'I take it Nick hasn't asked you to this big family do?' Sue inquired sardonically.

'No. Not yet.'

'Didn't even mention it in all the hours of talking you had last night?'

The mocking emphasis on talking goaded her into a heated defence. 'Why should he? To all intents and purposes Nick has only just met me. He doesn't know I know his family.'

Sue slanted her a derisive look. 'He's been stringing you along, probably to get what he wants, and I'll bet you spent more time in bed with him than anywhere else.'

'That's my private business!' Barbie grated, her hands clenching at her friend's cynical att.i.tude.

'Then at least get the blinkers off your eyes and see it right,' Sue sliced back at her in exasperation. 'By the end of your night with him, it wasn't Anne Shepherd Nick Armstrong had in his head or anywhere else. He knows who you are. Or suspects strongly enough to put it to the test. What do you think that gig with his sister was about?'

Thrown into confusion by Sue's certainty, Barbie lost the final line of logic thrown at her. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'The booking came in from Carole Huntley just an hour after you talked to Nick yesterday, still pretending to be Anne Shepherd. If you can't put two and two together, I can. Before today is out he'll have confirmation from his sister that Sue Olsen's partner is Barbie Lamb.'

'It could have been a coincidence,' Barbie cried, trying to hold back the sickening wave of humiliation stirred by Sue's interpretation of events.

'And pigs might fly.'

'Nick couldn't have told her,' Barbie argued frantically. 'Carole wasn't expecting me. It was your introduction that triggered recognition.'

'Unmistakable eyes,' Sue tossed at her. 'How long did Nick gaze into them over dinner, Barbie? And don't forget I did call you Barbie in his office before you suffered a rush of blood to the head and gave yourself a false ident.i.ty. You think he's slow at putting two and two together?'

Her stomach started churning at the memory of his comment on her eyes...a vivid reminder of the girl he'd once known.

'Face it!' Sue bored on relentlessly. 'The game is well and truly up. He used his sister as a check on your real ident.i.ty and she's probably on the phone to him right now, reporting the outcome. So, for pity's sake, don't make a fool of yourself by trying to continue this crazy deception when he turns up tonight!'

A fool of herself?

Sue didn't know the half of it.

Nick's probing questions, his comments on fakery...her own behaviour in asking him to kiss her, ripping his clothes off and...none of it bore thinking about in the light that he had known-or suspected-she was the very same Barbie Lamb he had once put out of his life.

She wished she could curl up and die.

'You know, that party Carole Huntley was going on about could be the party Leon invited me to,' Sue muttered. 'It's this Sat.u.r.day night.' She shot Barbie a worried look. 'What are you going to do?'

She shook her head in hopeless distress. 'I don't know, Sue.'

'Well, I don't suppose you want to hear I told you so. At least you've got the rest of the day to work it out.'

Barbie closed her eyes, feeling too sick to talk.

'I hope you can work it into something good,' Sue said in a softer voice.

The sweetest revenge, Barbie thought, was also the path to h.e.l.l.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

NICK held his impatience in check until two o'clock to call his sister, knowing the children would need time to wind down from the excitement of the party and settle into their afternoon nap. He didn't want Carole distracted. He needed to pick her brains of every impression she had of Barbie Lamb.

The buzz of the call-signal grated on his nerves as he waited and waited for it to be answered. Finally the receiver was picked up and a breathless Carole said, 'Hi!'

'It's Nick, here. Where were you?'

'Cleaning up downstairs.'

'How did the party go?'

'Oh, Nick! You'll never guess...'

'Guess what?' His skin p.r.i.c.kled with antic.i.p.ation. It had to have happened... Barbie forced into facing that the deception couldn't work any longer.

'The party went fine. It was a great idea. The children loved it. And your suggestion to call Party Poppers and hire an act was brilliant. The Singing Sunflowers had them entranced...'

Get to the main point, Nick silently urged.

'But when the two performers turned up... Nick, one of them was Barbie Lamb! Remember Barbie? The girl Danny had a big crush on back in our school days?'

'Yes, I do.' The cat was definitely out of the bag.

'I was so surprised. I had no idea she'd made a career with her singing. And she is good at it, Nick. Terrific, really. I would have loved to have a chat with her but...' A deep sigh.

'But what?' Nick prompted, uneasy with Carole's sigh.

'I don't think it was a nice surprise for her...seeing me again, I mean.'

'Why do you think that?'

'Well, she didn't enter into any reminiscences with me. You know how people do when meeting again after a long gap and our families had been close. It was all strictly business, cutting off any personal stuff.'

Shock, Nick thought, understandable in the circ.u.mstances.

'Which I didn't mind,' Carole rattled on, 'because I could see they were all keyed up to give their performance. And they certainly delivered marvellous entertainment.'

