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PRETENCE OF LOVE
by
Ellen
Farrell
Chloe Harrison works in a Derbyshire hospital as
acting junior registrar to consultant Matthias Trevelyan.
Between them is a degree of mutual antagonism: conscious of his
watchful attention, she regards him with a distant but wary
respect.
She visited by her aunt, whose daughter Rosemary
had broken up Chloe’s engagement to Hamish Warren; told that
her cousin, now Rosemary Warren, is returning to the area with
her husband, Chloe explains that she herself is likely to be
leaving to work elsewhere.
Then a colleague collapses during a tricky operation and Chloe
intervenes; expecting a reprimand from Matthias Trevelyan she is
surprised when he offers her a more permanent job with the
team. She is both pleased and happy, but on learning of
Rosemary's
conviction that Hamish is still in love with Chloe and that
Chloe is in love with him, she goes back to Matthias to withdraw
her acceptance.
Matthias is less than sympathetic. She has accepted
and must stand by her new agreement. Dismissive, he says that all
Chloe has to do is to appear to be romantically interested in
someone else and that he is perfectly willing to help her with such
a pretence. Chloe can get on with her work, and her cousin will be
reassured. Confident that this will not amount to any real
involvement, she agrees.
At first their pact works exactly as Matthias had
implied that it would, and Chloe, lonely, warm hearted and
susceptible, is increasingly impressed by his thoughtfulness; he
proves to be an amusing and skilful partner in their deception,
draws her into his family circle, and leads Chloe to suppose that
his interest in her is genuine.
But her aunt’s original anxieties were well founded.
Hamish Warren has been appointed to a senior post locally, and
Chloe, driven to confessing why she has not wished to meet either
Hamish or Rosemary, is taken by Matthias on a spectacularly
delightful outing, following which it is clear that their colleagues
at the hospital would not be surprised to hear wedding bells.
By
this time it seems to Chloe that there isn’t a single interest that
she and Matthias don’t share, so that her discovery that there is
someone else in his life leaves her hurt and angry. Deciding that
he is an astute judge of people and that she has been spectacularly
naive, she is concerned that he may think that she is seeing her
cousin's husband. Heartbroken, she also faces the realisation that
just as she has been using him, so he may be using her, but when an
accident puts her surgical career seriously in doubt Matthias is
immediately at her side and it is clear that they will be together
for good.
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