The Contaxis Baby Read Free Page A

bought daring outfits even though she never actually wore them. While she was wondering why that was so, she overheard the chatter of familiar female voices.
    ‘I just can’t believe Lizzie had the nerve to show herself here tonight!’
    ‘But it does prove what a heartless, self-centred little—’
    ‘Tom’s warning Jen that if she stays friendly with Lizzie, she’s likely to find herself out on her own with only Lizzie!’
    ‘How could she have treated Connor that way? He was so much fun, so kind…’
    Lizzie fled with hot, prickling tears standing out in her shaken eyes. Returning to her table, she drained her glass without even tasting the contents. Those female voices had belonged to her friends. One of them had even gone to school with her. Ex-friends. All of a sudden everybody hated her, yet only weeks ago she had had so many invitations out she would have needed a clone of herself to attend every event. Now she wanted to bolt for the exit and go home. But she wasn’t welcome at home any more and Jen would be furious if she tried to end the evening early.
    Yes, Connor had seemed kind. At least, she had thought so too until she went down to the Denton country cottage and found Connor in bed with Felicity. Her skin turned cold and clammy at that tormenting memory.
    She had been thinking about inviting a bunch of friends to the cottage for the weekend. Believing that the property had been little used in recent times, she had decided to check out that there would be sufficient bedding. Connor must have come down from London in her stepmother’s car and it had been parked out of sight behind the garage, so Lizzie had had no warning that the cottage was occupied. She had been in a lovely, bubbly mood, picturing how amazed Connor would be when she told him that he would be spending his twenty-fifth birthday in Bali.
    Lizzie had been on the stairs when she heard the funny noises: a sort of rustling and moaning that had sent a momentary chill down her spine. But even at that stage she had not, in her ignorance, suspected that what she was hearing was a man and a woman making love. Blithely assuming that it was only the wind getting in through a window that had been left open, she had gone right on up. From the landing, she had got a full Technicolor view of her boyfriend and her stepmother rolling about the pine four-poster bed in the main bedroom.
    Felicity had been in the throes of what had looked more like agony than ecstasy. Connor had been gasping for breath in between telling Felicity how much he loved her and how he couldn’t bear to think that it would be another week before he could see her again. Throughout that exchange, Lizzie had been frozen to the spot like a paralysed peeping Tom. When Felicity had seen her, her aghast baby-blue eyes had flooded with tears, making her look more than ever like a victim in the guise of a fairytale princess.
    But then crying was an art form and a way of life for her stepmother, Lizzie reflected, striving valiantly to suppress the wounding images she had allowed to surge up from her subconscious. Felicity wept if dinner was less than perfect…‘It’s my fault…it’s my fault,’ she would fuss until Maurice Denton was on his knees and promising her a week in Paris to recover from the trauma of it. In much the same way and with just as much sincere feeling she had wept when Lizzie found her in bed with Connor Morgan. Tears had dripped from her like rain but her nose hadn’t turned red and her eyes hadn’t swelled up pink.
    When Lizzie cried, it was noisy and messy and her skin turned blotchy. That afternoon, Connor and Felicity had enjoyed a full performance to that effect, before Lizzie’s pride came to the rescue and she told them to get out of the cottage. After they had departed, she had made a bonfire of their bedding in the back garden. Recalling that rather pointless exercise, she forced herself upright with an equally forced smile when Jen urged her up to