LITMIR.BIZ

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into five years, Tamar thought wryly, as she gazed at this bright, attractive friend of hers, who was known for her plain speaking.

      ‘And anyway, Carol shouldn’t have mentioned Jed Cannon if she didn’t expect us to go for a bite of the same cherry,’ Fiona finished with a decisive nod of her head. ‘I wouldn’t expect you or Tim—’ Tim being the other employee of the firm ‘—to sound off about who we’ve got on our books and who we haven’t. And you told Carol you were going to try for Jed Cannon. That’s more than she would have done if the position had been reversed. No, you did very well. You’ve obviously got the right touch with millionaires.’

      ‘Obviously.’ But he hadn’t asked for her telephone number, or suggested a date, and she had so wanted to get under his skin a bit before she told him exactly what she thought of him. He had treated Gaby like dirt under his shoe, publicly humiliated her to the point where she had tried to take her own life. At the very least she wanted him to remember her for a while when she did the same to him.

      She didn’t doubt for a minute that anything she said would be almost instantly dismissed from his mind, but if she could say something that rankled, it might stop him treating anyone else so ruthlessly. The rumours and counter-rumours flying round the little Scottish community after the scene at the hotel had made getting over Ronald so much harder for Gaby.

      Tamar spent the rest of the afternoon pulling things together with regard to Greenacres, and then catching up with her mountain of paperwork, which had got sadly neglected over the last few weeks as she had raced about like a mad thing chasing the three properties of which Fiona had spoken. But it had been worth it. Oh, yes, it had certainly been worth it

      She stayed at the office long after all the others had gone home, until, at just gone nine, she felt her desk was clearer and she was in control again. The night was a warm one, and the walk from Taylor and Taylor in Fulham to her tiny flat in Chelsea was just what she needed to unwind from the turmoil of the day. She strolled along in the heavy London air, picking up a hot dog—liberally doused with fried onions—on the way, and reflecting that it was only in the big cities where a woman dressed up to the nines in a designer suit and high heels could wander along eating her dinner out of a paper bag without attracting a second glance.

      And she loved it; she really did. After that nightmare time at university, to be inconspicuous was all she asked for. Perhaps that was why she had felt Gaby’s humiliation and pain so fiercely? she thought now. Having been through a terribly public chastening herself, she knew how it felt. Not that her circumstances had been so awful as poor Gaby’s—at least she hadn’t got pregnant—but how did you compare being raped to being fooled into sleeping with someone and then losing a baby when you were openly disgraced? Perhaps they were both as bad as each other, really...

      Mike Goodfellow. She could picture one of the lecturers at university now in her mind. Tall, good-looking, married with the requisite 2.4 children and career-minded wife, he had really thought he was the bee’s knees. And when he’d offered her extra tuition on her English essays she had really thought he meant just that.

      The assault had been painful—she’d been a virgin—and degrading, but over mercifully quickly, and when she had decided to go public and report him, despite his threats, she had discovered she hadn’t been the first. Three other girls had come forward, and they’d been just the ones still at the university. No one knew how many other girls he had attacked in the past.

      Of course the resulting police action and publicity had been tough, and she had certainly learnt who her friends were, if nothing else, but she had been determined not to creep away like a little whipped dog from the moment she had picked herself up off the floor of his room and limped away to get help. He had been so sure she wouldn’t report him, so confident in his ruthlessness. Mike Goodfellow. Never had a name been more inapt...

      She’d found it difficult to be alone with a man for a long time after that, but friends like Fiona and Richard had been great, and eventually she had gone on a couple of dates—more to prove to herself she could than anything else. But they had been purely platonic, with nothing more than a brief goodnight kiss.

      She’d often felt her heart had gone into cold storage on the man front, and it was that, even more than the rape itself, that she couldn’t forgive Mike Goodfellow for. He had taken away so much warmth, fun, excitement and just plain ordinary living from her in a few short, but terrifyingly brutal minutes. Even now she would freeze, or experience the odd moment of blind panic, if a man looked at her in a certain way, or touched her when she wasn’t aware of them.

      He had received a prison sentence, and she understood his wife had left him in the process, but how could he pay for what he had done to her and others? He couldn’t, not really...

      It’s in the past, it’s in the past. You’re not letting him win. It was what she had told herself every day for the last five years, but it helped, and she had determined she would carry on telling herself the same thing until it no longer became necessary.

      She took a deep breath now, finishing the last of the hot dog and throwing the paper away in the convenient red bin that was positioned just outside the entrance to the terraced house in which her flat was situated, before opening the communal front door with her key.

      Once inside, she ran up the two flights of stairs to her little idyll at the top of the house, glad to be home. And the quiet oasis she had created for herself in the midst of the bustle of the big metropolis was home, in a way her aunt and uncle’s house had never been.

      She paused after opening the door to her flat, taking a moment to appreciate the light, pretty surroundings and the fact that it was all hers. Her father’s foresight in making a clear, concise will after she was born had meant that on reaching the age of twenty-one she had come into a nice, tidy little nest-egg which had been held in trust for her until that date. It wasn’t a fortune, but it had meant she could afford to buy her own little home when she left university, furnish it exactly how she wanted, and still have enough left over to purchase an elderly little runabout to get her from A to B when necessary.

      She had barely taken a step or two over the threshold when the phone began to ring in her red and gold sitting room, and strangely, just as she lifted the receiver and spoke her name, she knew who it was...

      ‘Tamar?’ Jed Cannon’s husky voice caused an involuntary curling of her toes. ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home?’

      ‘How...how did you get the number?’ she prevaricated bemusedly. She didn’t know if she minded or not, if she were being truthful, she admitted silently to herself.

      ‘Telephone directory,’ he said blandly.

      ‘Oh.’ She wondered how many T. McKinleys there were in the London area. She’d have to have a look later. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked carefully.

      ‘My people can get in to do a survey tomorrow morning,’ he said without any preamble, ‘and I’ve already checked with Gerald that that’s okay.’

      Have you indeed? And it’s Gerald now, is it? She was beginning to get mad.

      ‘We’ve discussed a rough price for getting the work done, and Gerald’s quite prepared to drop by the required amount Now—’

      ‘Mr Cannon—’ how dare he, how dare he take over like this? ‘—you are aware negotiations of this sort should be done through the estate agents?’ she asked icily.

      ‘Who says?’ he shot back quickly.

      ‘It really isn’t done—’

      ‘Tamar, I couldn’t give a pig’s ear about what is done and what isn’t,’ he said, with a smooth arrogance that had her telling herself desperately that she had to remember he was the buyer, that this was a huge deal, that she couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of him and blow it. And that was besides her original plan to worm herself into his life and get him interested before she let him know what was what Which didn’t seem quite such a good idea now, somehow.

      ‘I’m working within a limited time-scale, and

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