Dark Paradise. Sara Craven

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      This lunch today was a case in point. She was used to the publishing habit of conducting business discussions over well-cooked food in congenial surroundings, but these surroundings were more than congenial—they were luxurious, and the whole meal was developing all the hallmarks of a celebration, of some kind.

      Kate sighed inwardly. Clive’s whole manner was portentous too, suggesting that it was all leading up to something. A proposal? she wondered wryly. And if so—what? Marriage, or something rather more casual. Because neither was acceptable.

      And as if to confirm her worst fears, Clive lifted his glass and said, ‘To us.’

      She smiled wanly, and drank, without echoing his words. She wished she didn’t feel so depressed. This was a fantastic restaurant, and the chateaubriand currently being dissected for them on a serving table looked delicious. Why couldn’t she enter into the spirit of the occasion, and worry about overtures from Clive as and when they occurred?

      There was a slight hubbub nearby and she glanced round to see a well-known film star making his way to a table, trying to pretend that he wasn’t instantly recognisable.

      Her mouth relaxed into a smile as she wondered how many other lunchers had shared her enjoyment of that air of total selfconsciousness. Not Clive. He was too busy fussing about the vegetables, she thought, as she glanced round the restaurant. But there were others exchanging amused smiles, and one girl in particular, her face alive with excitement and laughter as she leaned towards her companion.

      Kate froze. Alison? she thought. But it can’t be! For a moment she wondered if the wine could be giving her hallucinations, or if there’d been a maverick among the wild mushrooms she’d been served as a first course.

      It couldn’t be her sister-in-law sitting only a few tables away. For one thing, there was no way Jon, her stepbrother, could afford these prices …

      Almost reluctantly, she looked again, aware of a sense of foreboding.

      It was Alison all right. That blonde head was unmistakable, and so was the way she moved her hands when the conversation became animated.

      Kate couldn’t see her companion. There was a waiter in the way, and she watched tensely, willing the man to move.

      ‘Mange-touts, madame?’ The slightly reproachful tone of their own waiter indicated it was probably the second time of asking.

      ‘Please,’ she said, aware of Clive’s puzzled look. She forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry—I thought I saw someone I knew. But I was mistaken.’

      The view to the table where Alison was sitting was unimpeded now, but she made herself pick up her knife and fork, taste the chateaubriand, pass an appreciative remark before she looked again.

      There wasn’t much to see. The back of a man’s dark head, the breadth of his shoulders under an expensive jacket. And certainly not Jon. Which led to the question—what was her sister-in-law doing having lunch in one of London’s top restaurants with another man after barely a year of marriage?

      Not merely another man, either. That lightning glance had told her all the bad news. Alison was with Matt Lincoln.

      Kate would have known that arrogant tilt of the head anywhere, she thought bitterly, even if Alison herself hadn’t given the secret away. How many times had she seen that same expression of pleasure and absorption lighting up Alison’s face, usually accompanying some anecdote in which ‘Matt said’ or ‘Matt did …’

      Such a pretty girl, her family had agreed, and clever too to hold down such a responsible job, because Matt Lincoln, her boss, was a name to be reckoned with in the world of television. He’d started out as a journalist, switched to TV news reporting, and then moved into the area of current affairs, producing and presenting a hard-hitting series of documentaries which had already collected a small clutch of prized awards.

      Kate had watched and admired, even if she had reservations about the man himself. He was clever, ruthless and possessed of a sexual charisma that was almost tangible, and she didn’t like or trust men like that—men who were invulnerable, who marched through life like archetypal lords of creation.

      His documentaries were brilliant, of course. He was an ace investigative journalist, and his targets were left with their villainies and weaknesses totally exposed. People rarely emerged with credit once Matt Lincoln’s searchlight had been trained on them.

      Kate had sometimes wondered what his victims did with the ruin of their lives when it was all over. She’d mentioned this once to Alison, who had stared at her in amazement and asked what it mattered?

      ‘They’re crooks,’ she had said with calm confidence. ‘All of them, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Save your sympathy for the people they’ve conned and swindled.’

      The spark in her blue eyes added silently, ‘And don’t criticise Matt to me, because he can do no wrong.’

      Alison was very different from the majority of the girl-friends Jon had brought home, and this was what had made Kate suspect that this time it might be serious—at least with him. She wasn’t so sure about Alison’s feelings. After all, she had a glamorous job. She accompanied Matt Lincoln everywhere—even abroad. She met everyone that he met, and clearly enjoyed every exuberant moment of it, so would she be prepared to jettison all that for marriage with an assistant solicitor in a suburban legal practice?

      Kate loved Jon, and always had, but she had no illusions about him. He was attractive, without being an Adonis, and possessed of a quiet charm, but might not his personality seem pallid when compared with Matt Lincoln’s arrogant forcefulness?

      She knew without being told that Jon had misgivings too, although she hadn’t the slightest doubt that he was in love with Alison, and one evening when they’d had the house to themselves, he’d confided in her.

      ‘The trouble is I can’t figure out the situation,’ he’d said gloomily. ‘She’s worked with him closely for nearly two years, she’s travelled the world with him, she mentions him in every other breath, and yet I don’t know how heavily she’s been involved with him—if at all.’

      Kate felt her way carefully. ‘Is it important that you do know?’

      He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘Yes. I wish it wasn’t.’

      ‘Then can’t you ask?’

      ‘I’ve tried,’ he said unhappily. ‘Part of the problem is I feel a swine for probing. I keep telling myself that I love her, and therefore I should trust her. I really want to—and yet…’

      Kate understood what he was trying to convey. Her mother had been a widow when she met Jon’s father, but Michael Herbert had been divorced, and gradually it had emerged that his wife had left him for another man when Jon was quite small. Jon had been a reticent child, but gradually he had learned to relax under the influence of his stepmother’s gentle serenity, and to accept and even return the affection which was offered.

      Yet always at the back of his mind there had to be the memory of what his mother had done, she thought, which probably explained this strange streak of possessiveness he was displaying towards Alison.

      She said gently, ‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about. After all, it’s the future you should be concerned with, not what’s past.’

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