The Perfect Lover Read Free Page B

never to have to set eyes on her again.
    Words spoken in the heat of the moment, perhaps, but they had left their mark, their scar upon her, not least because she knew how richly deserved his fury and rejection of her had been.
    'I suppose at his age...' Louise began, and then shook her head and agreed huskily, 'No. No, he doesn't.'
    Ridiculous for her, at twenty-two, to feel as uncomfortable and ill at ease as a guilty child, but nevertheless she did.
    Whatever malign fate had decided to make Saul the object of her teenage fantasies and longings had long since upped sticks and decamped from her emotions. The man she saw standing in front of her might not have changed but she certainly had. The Saul she saw standing before her now was once again, thankfully, nothing more to her than another member of her family.
    'Your mother says you're only paying a flying visit home this time.'
    'Yes. Yes, that's right,' Louise agreed. 'Pam Carlisle, my boss, has been asked to sit on a new committee being set up to look into the problems caused by potential over-fishing in the seas off the Arctic. Obviously from the legal angle there's going to be a lot of research work involved, which I'll be involved in.''Mmra...sounds like a good breeding ground for potential future Euro politicians in the Crighton family,' Saul teased, but Louise shook her head.
    'No. Definitely not,' she denied firmly. 'Politics isn't for me. I'm afraid I'm far too outspoken for a start,' she told him ruefully. 'And politics requires a great deal more finesse than I'll ever possess.'
    'You're too hard on yourself,' Saul told her. 'In more ways than one,' he added meaningfully, forcing her to hold his gaze as he added quietly, 'It's time for us to make a fresh start, Lou. What happened happened, but it's in the past now...'
    Before she could say anything he added, 'Tullah and I will be coming over to Brussels some time in the next few months on company business. It would be nice if we could meet up...go out for dinner together...'
    Saul worked for Aarlston-Becker, a large multinational company whose European head office was based just outside Haslewich. He and Tullah had met when she had gone to work in the company's legal department under Saul.
    Unable to do anything other than simply nod her head, Louise was stunned when Saul suddenly reached out and took her in his arms, holding her tightly in a cousinly hug as he told her gruffly, 'friends again, Lou.'
    'Friends,' she managed to agree chokily, fiercely blinking back her tears.
     
    'And don't forget...write to me...'
    Louise grimaced as she listened to Katie's firm command. 'Why on earth did you have to go and get yourself involved with some wretched charity outfit that can't even run to the expense of a fax machine?' she groaned.
    ' Y OU tell me...but I do enjoy my job,' Katie pointed out.
    They were saying goodbye at the airport, their mother having dropped them off on her way to a meeting of the charity she and their great-aunt Ruth had set up in their home town some years earlier.
    'Sorry I can't see you off properly,' she had apologised as they climbed out of her small car.
    'Don't worry about it, Mum; we understand,' Louise had consoled her.
    'You could always come over to Brussels to see me, you know,' Louise told her twin abruptly now. 'I'll pay for the ticket, if that would help.'
    Katie gave her a brief hug. She knew how difficult it was for her sister to admit that there were any chinks in her emotional armour, even to her twin. To the world at large, Louise always came across as the more independent one of the two of them, the leader. But in reality Katie believed that she was the one with the less sensitively acute emotions, even though she knew that Louise would have sharply denied such an allegation. Louise had always taken upon herself the role of the bigger, braver sister, but Katie knew that inside Louise was nowhere near as confident or as determinedly independent as others seemed to