Let's Call the Whole Thing Off by Jill Steeples Read Free Book Online Page A

ledger, trying to avoid eye contact with any of them, but I swear each and every one of them called out as I passed, ‘not long to go now, Anna!’
    And now that young lad Adam from the warehouse was standing in front of my desk with a soppy grin on his face.
    ‘So how’s the blooming bride?’
    ‘What?’ It came out much more tersely than I’d intended.
    He shifted uneasily on the spot.
    ‘How are you?’ His grin lost some of its previous sparkle. ‘Not long to go now, eh?’
    Why hadn’t I noticed before that everyone at work seemed to talk in trite little clichés?
    ‘What’s that then, Adam? Month end? Pay day? The end of the world?’ I knew which one was most apt for my new circumstances.
    ‘Er, no, I meant your wedding, it’s this Saturday, isn’t it?’
    ‘Ah right, yes, silly me. How could I have forgotten? Ha ha, well, that’s hardly likely, is it, with everyone around here reminding me of the fact.’ I looked up at Adam’s crestfallen face and felt a momentary pang of guilt. I’d clearly just gained another label across my forehead. ‘Office bitch’ as well as ‘office bride-to-be’.
    Only I wasn’t the office bride-to-be now, I was the office laughing stock, even if the office weren’t yet aware of the fact. And if they weren’t aware of it now, they soon would be if I returned to work after the honeymoon without that magic ring on my finger, or even on Saturday for the lucky few who had been invited to witness the wedding crash of the year. Oh yes, I was definitely on the fast track to obtaining company notoriety. Maybe I should just climb up onto my desk right now and make the big announcement.
    Ladies and Gentlemen! Sorry to interrupt your early-morning internet browsing disguised as working, but my wedding, which seems to be the hottest gossip on the office floor, is officially off!
Cue stunned faces and hushed whispers.
So maybe we could all stop dissecting the finer details of my non-big day and move on to discussing someone else’s life. Yes?
    That customary prickle of shame ran across my skin again. I knew I’d never be able to return to work if the wedding didn’t go ahead, facing everyone’s sympathetic looks, hearing the furtive whispers. No, I just couldn’t do it. I’d have to run off and join the circus or something or find another job at least.
    I looked up at Adam who’d turned a fetching pink colour.
    ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, grabbing the contents of my in-tray and straightening them in my hands, ‘it’s just that I’ve got lots to do here before I can even think about marrying the man of my dreams. Was there something in particular you wanted?’
    ‘Oh right, yes, of course. No, it was nothing. Nothing important. Just a chat. I’ll let you get on with … your, um, work then.’ He shuffled backwards in to the corridor looking like a man desperate for a means of escape.
    Huh, the man of my dreams! Had Ed ever been the man of my dreams? If you’d asked me before yesterday morning then I would have said a categorical yes. Now, he’d morphed into the man of my nightmares and I felt as though I didn’t know diddly-squat about anything.
    Mum thought Ed was God’s gift. In fact, I sometimes wondered if she didn’t get on better with Ed than I did! They chatted incessantly, bonded over obscure American TV thrillers and shared silly little jokes. Admittedly she’d put him through an extensive and arduous interview process for the position of ideal son-in-law, over several Sunday lunches, and he’d passed with flying colours. But what would she say when she found out that the golden boy was nothing more than a two-faced conman?
    He’d appeared to be all the things a mother would want in a potential son-in-law: he was kind and friendly, clean-cut and polite, with impeccable manners and good prospects. In fact, he possessed all the things a woman would want in a potential husband, but all those good traits had now been wiped clean away by the discovery that he