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‘Oh, friendships can be such fiendishly fickle things, especially a for you ord to get around that you were finding it hard to cope with theto creep around trying to ht even find yourself being portrayed as somewhat unbalanced, and the whiff of emotional instability is a major turn-off when it comes to friends, I would have said No one likes a stalker ‘

Soina still ed to maintain eye contact with him, while Francesca watched in fascinated silence

‘Stalker?’ She dropped her eyes and when she next looked at Angelo it ith contrition Francesca had never seen such a rapid transformation of facial expression The woman could have been nominated for an Oscar ‘How could you accuse me of that? Don’t you know that I’m only here because I really care about you? And don’t want you to be seen as a laughing stock?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Georgina, and I don’t intend to waste any s of a jealous woman’

‘I’ham and that unfortunate brush with trouble she had I’ about—to fill you in on why exactly she won’t be rading for you’ She pushed herself away froe and slanted a malicious smile at Francesca ‘Well, I’ll be off now Hope you haven’t too elo’ She left as she had entered, in a swirl of elegant complacency

‘Care to tellround so that he was facing Francesca

The house of cards had finally co down She took a deep breath and aze steadily

‘It’s soo When we first met, in fact’

‘Which is?’

‘When we lamorous person without any roots anywhere and no past Or rather, no past that I felt I could let on to you’ And the bits that I did fill you in on were creations, little fight would come back to haunt me…

‘And ould that be?’ Angelo had gone very still but that was only for a moment Then he walked across to the sofa and sat down

‘That would be because…because of who you are, soht circles, ht people’ Francesca looked down and was surprised to see that her hands were fluttering nervously on her lap She didn’t feel nervous Just numb ‘The truth is that you never really knew me at all, not the real me’

‘The real you being…?’

‘The real hest council estates in Bir people My ht and at sixteen I left school altogether to take care of my father He was an alcoholic, you see, and—well, somebody had to take care of him so that’s what I did I didn’t etany of it Dad was on benefits and we had enough to just about struggle through’

Angelo, sitting in colamorous model he hadShe had always avoided questions about her past but the impression she had left him as of someone who had lived a fairly ordinaryoff the layers of what he thought he knew and exposing the face of soer to him and always had been It left a harshly sour taste in his throat, the sour taste of deception

‘Then Dad died, quite suddenly, and I was left with nothing I had no education to speak of and, anyway, it was too late for rew up, people didn’t think about going to school, they thought of ways to get out of it Even if I had wanted to, I would never have been able to, the peer pressure would have been too elo’s expressionless face with a sinking heart Maybe if she had given him some indication in the past that her life had been troubled, then he wouldn’t now be sitting there, looking at her as though he was seeing her for the first time