A Perfect Obsession Read Online Free PDF Page A

in through the archway to Caper Court, they met Camilla Lawrence, who smiled and said hello to David, but gave Sarah only a brief, mistrustful glance. Not that Sarah cared in the least. She had always regarded Camilla as something of a wet date. She’d been wet when they’d been at Oxford together, and she’d stayed wet ever since. What Anthony had ever seen in her was beyond Sarah.
    Not that that had lasted long. Clearly, Camilla still blamed Sarah for seducing poor Anthony away from her. Well, Sarah could live with that. She certainly had no particular interest in Anthony any more. Not at present.He was merely the kind of thing you put by for a rainy day.
    The three of them went up the short flight of stone steps and through the portals of Number 5.
    ‘Here,’ said David, piling his papers on top of the bundle Sarah was already carrying, ‘you go on up with these. I’m just going to have a word with Henry.’ He slipped into the clerks’ room.
    Leo and Anthony were coming downstairs just as Sarah, trying to negotiate the unwieldy bundle of papers and books, dropped the lot at the foot of the stairs. The sight of Leo, so close on the heels of her musings of the day, had startled her.
    Leo stopped to help, but Anthony merely stepped over the mess and went into the clerks’ room with some papers. Leo glanced after him in surprise. Anthony was normally scrupulously well-mannered. Clearly, Sarah, as she so often could, had done something to push Anthony beyond the bounds of polite behaviour.
    ‘Now, what could you have done to make Anthony behave like that?’ asked Leo, as he and Sarah gathered up the scattered papers.
    ‘Trespassed on his territory,’ replied Sarah with a smile. ‘First Camilla, then you.’
    ‘Hmm. I hardly think Anthony assumes proprietorial rights over me.’
    ‘Don’t you?’
    ‘Come on, you can’t carry this lot up on your own. You take those, and I can manage these.’
    They took the papers and books up to David’s room.
    ‘So what’s all this about Camilla?’ asked Leo, who lovedgossip. He leant against the bookcase and folded his arms.
    Sarah perched on the edge of her desk. ‘Oh, it’s old news. Happened last October. Camilla and Anthony were seeing one another – you know, heavy stuff.’
    ‘I do recall something of the kind.’
    ‘Well, she went off to Bermuda on a case for a couple of weeks, I was bored, Anthony was available, and—’ She paused, shrugged. ‘—It was just a casual fling, but Camilla didn’t really take it in good part.’ Sarah gave a little smile. ‘She is
so
principled. Anyway, I can’t believe you didn’t know. You’re usually well abreast of what’s going on in chambers.’
    ‘Anthony and I haven’t spoken much lately. Besides, it’s not a thing one normally gets to hear about. So tell me, how did Camilla find out? Don’t tell me Anthony’s conscience overwhelmed him.’ Leo had learnt a while ago from others in chambers that Anthony and Camilla were no longer seeing one another, and for reasons of his own, had not been exactly displeased. The explanation for the break up, however, was news to him.
    ‘She must have picked it up from someone,’ replied Sarah airily. ‘Can’t imagine who.’
    ‘I think I can.’ Leo shook his head, his eyes drawn to Sarah’s dark-stockinged legs as she swung them idly. God, this girl was bad news, yet he couldn’t help liking her, somehow. Her lack of scruples, her ability to take her pleasure as and when she liked, and damn the rest of them, these were things he could readily relate to.
    He looked up, and Sarah’s eyes met his. She could almost read his thoughts. She loved the way she could produce this sexual current between them. It was one of the things shewas most ready to exploit in her newly hatched campaign. No time like the present.
    ‘Why don’t you let me buy you a drink, as a thank you for helping me with those papers?’ Her expression as she said this was one Leo knew of old,