Free Deception by Jane Marciano Page B

hard, as if considering her options. Then quite deliberately and very delicately she opened her fingers and let the spoon drop. I heard it clatter as it hit the floor. But I still kept strict eye contact with her. I didn’t quite trust her to look away.
    “Kris…” Freddie began, but she shot him a baleful glance.
    “Stay out of this, Freddie,” she snapped. “I mean it.”
    He stayed out of it.
    She took a little step towards me. Any closer and we’d have been dancing.
    “He would never have married you,” she said finally. “He only let you stick around because it suited him to have someone cook, clean and do his every bidding.”
    This woman was too aggravating for words. “And you think with you it’ll be different? With you, it’ll end up in marriage?” I shot back.
    “Maybe. In time. If you stop sticking your oar in. If we’re left alone.”
    “Take as long as you want. I have no plans in that direction.” I glanced across at Freddie briefly. “However, you should wonder about how sincere he is, with you, or with any woman. Or, to put it another way, if my arrival here has been such a shock to you and you didn’t know I was coming, maybe it’s because the old lothario here didn’t want you to know I was coming. I think you overheard his suggestion to me earlier… maybe you should ask him about it!”
    She pushed her face so close to mine I could see the open pores at the side of her nose.
    “Don’t try and make something out of it, Bailey,” she answered scornfully. “He’s just a man. I don’t blame him; I blame the woman for trying to tempt him. And anyone with a brain can see that’s what you were about. I mean, just look at you! You look like a cheap tart.”
    For one insane moment I had a strong urge to head butt her, like I’d seen them do in the movies but of course I refrained since I didn’t know how to do it properly and wasn’t sure I wouldn’t end up being worse off. So I didn’t reply.
    “Why else would you’ve come?” she insisted, when I didn’t react. “If not to try and get him back. I told him to send on your stuff, I mean, it’s not like he doesn’t have all the addresses of your family still saved in his phone. But he didn’t listen to me. He’s like that sometimes. Obstinate.” Her voice grew colder, and her next glance at him was cutting. “But he really should’ve done what I’d said. Saved us all this needless face-to-face confrontation. And he’s not good at confrontations, are you, baby?”
    I pushed past her, finally unable to withstand her close proximity any longer than I could bear her prolonged vitriolic speeches.
    “Oh, I’ve had enough of this,” I said irritably. “If you’ve said all you’re going to say, I’ll be off. Freddie, pass me my portrait, will you, please?”
    Turning dutifully, he bent and picked up the package in its brown wrapping paper, and silently handed it to me. He couldn’t look me in the eye, but by then I was beyond caring.
    “Thanks,” I said automatically and was about to step over the threshold into the hall outside the flat, when Kristie’s eyes fell on the package I was holding, and her mouth became the most horrible looking square shape. I’d never seen a mouth change shape quite in that way before. Even her eyes seemed to go square. And her head twisted around to look at Freddie so violently, the tendons on her neck stood out.
    “I told you to get rid of that thing,” she stormed. “I told you to destroy it.”
    He shrugged, though his face was pale. “What does it matter now, Kris? She’ll take it with her and it’ll be gone. One way or another, you’ll never see it again.”
    Her foot tapped on the floor. Her face was white. Her eyes glittered. I thought she looked psychotic.
    “It matters that you kept hold of it for her,” she hissed. “You knew you’d see her again, one way or another, and you wanted to give her the painting as a gift. It’s always going to be there between you