Loath to Love

Loath to Love A Novel Sarah Michelle Lynch Copyright © Sarah Michelle Lynch 2023 The moral right of Sarah Michelle Lynch to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. You must not circulate this book without the authority to do so. All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. For more info: sarahmichellelynch.co.uk Contents Author Note Prologue Part One Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Part Two Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Part Three Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Author Note Dear reader, You’ll read this story mostly from the point of view of Flora, our heroine. She spends most of the book pretty much in the dark. The shorter chapters in third person are merely snippets or windows into what is really going on. Read slowly, read carefully, and make up your own mind. Sarah x “Very few of us are what we seem.”Agatha Christie Prologue Doge Suite, Hotel Danieli, Venice November 2020 Blake Rathbone had walked into a trap, or perhaps… Well, he wasn’t sure. What he did know was that he’d got himself stuck in Part One A Stalker? Chapter One October, 2021 He’d been stalking me for a while before I realised it was, in fact, stalking. I realise what most people would say. Surely, any