The Warning by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online

suffer as a result? Did she tell him a secret and regret it?
    My phone buzzes in my pocket twice. That means a text or email, not a phone call. It’s not Lorna, then. Lorna would ring. I’m not answering her calls today, I’ve decided. She’s too much of a mood wrecker.
    I thank Rukia and leave. Outside on Hills Road, I pull out my phone. My heartbeat starts to gallop when I see it’s a message from Tom. “Selfie outside New Bond Street Jeweler’s Shop,” it says. He’s signed it “T xx.” The attached photo is of Tom standing in front of a window display of diamond rings, smiling his heart-stopping smile.
    Oh, God. He’s going to propose to me tonight. What else can this mean?
    A sneery voice in my head—Lorna’s? Nadine Caspian’s?—says This is the decisive moment, or it will be tonight at La Mimosa. You can’t say you haven’t been warned. Run, Chloe, run. Remember, you have to think of Freya’s well-being too.
    I’m going to have to ring Lorna, even though the prospect of a grilling from her makes my throat close up. I can’t think what else to do.

 
    Chapter 9
    “T HIS IS SUCH a compelling case study,” Lorna announces after a long silence. We’re having lunch at the Green Man, in Trumpington. Well, she is. I’m staring at a tuna steak I have no desire to eat. “Can I say what strikes me immediately? You want to hear my analysis?”
    I nod, though want is not quite the right word.
    “Tom Rigbey is not keen on you in the normal sense of the word. He’s not smitten in a good way—wanting to see you night after night, talking about diamond rings within milliseconds of making your acquaintance. Wait!” Lorna holds up a hand to stop me interrupting. “You can argue later. For now, just listen. Tom Rigbey is a stalker—a creepy latcher-on to strangers. Most women would run a mile from anyone who came on so scarily strong so quickly, but you didn’t. Until I said stalker , you didn’t think of him as one, did you?”
    “No.” I blink away tears. Maybe I’m naïve. Maybe falling for a charming, handsome, thoughtful science genius who is nicer to me than anyone else I’ve ever met is the height of stupidity. I’d be a better person, no doubt, if I accused strangers of being creepy, like Lorna does. “Tom isn’t a stalker,” I say.
    “Yes, he totally is. You don’t see it for a very simple reason: you’re one too.” Lorna smiles triumphantly. “Like I said: the two of you make for a compelling case study. I’m almost tempted to contact a psychology professor. Most victims of stalkers hate it and recognize the stalking for what it is. But imagine if a stalker happened to fixate on someone who’s never had enough love or attention—maybe someone whose mother was a serial doormat for one husband after another, and who was always expected to take second place and fit in. This woman with the man-pleasing mother doesn’t have such a great romantic history, by the way.”
    “I’d never have guessed,” I murmur.
    “She follows her mother’s bad example and falls for the wrong guy: a chancer with avoidant personality disorder—undiagnosed—and before she knows what’s hit her, he’s scarpered, leaving her with a baby and a broken heart.”
    “Lorna?”
    “What?”
    “I’m not going to be any less offended because you’re saying ‘she’ instead of ‘you.’ You don’t need to talk about me in the third person.”
    “Offended? Don’t be offended.”
    “Oh, okay then!”
    “And don’t be sarcastic either. You came to me because you wanted to understand what’s going on here, and you couldn’t. I’ve worked it out. I’m helping you. Tom Rigbey, quite by chance, chose as his latest stalking victim someone so emotionally needy, she’s incapable of recognizing stalking as stalking. You!” Lorna stares at me in obvious delight, as if I’m a rabbit she’s just pulled out of a hat. “Wait! I know what you’re going to say: you don’t see yourself as emotionally