Love Me, Love Me Not: An addictive psychological suspense with a twist you won’t see coming. Katherine Debona

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СКАЧАТЬ on his shoulder to keep the gap between them small.

      His face was too open, his thoughts and desires laid at her feet, but she was so used to such adoration she didn’t recognise its perfection. I couldn’t look at him; he looked like I felt.

      ‘He’s not at all what I expected.’ She was sat on the edge of the swimming pool, long limbs stirring the water. I imagined it to be like the tornado that ripped Dorothy from her home, wondered what would await Elle if she were plunged into another world.

      ‘What did you expect?’ I handed her one of the platefuls of food I’d busied myself collecting from the buffet. Anything to avoid watching him watching her.

      ‘Not sure. He’s rather sweet.’

      Sweet. That was all she could come up with to describe the most enigmatic, talented and breathtaking person I had ever met? The only human in existence who could rival her? But then Patrick’s appeal was not so transparent, not something everyone would be able to understand.

      Maybe I didn’t have anything to worry about after all.

      ‘So, have the two of you ever…?’ She picked up a smoked salmon blini and popped it into her mouth, along with a long sip of champagne.

      ‘No.’

      ‘What, not even after a drunken night out?’

      I glared at her, annoyed by her assumption that Patrick would only ever be interested in me sexually if he were inebriated.

      ‘He understands I want to wait until we’re living together rather than simply doing it in a bed that contains the sexual residue of a thousand past students.’ He said it didn’t bother him, but I had seen the way he looked at her, at the longing that stretched over every part of his skin, and realised it meant he wasn’t bothered because it was me. That while I made sense on paper, Elle appealed to a different kind of reasoning.

      ‘Huh.’ Another morsel passed her lips.

      ‘Why do you sound so surprised?’

      ‘I assumed he was either ugly or gay. Why else would he stay in a relationship where he wasn’t getting any?’

      Because, when it comes down to it, what else is there between a man and a woman other than sex? Why bother to have a relationship with someone who stimulates your mind as well as your body?

      ‘You wouldn’t understand, even if I did try and explain it to you.’

      She smiled to herself and I wanted to ask what she was thinking. ‘You just seem so… the same.’

      ‘In what way?’

      ‘A bit awkward, a bit unsure of who you are. But then, when you start talking about something, it’s as if you’re the only person in the world who really gets it.’

      I thought I could see her point, even if it was tumbled up in nonsensical English.

      ‘Sounds like he was talking about bats,’ I reply. Ever since Patrick read Dracula as a kid he had been obsessed with the folklore behind vampire bats; how not all cultures believed them to be signs of evil, with some viewing them as symbols of rebirth or long life. I liked to think of them as portals for change, as an opportunity to become something more.

      ‘Yes. But I didn’t have a clue what he was going on about.’

      ‘Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats among birds, they ever fly by twilight.’

      She drained her glass, then pointed it at me. ‘That’s exactly what he said. But I can’t remember who it’s by.’

      Francis Bacon. Not that it would have meant anything to her because Elle’s literary abilities had never stretched beyond the love triangle between a girl, a vampire and a werewolf.

      ‘Don’t worry, he does it to everyone, especially when he’s nervous.’ It was his failsafe, his way of trying to interact with people with whom he had nothing in common. We used to joke about the way people responded to his theories, would laugh at their ignorance of the world around them.

      ‘I asked him whether he had a Batman costume at home.’

      Okay, I was definitely safe.

      ‘He laughed and asked me if I had a Catwoman one.’

      She did. Skintight latex that was worn to every Halloween party with a fluffy tail she used to entrap that year’s victim. No doubt she showed him a photograph, asked him whether she made a convincing cat. Not so safe after all.

      I looked down at the plates of food between us. At the miniature chocolate cupcakes I knew she loved. Four in total. Two with icing slightly darker than the others.

      ‘You know, I think he likes me.’

      But he wasn’t hers. He was mine and I wasn’t about to allow her to steal him from me, to assume she could have anything she set her sights upon. Not him. Anyone but him.

      ‘I wouldn’t have thought he was your type.’

      ‘Exactly. Perhaps it’s time to go for the geek instead of the jock. Up my standards. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?’

      I looked back down at our plates. Wondered whether I should switch or let fate intervene.

      ‘He’s my boyfriend, Elle.’

      ‘Of course. But it can’t be that serious if you haven’t even done the deed. I mean, aren’t you worried he’ll find someone else to scratch that itch if you won’t?’

      I hadn’t been. Not until she planted the doubt in my mind. Watered it with the imaginings that were creeping around inside of me.

      I had never wanted to hurt her before that moment, but one glance from her and it was unravelling so fast I had no idea how to try and put it back the way it was supposed to be. One glance from her and all of my darkness came spinning back to the surface. All of the whispers, the insecurities, the desire to cause harm that had dissipated whenever I was around him, came flying back into my consciousness and I was overcome with the urge to make her scream.

      ‘So where is he now?’ I picked up my own cupcake, waited for her to see me do so, then watched as she wrapped her lips around one, head dropping backwards as sweetness slid down her throat.

      ‘I think he’s talking to your mum,’ she said in between mouthfuls.

      Good. There was time.

      Have another.

      ‘So have you decided what you’re going to do?’ I had to keep her talking. Keep her eating.

      ‘No idea. Dad says I can take my time, help out with the business, but can you imagine how dull that would be?’

      Yes, I can. But no worse than online shopping and days at the spa, which is how Elle had spent her summer thus far.

      ‘You could always teach.’ Because those that can’t, can.

      ‘Funny you should say СКАЧАТЬ