Summer of Secrets Read Online Free

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route to Jamie, she intended to milk it for all it was worth. Izzy was her passport to high society – and high society was where she knew she belonged.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Izzy said. ‘Last year I had a Bedouin and Belly Dancers, the year before that was Jungle Drums . . .’
    ‘You mean, it’s going to be fancy dress?’
    ‘Sure – all my parties are. Only I’m running out of ideas.’
    ‘Ghosts and ghoulies?’ Caitlin suggested, rapidly trying to think of a costume that wouldn’t cost her an arm and a leg to get hold of.
    ‘Get a life,’ Izzy retorted. ‘I’m hardly going to look sexy wrapped in a sheet. I want to be alluring, smouldering, gorgeous . . . You do think Jamie’ll come,
don’t you?’
    ‘Not if it’s fancy dress,’ Caitlin had to admit. ‘Getting him out of oil-stained jeans is hard enough. Trust me, I know.’
    Izzy looked crestfallen.
    ‘But he has to come . . . well, I mean, it doesn’t really matter, but––’
    Her final words were drowned beneath the sound of scrunching gravel and squealing tyres in the lane behind the privet hedge at the bottom of the garden.
    ‘What on earth . . . ?’ Izzy flung open the window and peered out just as a stocky guy clambered out of a silver Mazda. ‘Who the hell’s that?’
    At that moment, a second car, backfiring wildly, drew up by the gate.
    ‘Well, that one’s Jamie – you can tell by the noise. And you’re safe. His mate’s clearly a guy.’
    Caitlin grinned at the look of relief on Izzy’s face, a look which was followed by a dash across the room to Caitlin’s huge pewter-framed mirror.
    ‘Don’t you dare mention the party!’ Izzy insisted, flicking her hair behind her ears and peering critically at her flawless make-up. ‘I’ll kind of introduce the
subject subtly when the moment is right.’
    She paused, and turned to face Caitlin.
    ‘That other guy he’s with – does he look fit?’
    Caitlin peered out of the window again as car doors slammed and the garden gate swung open.
    ‘Average,’ she reported. ‘Arms too long, and he walks a bit like an orang-utan . . .’
    ‘ Arms ? You are just the strangest person . . . what’s his butt like? I go for backsides in a guy.’
    ‘Can’t see, he’s gone out of sight,’ Caitlin replied. ‘Pretty cool car though. Anyway, I thought it was Jamie you’re after.’
    ‘I am not after him,’ Izzy protested, glancing out of the window. ‘I’m just . . . oh, never mind. Let’s get down there – like, now.’
    ‘ You? What the hell are you doing here?’ Izzy stood stock-still in the door of the kitchen, gawping at the stocky guy with sandy-coloured hair and a generous
mouth who was leaning against the breakfast bar, picking from a bag of crisps.
    ‘I don’t believe it, it’s Muffin!’ the guy exclaimed in amazement.
    ‘Don’t call me that!’ Izzy hissed, glaring at him.
    The guy grinned from ear to ear and thumped Jamie on the arm.
    ‘So this is your mystery girl!’ he said and turned to face Izzy. ‘He’s been going on and on about this mate of Caitlin’s––’
    ‘Tom, shut it!’ Jamie flushed scarlet and avoided Izzy’s now-smug smile.
    ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about getting the inside track on her,’ Tom said with a laugh, ignoring his embarrassment, ‘because there’s nothing you need to know
about Izzy Thorpe that I can’t tell you!’
    ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ Izzy snapped.
    ‘Come off it! I lived with you off and on for three years,’ Tom replied. ‘I’ve seen you drunk, throwing tantrums – and who gave you your first proper
kiss?’
    Izzy’s face turned scarlet.
    ‘Lived with . . . ?’ Jamie began.
    ‘Tom’s my mum’s godson,’ Izzy explained, throwing Tom a look of pure disdain. ‘His parents were overseas with the Foreign Office, and we got lumbered with him in
the holidays because his mum and mine are old school friends.’
    She turned to Jamie, her expression lightening.
    ‘How