension of experience. It was time for her to change, to grow. And she was now absolutely certain that some entirely new way to feel would open before her if only she could draw near enough to Patrice to let it happen.
    *
    Leonie assumed, when Patrice rang to invite her laughingly to the ‘grand opening’ of the salon he had restored in his grandmother’s house, that there would be quite a few other people there. She was more than curious to meet his friends and, flattered by the likelihood that she was about to be accepted among them, was almost disappointed to discover she was the sole guest. He had waited for her arrival to open a bottle of champagne, but she suspected from his slight clumsiness in pouring the wine that this was not his first drink of the evening. She took his evident jumpiness as a further sign of how favoured she was to have gained entrance to his home.
    The marble fire surround, window shutters, plasterwork and parquet flooring of the salon had all been painstakingly renovated. The amount of work involved was clear from the dilapidated state of the entrance hall and other ground-floor rooms, all of which Patrice showed her. It appeared that he inhabited only a narrow study, the quaint black-and-white-tiled kitchen, designed as the domain of servants rather than of the original owners of the house, and, presumably, some sleeping quarters upstairs. Leonie was aware from the address on the card he had given her that he saw his homeopathic patients at a modern rented office in the centre of