Married by Christmas by Scarlett Bailey Read Free Book Online Page B

I thought I was Johnny Depp, I was still just this kid from Buckinghamshire. I’d never seen anything like her, tall and tanned, with this long black hair and an amazing body that …’ Tom stopped himself just in time. ‘I thought she was stunning, like the sort of girl you only see in magazines. And she thought I was this funny English kid with a cute accent. I made her laugh. It’s not like we dived into bed together the second we set eyes on each other. I was working there for weeks, before … well, before anything happened. And when it did … I’m sorry, Anna, I know this is going to hurt you, but I fell for her. Or at least I thought I had. I had never, ever felt that way about a girl before. She consumed me.’
    Anna closed her eyes, as she thought about the way Tom was with her. So sweet, so attentive, so gentle, so kind and understanding, but she was almost one hundred per cent certain that she had never ‘consumed him’ in the way this mysterious figure from his past had. Anna had never had that kind of power, that raw magnetism. ‘After a couple of weeks, I moved into her condo and, well, I forgot about everything else – my book, my career, my family, my friends, all my dreams and ambitions. My whole life became about working in the bar, watching Charisma dance, knowing that at the end of the day she would be taking
me
home.’
    Anna turned her face away from him so she didn’t have to see the faint smile of the memory in his eyes as he thought about this ‘Charisma’ person.
    ‘Tom,’ Liv said, her expression tightly shut off, in her bid to protect her friend without betraying her own feelings. ‘I really think Anna could do with less of the details.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I’m just trying to explain how I got caught up in this fantasy. It wasn’t real, it was never going to last, I know that now,’ Tom said, attempting and failing to get Anna to look at him. ‘I was just a kid back then. I had no idea what life and love was really about. What Charisma and I had, well, I thought it was love. But it had a lot more to do with passion and lust.’
    ‘The things that
we
don’t have?’ Anna asked tightly, prompting Martha to snort coffee through her nose and almost choke to death.
    ‘We have both those things,’ Tom said. ‘In buckets, and more important things besides, like friendship and trust and … things in common.’
    ‘Trust? Oh yes, that’s right, I’m supposed to trust you. Silly, insecure, needy me following you around when you have nothing to hide but a … what was it? Oh yes, a
wife
,’ Anna said, forcing herself to look at him, to look at the person that up until this morning she had believed she knew inside out. ‘So was it a romantic proposal? I suppose it had to be more glamorous than kneeling in sheep poo on the top of a hill in the freezing cold. I suppose that was magical and fantastical too.’
    ‘There was no proposal, not really,’ Tom said, uncomfortably, clearly dreading completing his story. ‘We were out, on yet another crazy big night out. I hadn’t even wanted to go. I was exhausted, I wanted to sleep, but Charisma always went to town when she had a night off from dancing, dragging me up and down the Strip. I don’t know how we ended up in the lap-dancing club. I don’t remember much of it except that we were talking to the barman, Charisma seemed to know him somehow, and then suddenly she’s telling me how he used to be an Elvis impersonator. How he’s still licensed to perform marriages and that we should get married, right there and then. None of it was real, it was like a joke, a dream, if anything. Suddenly Charisma has some flowers from off the bar in her hand and the barman gave us a pull from a can for the ring. We were stood on tables, and everyone was cheering and laughing and we were
married
. It didn’t seem real. I never really thought it
was
real. I swear to you, Anna. I thought it was just a joke.’
    ‘Not even when you signed the