The Desperate Bride’s Diet Club by Alison Sherlock Read Free Book Online Page B

Violet looked up to findMark Harris studying her. He stared at her for a long time until she was so uncomfortable that she shuffled in her seat.
    He broke out of his reverie and smiled. ‘So? What about it?’ he said. ‘Think you can handle it?’
    She was shocked. ‘You’re offering me the job?’
    Despite the cake thing. And the complete lack of experience.
    ‘If only to keep you out of prison,’ he said, still smiling.
    ‘ButI can’t do it,’ stammered Violet.
    ‘You can answer the phone, can’t you?’ He leaned forward on the desk, staring at her with his green eyes. ‘Look, I’m desperate. Felicity left yesterday. Gone to be a footballer’s wife or something. Vacant position for a vacant girl. She didn’t even pick up the phone when it rang. Too busy painting her nails. Surely you can improve on that?’
    Violet didn’t knowwhat to say. But she was desperate. She needed a job to pay the mortgage. And the food bill. And the giant credit-card bill for the stupid New You! diet club as well. Surely just sitting there answering the phone wouldn’t be too bad?
    ‘You want to start tomorrow?’
    She looked up at him and, after a brief internal struggle, finally nodded.
    ‘Great. See you in the morning at nine o’clock sharp.’
    And that was it. Interview over. Violet had a new job.
    She just needed the new body to go with it.

Chapter Seven
    KATHY WAS FED up. She’d had one shake for breakfast. Make that one disgusting, undrinkable diet shake for breakfast. Now it was mid-morning and she was desperate for something to eat with her coffee. Like a danish pastry. Followed by an iced bun. And a doughnut.
    ‘Was it one sugar?’ called Mavis from the kitchen.
    Kathy rolled her eyes. ‘Two, please.’
    She had worked in the shopfor over a month and they had had coffee every morning. But then, Mavis was about one hundred years old, so perhaps she was entitled to be a little vague.
    ‘There you are,’ said Mavis, making her slow way back across the small shop.
    Kathy took the mug from her. ‘Thanks.’
    She took a sip and winced. There was no sugar in the drink. And it didn’t taste like coffee either. The fact that the charityshop raised funds for the Alzheimer’s Society was, perhaps, rather apt.
    Luckily, it was a subject close to Kathy’s heart. Her mother had suffered from dementia for many years. Sadly the strain had got too much for her dad, who had passed away a few years previously from a heart attack.
    In the end, Kathy had to move in with her mother and take charge. As the years passed, whole weeks went bywhen she didn’t recognise Kathy. Her mother lived in her own world, quite content.
    But Kathy wasn’t. She was an only child and the strain of losing her dad and the slow decline of her mum was overwhelming. So she began to comfort eat – and had never stopped.
    Not even when her mum had looked at her one day and said, ‘You’re a bit fat, aren’t you?’
    Kathy had sobbed herself to sleep that night.And most nights since.
    She had expected to feel a little relieved when her mum passed away from kidney complications at the end of the previous year. But the only relief was that her mother was no longer in pain. Now, the pain was all Kathy’s. There was no focus in her life. And no family either. In the end, she couldn’t bear the solitude and moved away. A new start and hopefully a new life.
    She sold the family home and rented a cheap flat on the edge of town while she decided what to do with her life.
    But she’d been in the area for a month and was desperately lonely. She thought the job would help her socially but Mavis wasn’t exactly party central. And the weight-loss club was terribly quiet too.
    Now that she no longer had her mother to take care of, Kathy’s life was empty. Asempty as the shop she found herself working in. No company at home; no customers to chat to during the day. Some evenings, Kathy felt like screaming at the unfairness of it all. But instead she bottled