Free Caress by Marina Anderson Page B

wanted, but since you clearly don’t choose to listen to me there’s nothing more I can say. Remember though, if things do go wrong and you need me, I’ll still be there, Grace. My feelings haven’t changed, especially as I’m so certain you’re making a terrible mistake.”
    “If you’re right, then you’ll know you did all you could to stop me won’t you,” said Grace quietly, wishing she’d never let him come back, forcing her to listen to words that she didn’t want to hear, especially as some of them had merely reinforced fears she was already trying to bury.
    “You don’t hate me for this, do you?” asked Andrew when they reached the front door. “You’re so special to me and…”
    “No, I don’t hate you,” she assured him, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “On the contrary, I think you’re a very nice if misguided person, and you’re totally wrong about David.”
    “I doubt it, but for your sake I hope so,” he replied as he left.
    Grace closed the door gently behind him, wondering why she couldn’t have fallen in love with such a handsome, open and caring man but instead had lost her heart to someone as complicated as David.
    * * *
    “I blew it!” said Grace’s open and caring man furiously, walking into Amber’s office an hour later. “I think if anything I’ve made matters worse. She knew some of the things I was saying were true, but she’s pretending they’re not. She’s so besotted with him that there’s no reasoning with her. All I’ve done is messed up my chances if something does go wrong at the next trial.”
    Amber looked thoughtfully at him through narrowed eyes. “I suppose you were fool enough to tell her how you felt about her?”
    Andrew shrugged. “Yes, sort of.”
    “Idiot! That means she’d have put it all down to jealousy, the truth and the lies. You men are so stupid. Why couldn’t you have kept that nugget of information to yourself for the moment? Did you seriously think she was going to give up David and throw herself into your manly arms the moment you’d finished telling her a few home truths about him?”
    “She’s bright, I thought she’d already have some doubts.”
    “I expect she did, until you barged in, making your own interest in her only too clear. She was bound to rush to his defense then. Mind you, some of what you said will probably sink in later. I imagine you’ve given her something to think about.”
    “Not enough to make her withdraw from the next trial.”
    “Then we, or rather I, will have to make absolutely certain that she fails it won’t we?”
    “She already knew about Louise.”
    “What, that David made her fail?”
    “No, but she knew she’d been here.”
    Amber tapped her pen against her notebook. “She’s done her homework well. I doubt if David would have told her about Louise. Luckily I’ve had a more productive few days than you.”
    “Why, what have you been doing?”
    “It’s all in here,” she said with a tight smile, locking the notebook away. “All her weaknesses, all the things she struggled to do, and I’ve had a nice long chat with David about them as well. I can tell he’s still not sure whether he wants her to succeed or not.”
    “That doesn’t change her abilities, or her determination to succeed,” said Andrew.
    “Be thankful I put together another plan, since yours seems to have backfired so badly,” said Amber.
    “I’ve less to lose than you,” he snapped, still smarting from his time with Grace, when her love for David had become all the more obvious.
    “Yes but something tells me that you’ll now be even keener for her to fail, so I know I can count on you during the whole weekend,” retorted Amber.
    “As long as it’s in the trial, and David’s approved it, I’ll be on your side,” Andrew promised her. “I think I’m in the mood for testing that other trial now.”
    “That’s fine by me,” said Amber with a thin smile. “As you’re the one who’s just made