Love Me, Love Me Not: An addictive psychological suspense with a twist you won’t see coming. Katherine Debona
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СКАЧАТЬ from his brilliance. He needed someone who was just as capable, who understood his ambitions, but had no desire to challenge him. We would make an incredible team because I would let him take centre stage. I’d had years of practice, of letting someone else bask in all the glory, but now it was time to claim my reward.

      ‘I never really thought about my future before I met you.’

      He blinked. Once, then twice more. Lips parted and became heavy with intent before he sprang to his feet and threw his empty glass into the river where it promptly collided with the side of a punt. None of its inhabitants seemed to take any notice; too busy were they in grappling with one another and I remember hoping that at least one of them would topple into the water and drown.

      ‘Look at them,’ he said, flinging his arm in the punt’s direction. ‘So unaware of the privilege they’re experiencing just by being here. Such a waste.’

      I loved him because he saw how unfair the world could be. That there were too many people who succeeded simply because of what they were born into. That it wasn’t just the ignorant who sucked the life from this planet, but the ones who assumed they were better than everyone else because they were rich.

      I loved him because he too had a darker side. One I didn’t want him to lock away, because when I was around him the voices inside my own head seemed to still and I was slowly becoming open to the possibility of allowing myself to be happy.

      For as long as I could remember I had wanted to do harm, both to myself and others. My stomach was littered with tiny silver scars that were testament to all the nights when I would sit in the shadows and ask the voices to leave me alone. To all the nights when my only release had been to feel the cut of skin, the slow slither of blood as my very essence seeped into the floorboards on which I lay. Because without it I knew my hands couldn’t be trusted not to carry out the twisted imaginings of my mind. Without that release, the voices would not stop.

      ‘Walk with the wise and become wise. For a companion of fools suffers harm.’ Standing at the edge of the river, Patrick watched the punt make its precarious journey towards the horizon as I sat and stared at his silhouetted profile.

      ‘Is that a poem?’ I asked.

      ‘Proverb,’ he said as he came back to me. ‘Seems my Sunday mornings weren’t a total waste of time.’

      ‘What is it you’re trying to tell me, Patrick?’

      ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who really gets me.’ He placed his hands either side of my neck, the weight of him against my frantic pulse. ‘You understand that people like us have a duty to give back to the world. To do something with the gifts we’ve been given rather than squandering away our time.’

      ‘Did you know that the probability of our relationship succeeding is about the same as being struck by lightning?’ I could feel my entire body shaking, certain that if he were to let me go my spine would betray me and I would slip into the river, be taken into its depths and drift out to sea.

      ‘There’s always an exception to every rule.’

      His mouth came down to mine, smothering my nerves, and I decided to give him everything because I thought it was what I wanted.

       CHAPTER THREE

      Peanut: To dream of eating a peanut is a sign of trying to uncover a hidden truth

       Surrey, eight years ago

      Finals were over, the hours poring over textbooks were behind us and the cellars of every student bar had been emptied during weeks of potent celebration. I was due to start work in just over a week and, despite my best attempts to dissuade her, Elle had convinced her parents to give me a proper sendoff at their home. They agreed, both because they knew my mother never would, and also, I suspect, as a thank you of sorts for my supposed good influence on their child. A child who always got what she wanted and loved any excuse to dress up and flaunt her wares at all and sundry.

      ‘So what’s he like?’ Elle leant towards the mirror that filled an entire wall of her bedroom as she painted a line around her lips.

      ‘Who?’ I asked, taking a long sip of my drink. Homemade elderflower gin with a squeeze of fresh lime. Distilled by my own hand, ever since Nana first showed me how. The familiarity soothed my troubled mind, if only for a moment.

      ‘Patrick.’

      My insides constricted, an internal warning of what was to come. I should have trusted them.

      In less time than it takes a seedling to sprout, we had mapped out and agreed every step of our future together. A two-bed flat within spitting distance of Covent Garden. Owned by his parents but perfect for his desired placement at the London School of Economics where he could continue his research. In return I’d agreed to pay the majority of the bills and we even drew up a rota to avoid any arguments over chores. We had the conversation about our futures, our ambitions, the understanding being we both favoured career over family. We had ironed out all the wrinkles, all the concerns we thought might arise from moving in together. The only anomaly I hadn’t properly accounted for was my best friend.

      ‘Why do you ask?’

      She tilted her head from side to side. ‘I’ve got this picture in my mind of what he’s going to be like.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘You.’ A wicked grin. ‘Only male.’

      The insult was clear. But I couldn’t find the words to tell her how wrong she was.

      ‘I can’t believe you have a boyfriend I’ve never even met.’

      There was a reason for that, but not one I could share. It was why I’d been so against him coming to the party, protesting the need for him to move into the flat and set up his study just the way he wanted. That he would hate being surrounded by people who didn’t understand him.

      That I was terrified of what would happen if he met Elle.

      ‘Do you like him?’

      ‘Of course I do. What sort of a question is that?’

      Her eyes found mine in the mirror and I had to look away, to try and conceal the truth behind my guilty words.

      ‘No, I mean like him, like him.’

      The flush on my face was as if she had slapped me and I hurried from the room. She followed me in silence, but it was a silence alive with noise, with unspoken, treacherous things.

      I pushed my way through the crowd of well-wishers, people who had filled my life without any kind of meaning, but seemed to think they knew me. I wasn’t interested in their congratulations, I just wanted to find him, to shelter him from this cosseted world.

      There he was. Shirt untucked and hair curling around the arm of his glasses. He was nodding at something Elle’s brother was saying, fingers used to nursing a pint now gripping the stem of a champagne flute.

      She waltzed past me, pushing the air aside and announcing her arrival so that, as his head turned in my direction, he was overcome by the sight СКАЧАТЬ