'I'm glad to hear it,' he encouraged.

'Anyhow, I thought what fun it would be for Barbie to come to Mum's party...you know, sharing old times and new...and I really put my foot in it, Nick. It's quite upset me actually.'

A nasty feeling crawled down his spine. 'Want to tell me about it?'

'Well, first off she stated flatly that she wasn't free to come. And I must say it was a late invitation, so fair enough. Though she didn't even pause to consider if she might drop in for a bit. Even late if she had some work commitment. But I didn't notice the lack of any interest then.'

Nick frowned. There should have been interest if Barbie was seriously interested in him. Maybe she was just thrown at the prospect of having to confess to him beforehand. And he hadn't mentioned his mother's fiftieth birthday when they'd been talking families. His mind had been on trying to draw her out.

Carole took a deep breath and continued. 'I was wishing she could come and I made the mistake of saying how lovely it would be if she could sing for Mum, like she did for you at your twenty-first.'

Nick barely stifled a groan. Talk about triggering a bad memory!

'She gave me a look... I tell you it could have killed me stone-dead, Nick...and said she was paid for doing that now. Like I was presuming on her professional life, using her...it was awful. I just shrivelled up inside.'

'That was...unfortunate...to say the least, Carole.'

'I tried to recover, explaining how I felt...that it was a friendly thing...and she was frigidly polite...but I was left feeling like the lowest worm, Nick. And I really would have liked to get to know her again.'

'Perhaps you'll get another chance.' Nick hoped. Was the power of attraction strong enough to override the damage done?

'No,' Carole came back, answering him very decisively. 'She couldn't get away fast enough. It's kind of sad. We were all close once. I didn't mean to make her feel I was just using her...like her friendship wasn't of any value except for how well she can sing.'

Using her... No, Barbie couldn't think he'd been using her for s.e.x. She'd asked for it. Wanted it. Had she been using him? A dream come true...

Nick shook his head, realising he was veering off his sister's line of thought. 'You might have hit a raw nerve, Carole,' he said. 'Like with doctors being asked for medical advice when it's supposed to be a social occasion.'

Another deep sigh. 'You may be right. I guess people do get exploited in the entertainment world. And who knows what her life has been like since the Lamb family left Wamberal? It's been a lot of years. Maybe for her there's no going back.'

'No, we can't really go back.' Can't change anything we've done, either, Nick thought grimly.

'I've never been...wiped...so completely...'

The nasty feeling increased. 'I'm sorry you felt that, Carole.'

He hadn't foreseen this outcome. He'd wanted Barbie to come clean with him. The confrontation with his sister was telling him that any future with Barbie Lamb would be hard won, if it wasn't a complete fantasy.

'My fault...being so tactless,' Carole said glumly.

'There may be more to it than that,' he soothed, only too sharply aware of his guilt in creating this situation.

'Like what? She just doesn't want us in her life?'

'Could be.'

'That kind of blanket rejection is awful, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

And he was right back to how deeply his actions had wounded Barbie Lamb nine years ago. Deliberate actions...like her deliberate action of provocatively inviting him to join her on his own bed. The sweetest revenge of all? Nick Armstrong finding her irresistible, wanting her...wanting her beyond any doubt...was that the dream come true?

Carole gave a skittish laugh. 'Not that you'd know much about rejection since you're such an eligible bachelor.'

Nick had a gut-wrenching feeling he was about to know. In spades!

'My life isn't all a bed of roses,' he said with black irony. It was more a bed of thorns. Or barbed wire.

'Things not going so well with Tanya?' Carole teased.

'That's finished.'

'Oh! Are you bringing someone new to Mum's party?'

'My love-life is somewhat up in the air at the moment. Not a subject for discussion.'

'Okay. Well, thanks for listening, Nick. And Stuart did stop feeling sorry for himself. No grumpiness at all. The entertainment was a wonderful suggestion.'

'I'm glad to hear it worked for him. Give him a hug from me. Tina, too. Must go now.'

'Thanks for calling. It was good, talking to you.'

Good...

Nothing was good!

Nick put down the receiver, fighting the sense that at seven o'clock tonight, the woman who could have been everything he wanted, would proceed to deliver her ultimate revenge-wiping him out of her life.

But could she?

Maybe she had meant to drop him after the absolute proof of his wanting her on Monday night, except their coming together had been so special, she'd been tempted by the promise of feeling more of it.

He had that to fight with.

And fight he would.

On every level.

It was time she started seeing straight. And tonight he'd set her straight. The past was past and she had to let it go. For her own sake, as well as his.

Revenge didn't lead anywhere!

Not anywhere good.

And Nick wanted good.

For both of them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.