Mistakes We Make by Jenny Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

you’re not allowed biscuits at this time of night. Now go and get ready for bed. I’ll be up in five minutes.’
    His bravado collapsed in the face of her quiet authority and he stomped off muttering, ‘It isn’t fair.’
    She turned to Ailsa. ‘Have they behaved?’
    Ailsa shrugged, tossing her head so that the blonde locks swung in a wave round her face. ‘I guess.’
    Caitlyn took off her jacket and hung it on a peg alongside Iona May’s little pink fleece, her mother’s mac and an assortment of football shirts belonging to the boys.
    ‘Is Iona May asleep?’
    ‘Yeah.’ Ailsa’s pout receded. ‘Had to carry her up, she went off in the middle of her video. We hadn’t even got to that bit where Shrek—’
    ‘Ready!’ came a voice from above.
    ‘Smelly, smelly, farty!’ chanted the other.
    Ailsa rolled her eyes and a half-smile tugged at the corners of Caitlyn’s mouth. ‘Stick the kettle on, Ails, will you? I’d kill for a cup of tea.’
    ‘What did your last servant die of?’ Ailsa muttered as she swung away, but she went to the kitchen anyway.

Chapter Seven
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    M olly pulled back the curtains in the living room of her apartment at Fleming House and blinked as sun flooded in. A kestrel was hovering above the field beyond the formal garden, its wings barely fluttering, suspended in the vivid blue sky. Suddenly it swooped, rose and flew off down the river, and the gracefulness of the movement almost winded her.
    I live here on borrowed time, she reminded herself, grabbing her jacket and handbag and heading for the door. It’s not where my career should finish – and staying here would be a dead-end because there are no opportunities for promotion.
    She had come here to hide, desperate to escape a grief so bound about by guilt that she could confess it to no-one, and it had proved the perfect sanctuary. The work here was not so much mentally draining as physically demanding. Each day she drove herself to the point of exhaustion, so she was sometimes able to sleep.
    She blamed herself for Jamie Gordon’s death and for the failure of her marriage.  
    Had anything she’d done been justifiable – or forgivable?
    Unsettled, Molly pulled the door behind her and scuttled down the stone stairs to the oak door. Seeing Adam had disturbed her, and that was the truth of it.
    No. Not just Adam. Adam with another woman .
    The commute to her office in the main part of the building was all of forty yards. It ended in a climb of twenty-two marble stairs before her route veered away from the ballroom, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and crystal chandeliers, towards a service corridor and a more modest room. Still, not many offices boasted views across such magnificent parkland.
    The job at Fleming House had served her well for the past two years, but at last she was ready to move on. She should call a recruitment agency and start to look for something else.
    She hooked her jacket over a peg on the door and booted up her computer. While it hummed and whirred, she pulled last night’s list towards her and was about to slot her glasses onto her nose when the ring of the telephone on her desk made her jump.
    ‘Molly Keir?’
    ‘Hello?’ The deep voice at the other end of the phone was familiar, she just couldn’t ... ‘Barnaby?’
    She’d worked alongside Barnaby Fletcher at Petronius Marketing in Edinburgh for years, but what had once been a working relationship that crackled with creative energy had become little more than a name in a contacts book. ‘Wow! You’ve been so quiet I thought you must have emigrated.’
    His deep-throated chuckle took Molly right back. They’d had such fun.
    ‘Still here, just busy. What about you?’
    Barnaby’s brand of sunshine was invigorating.
    ‘Oh, just running around organising everyone.’
    ‘Nothing’s changed then.’
    ‘Are you in Edinburgh?’
    ‘Uh huh.’
    ‘Let me guess. Cloud Nine?’ She named a computer game firm