Escape Me Never Read Online Free PDF Page A

embarrassment, not delirium. She managed a taut smile. 'No, he isn't a boyfriend,' she said quietly. 'Just—a colleague of sorts, and I can't imagine why he should have gone to all this trouble.'
    'Flowers he brought too,' said Mrs Barrett. 'I left them in your living room, because my mother used to say flowers in a sick room could be funny. I'll get them for you, now you're awake.' She bustled off to return a moment later with about a ton of freesias arranged in an ornamental basket. 'Don't they smell lovely,' she said ecstatically. 'I'll put them on the chest of drawers where you can see them.
    She was right about that, Cass thought wearily later. Wherever she looked in the room, the freesias seemed to be there, in the corner of her eye. When she got up to go to the bathroom, she carried them back into the living room, and put them in the middle of the small dining table. She didn't want them in her bedroom, reminding her constantly of him—the interloper who'd been there. Not a dream, not delirium, but reality. And how dared he? she thought, trying to work herself up into a rage, but finding she was still too listless to make the effort. All she really wanted to do was cry weakly, but she couldn't do that. She'd shed her last tear a long time ago.
    When evening came, she felt well enough to get up. She ate the supper which Mrs Barrett provided—a fluffy omelette flanked by grilled tomatoes—by the fire, then switched on the television. Some commercials which she and Roger had designed for a client were scheduled for their first showing, and Cass hadn't been entirely happy about the filming. The client, a fitted kitchen manufacturer, had insisted on having a particular actress feature in the commercials for reasons, Cass gathered, of a sexual rather than an artistic nature. Roger had roared with laughter about it, but Cass hadn't been so amused, watching take after take being ruined. And the girl was still wooden, she thought, viewing the finished product critically. If the fitted kitchen industry collapsed, she would probably never work again. Or if the client's wife found out, Cass thought drily.
    As she switched off the set, she heard her front door buzzer. Mrs Barrett, she thought, returning for the tray.
    'Come in,' she called. 'It isn't locked.'
    She sank gratefully back on to the sofa, curling her legs under her.
    He said, 'Don't you think you should keep it locked. I might have been a burglar.'
    Cass jumped, every nerve ending jangling, as she stared at him, leaning against the door jamb.
    She said, stammering, 'What—what are you doing here?'
    'Checking the invalid's progress,' he said pleasantly, and strolled forward.
    She said hurriedly, 'I'm fine,' aware as she spoke, that she was involuntarily tucking the folds of her dressing gown further around her feet and legs, and that the hazel eyes had taken sardonic note of her action.
    'Yes, I'd like to sit down,' he said mockingly. 'And, no, I won't have any coffee, thank you.'
    Cass flushed. 'Well, I'm not offering,' she said grittily. 'Perhaps you'd leave.'
    'Not when I've only just got here.' He shrugged off the supple suede car coat he was wearing, and dropped it across the arm of the sofa, then sat down opposite her, stretching out long legs. He was more casually dressed this evening, she couldn't help noticing, with dark brown pants moulding themselves to his body, and topped by a matching roll neck cashmere sweater. She looked away hurriedly, fiddling with the sash of her robe. 'Besides, I want to talk to you, and you were in no fit state for conversation when I called yesterday.'
    'Why did you?' She glared at him.
    'To see if your sudden illness was genuine, or just a convenient excuse for avoiding me.'
    'You flatter yourself, Mr Grant,' Cass said defiantly. 'I'm hardly concerned enough about you and your boundless male egotism to go to those lengths.'
    He raised eyebrows. 'You never miss a chance, do you, Cass? I'll bet you're the pride of the local