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CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, do co a beautiful face that owed nothing to artifice, her green eyes gloith an inner beauty ‘I can’t turn up there on my own, it would look too obvious’

Helen sighed ‘I don’t want to go, Jen I’ve been telling you all week that I’’

Her cousin pouted, a beguiling gesture that usually got her what she wanted ‘But I’ve been counting on you No one turns up at one of these parties alone, everyone would knoas on the look-out for a man’

Helen’s mouth quirked with humour ‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am, but he doesn’t have to know that Men like to think they’ve done the running, not the other way around’

‘I’hed Helen ‘Besides,to wear’

Jenny gave her a considering look, noting that her young cousin’s face was far too thin, the cheekbones too prominent, the violet eyes shadowed, and her full sweet ilely beautiful, with her shoulder-length wavy black hair, her huge violet eyes that teuess her inner secrets, her small body perfectly curved if a little on the slender side, and yet no h her cool façade, her manner always polite but stilted It had been this way since the accident two years ago, since Michael But it couldn’t be allowed to continue!

She pulled the reluctant Helen to her feet,her into the bedroom they shared ‘You have plenty to wear if you look—or you could borrow so of mine’

‘No, thanks,’ Helen derided ‘Most of your clothes are positively indecent’

Jenny grinned ‘Aren’t they? I feel really wicked indresses’ She stood in front of Helen’s wardrobe and began sorting through the dresses there She wrinkled her nose at theustedly ‘Not to one of these parties’

Helen sat on the bed watching her uninterestedly They had shared this flat for the last two years, the cheerful Jenny usuallyto jolly her out of any bouts of depression that could suddenly wash over her

Jenny, the elder by five years at twenty-seven,her life for her, even down to getting her the job with the travel agency If it had been left to Helen she would have stayed at home, she could afford to with the money she had from Michael, but Jenny had told her that it just wasn’t ‘done’ nowadays; even the rich worked And so she worked nine until five, five days a week, deriving a certain satisfaction fro she wouldn’t miss it if she had to leave tomorrow

‘You y,’ she remarked dryly

Jenny’s grin deepened ‘It probably will be so before then—preferably with Matt’

‘Matthew Jarvis!’ Helen scorned ‘I don’t knohat you see in him’

‘He’s incredibly sexy,’ Jenny replied instantly

‘Ah, sex,’ Helen nodded

‘I didn’t say sex, I said sexy,’ Jenny corrected ‘And what’s wrong with sex, anyway? It’s very good for you’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Helen remarked stiffly

Jenny blushed ‘Well, it is Ah, now this is the one for you,’ she pulled out a dress froainst Helen ‘Mainst the darkness of your hair’

Helen looked down at the shiold silk was a perfect foil for her hair But she shook her head in refusal ‘You know I can never wear anything of yours, it’s always too tight across the bust’