The Price of Retribution. Sara Craven

name ‘Chameleon’. Which was how they’d met.

      He was attractive, amusing and available (three starred A’s on the Manhattan scene). Tarn liked him, but wasn’t sure if love would ever be on the cards. But, she’d eventually decided, perhaps it deserved to be given at least a fighting chance.

      After all, what was she waiting for? she’d asked herself with faint cynicism. Prince Charming to gallop up on a white horse, like Evie, who’d been sending her letter after letter rhapsodising over the manifold perfections of Caz Brandon, the man she was going to marry?

      But now it seemed that her own warier approach was the right one because Evie’s idol had proved to have feet of clay.

      She shook her head in angry bewilderment. How could it all have gone so wrong? And, apparently, so fast? Evie’s last screed, cataloguing in some detail her future husband’s numerous acts of generosity and tenderness had arrived just over a week ago, indicating that her path in life would be strewn with roses. Tarn would have sworn there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind.

      Yet there must have been something, she thought. Some small clue, some hint she could trace that would signal all wasn’t well. And if there was, then she would find it.

      She booked her flight, left a message on Howard’s voicemail, suggesting they meet for a drink in their favourite bar as soon as he finished work, then went across to her desk.

      She opened a drawer and extracted Evie’s letters, collected into a bundle, and secured by a rubber band.

      There were a lot of them, each envelope containing page after page of ecstatic outpourings from Evie’s first meeting with Caz Brandon in a classic secretary/boss situation down to what had probably been the last, she thought biting her lip, and she wasn’t altogether sure why she’d kept them.

      Unless she’d believed they were some kind of proof that fairy tales can come true. If so, how wrong was it possible to be?

      Evie, she thought, had always been a great one for writing things down. As well as the mass bombardment of letters, she’d kept a diary since she was a small child, and later produced reams of poetry to celebrate the girlhood crush of the moment.

      She made herself a beaker of tea, settled into her favourite cream leather recliner and began to read.

      ‘I’ve got the most fantastic job working for the most fantastic man,’ Evie had written in her swift, untidy scrawl, the words leaping off the page. ‘His regular secretary is away on maternity leave, so, hopefully, I’m in for the duration. And after that—who knows?’

      Ironically, Tarn could remember feeling relieved that Evie had finally found work that suited her, and also thinking with amusement that all it had taken was a good-looking boss.

      Evie’s next letter was a fairly bread and butter affair, but the one after that bubbled with excitement. The boss from heaven had asked her to work through her lunch hour, and had ordered a platter of sandwiches which he’d shared with her.

      Well, what was he supposed to do—eat them in front of her? Tarn muttered under her breath.

      ‘He was asking me all sorts of questions about myself—my interests—my ambitions.’ Evie had gone on. ‘He’s just so easy to talk to. And he smiles with his eyes.’

      I just bet he does, thought Tarn. She recalled smiling herself over Evie’s raptures the first time around. But how could she ever have found them amusing?

      Curiosity had led her to look at Caz Brandon on the Internet, and she had to admit he was everything Evie had said and possibly more. But why couldn’t I see what he really was? she asked herself as she read on. A cynical womaniser playing with a vulnerable girl’s emotions.

      Over the next week, Evie’s hero stopped being Mr Brandon and became Caz instead.

      ‘Caz took me for a drink after work at this fabulous wine bar,’ Evie confided in her next effusion. ‘It was simply heaving with celebrities and media people and I was introduced to them all. I didn’t know whether I was on my head or my heels.’

      After that, the invitation to dinner seemed almost inevitable. Evie gave a description of the restaurant in total detail—the décor, the service, every course they’d eaten and the wine he’d chosen.

      Like a child in a toyshop, Tarn thought, sighing.

      And the toys kept on coming. There were more dinners for two, plus theatre visits, concerts and even film premieres.

      Then, eventually, there was the weekend at a romantic inn in the depths of the countryside.

      ‘Of course I can’t go on working for him,’ Evie had written. ‘Caz has this strict rule about not mixing business with pleasure, and he says I’m all pleasure. So I’m being transferred to another department.

      ‘He’s also arranging for me to move into my own flat so that we can be together whenever we wish, but I’ll be protected from people gossiping and drawing the wrong conclusions.

      ‘I know now what the marriage service means by “to love and to cherish”, because that’s how Caz is with me.’

      A gap of a few weeks followed, while the loving and cherishing presumably continued apace, then Evie wrote again.

      ‘Tarn, we’re engaged. He’s bought me the most beautiful ring—a huge diamond cluster. It must have cost an absolute fortune, and shows how much he must love me. I’m only sorry I can’t wear it to work, but I realise that would hardly be discreet.

      ‘I can hardly believe he’s chosen me. All his other girlfriends have been so glamorous and famous. But, by some miracle, I’m the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with.’

      Well, it was feasible, Tarn had told herself, dismissing her instinctive uneasiness about this whirlwind courtship. Evie was pretty enough to catch anyone’s eye, and her lack of sophistication might come as a welcome relief to a man accustomed to high-powered women.

      ‘His flat is wonderful,’ the letter had continued. ‘A big penthouse with views all over London, and an amazing collection of modern art. I don’t pretend to understand all of it, but he says he’ll teach me when we’re married.

      ‘And he has the most incredible bed I’ve ever seen—Emperor sized at the very least. I tease him that he may lose me in it, but he says there’s no danger of that. That however far away I went, he’d find me. Isn’t that wonderful?’

      Not the word I’d have chosen, thought Tarn, dropping the closely written sheet as if it had burned her fingers. Or not any more. ‘Hooked and reeled in’ now seemed far more apposite.

      The letters that followed were full of wedding plans, the chosen dress, flowers and possible honeymoon destinations, which Tarn had glossed over at the first reading. Now they assumed an almost unbearable poignancy.

      And finally, ‘Being with Caz is like having all my sweetest dreams come true. How can I be so lucky?’

      Only Evie’s luck had changed, and she’d suddenly discovered what a short step it was from dream to nightmare. So much so, that the thought of life without him had become impossible, and she’d tried to end it.

      Tarn sat staring down at the mass of paper in her lap. She thought of Evie, wisp-slender, with her unruly mass of blonde hair and huge blue eyes, the unexpected late-born child, her flaws excused, her foibles indulged. Adored and cosseted for the whole of her life. Expecting no less from the man who, for reasons of his own, had professed to love her.

      How blatantly, unthinkingly cruel was that?

      Her throat was tight and she wanted very much to cry, but that would not help Evie. Instead she needed to stay strong and feed the smouldering knot of anger deep within her, bringing it to full flame.

      She said aloud, her voice cold and clear, ‘You’ve destroyed her, you bastard. But you’re not going to get away with it. Because, somehow, I’m going to do exactly the same to you.’