Paradise Found by Dorothy Vernon

that things got steamy between us. I would have come back if circumstances had permitted. I admit that before that night I’d looked on you as a bit of a kid.’
    â€˜Whose head was turned by the money you flung around,’ she spat angrily.
    â€˜I’m not used to people liking me for myself. I’ve often wondered if I would have got that far with you if I got my hands dirty by filling someone else’s pocket.
    â€˜I feel sorry for you. It must be horrible to have such a jaundiced outlook.’
    â€˜Keep your sympathy. That’s something I’d no intention of having then, and I won’t tolerate it now.’
    â€˜What’s that supposed to mean?’
    â€˜I fight fair. That’s what,’ he said bitterly, taking her elbow and turning her in the direction of the house.
    He would have guided her straight into the room from which the sound of Hannah’s and Tony’s voices were coming had she not drawn away at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’d better go up and check on my lipstick before going in. I’ll be like lightning.’
    She was true to her word and didn’t dawdle. She merely ran a comb through her hair and a lip gloss across her mouth.
    Her predinner sherry was waiting for her when she got back down. She saw with relief that Hannah and Tony had only just started theirs.
    â€˜I hope I’m not holding things up?’ she inquired stupidly. Obviously she wasn’t. Matt wouldn’t have had time to get back after changing into something more formal than the clothes he’d traveled in. Because what had happened out there in the garden was burning in her brain, she wondered how Hannah and Tony could
not
know. Which was equally ridiculous.
    â€˜Not at all. We’re waiting for Matt. Even though I half expected it, it was still a wonderful surprise when he walked in, unannounced—just as I said it would be.’ Hannah’s quizzical eyes lifted briefly from Zoe’s to look beyond her head, lighting up with affection as they did so. ‘Here he is now.’
    Casting Matt a cool look, Zoe crossed the room to sit by Tony’s side. Somehow she had to establish her allegiance.
    â€˜Did you have a good trip down?’ Tony asked. Although it was a civil enough inquiry, Zoe detected a slight edge to his voice.
    â€˜He had company,’ Hannah supplied.
    â€˜That’s right,’ Matt verified. He seemed to be looking straight at Zoe, but she supposed that he could have been looking at Tony. ‘I brought Camille with me. When I mentioned that I was coming, she asked me if I’d give her a lift.’
    Zoe registered that. So he was seeing Camille.
    â€˜In the cab of the truck, mind,’ Hannah said with a laugh. ‘That crazy girl would ride on a shovel for Matt.’
    What girl wouldn’t? Zoe speculated, looking unhappily down at her hands, but not before she’d seen the amused lift of Matt’s mouth, which cruelly mocked her.
    As the evening progressed she wondered if either Hannah or Tony knew of the beneath-the-surface crosscurrents. The tide of feeling between her and Matt was such that it pulled her eyes until they ached in their sockets; she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from his face for any reasonable length of time. She hoped the others weren’t aware of that. Hannah was full of joy at having her son there. Tony was back in top garrulous form. Strange, she had never noticed before that he talked a lot but said little. Not like Matt, who used words economically, so that when he opened his mouth everyone listened.
    For what it was worth, she saw that the thing between her and Matt wasn’t one way. She was conscious of Matt’s eyes shifting back to her again and again. She didn’t like the concentration on her lips, as if to remind her of that recent forbidden kiss. She wanted to scrub her hand across her mouth to rub out the torrid memory. It didn’t help her to