Fool for Love (High Rise) by Harper Bliss Read Free Book Online

towards the desk. She sank down in one of the brown leather visitor chairs and crossed her legs.
    “I thought you should hear it from me before word got out.”
    This peaked Maddie’s interest. She leaned forward, planting her elbows on her desk.
    June gazed at her hands in her lap. Why couldn’t she look Maddie in the eye? She’d certainly never had a problem with that before.
    “I’m listening.” Maddie tried to keep her voice as soft as possible. “What is it, ba—” She corrected herself before she could fully say it.  
    “I’m pregnant.”  
    Of all the things running through her brain, this was the last one Maddie had expected. She’d always, naively of course, assumed June and Mark didn’t have a sexual relationship. That it was more a marriage of convenience. That June only fucked her. A life of misconceptions, Maddie thought, that’s exactly what I’m living here.
    “I suppose congratulations are in order.” Maddie’s voice broke a little. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t so much that she’d lost June forever, she’d been half-way on the road to accepting that, it was more that she, at last, clearly saw all the mistakes she had made.  
    They spun in front of her eyes as if on display on a big wheel of fortune. Where would the wheel stop? At the bright pink ‘left long-term girlfriend in Australia’? Or maybe at the scolding harsh yellow of ‘only visited my nephews twice since they were born’? Or perhaps, more fitting for her current situation, at the devilish red of ‘fucked straight married co-worker for six months, and not once in a good old bed’.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. It was difficult for me.” June sat there, an expression of defeat on her face—sad eyes, trembling bottom lip and, now that Maddie looked closer, a hint of black circles under her eyes.
    Maddie could tell her domestic bliss might not be the thing June was searching for. That she wasn’t heterosexual by a long shot. That the fact this kid was conceived while its mother was banging the boss were hard odds to start a life with, but it wasn’t her battle to fight anymore. And she had plenty of her own.
    “I understand. I wish you all the best.” Gone was every trace of desire to slam June against the wall. To spread her legs and snake her fingers up along her thigh. This changed everything.
    “I suppose there’s not much more to say.” June rose from her chair and Maddie could have sworn she saw a tear dangle from an eyelash. She started for the door, her head bent and a hand across her mouth.
    “Hey. Wait.” Maddie sprang up and raced around her desk. “Come here.” She held out her arms for June, who turned around and greedily surrendered herself to them.  
    “You could leave him and we could raise the baby together,” Maddie wanted to say, but it wasn’t the right time for jokes like that, even though it might not have been that much of a joke. Instead, she patted June on the head while hugging her tightly.
    “It’ll be all right,” Maddie whispered in her ex-lover’s ear. “You’re going to be a mother. How amazing is that?”
    June lifted her head from Maddie’s shoulder, her face blotched and her eyes puffy. “It’s absolutely wonderful. But… this is the final curtain for us.”
    “I know, baby. I know.” Maddie pulled June close again and embraced her for the last time.

    ALEX

    “I could do with a holiday.” Alex stretched her arms over her head. The pain in her shoulder was still there. “My body is exhausted.” Alex had been doubly busy, team-teaching classes with trainee instructors at a newly opened branch in Admiralty while learning choreographies of the latest releases herself.
    “Stop doing everyone else’s job.” Nat slurped from her cappuccino. “And let them fill in for you for a change.” Some froth clung to her nose. “You’re too good for this world, Pizza. And definitely too good for this city.”
    “Could you tell that to my mother,