put this on,’ he said, picking up the polo shirt he’d been wearing earlier that day and flinging it my way, carefully avoiding looking at my nakedness. I snatched it up and did as I was told. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’
Obviously a bad-tempered sex-god who didn’t take kindly to being woken up in the middle of the night.
I ran my hand through my hair, wondering what possible excuse I could come up with and then, remembering I’d been trying for spontaneous, decided not to bother.
‘I was hoping I wouldn’t need the shirt.’ I held the polo shirt to one side, jutting a hip out in what I hoped was a vaguely provocative way. ‘I was thinking …’ Deep breath, Anna. ‘I was thinking … we could have sex together.’
‘Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!’ He laughed just like that, as though I’d said something really stupid or funny. Which I hadn’t. ‘Sex? Oh, Anna, that’s funny!’
‘What’s so funny about it?’ His reaction was really rather insulting, I thought. ‘I was being spontaneous. I thought maybe you might want to have sex with me. Why would that be so ridiculous? Am I not attractive, is that it? Everybody else seems to be having sex all over the place. Why not me?’ I folded my arms crossly and turned away from him, feeling a heat rise in my cheeks. I felt silly and self-conscious.
‘Come here. ’ He opened his arms wide. ‘I’m flattered, Anna, really I am,’ he said, trying but failing to keep the smile from his face. ‘And you are very attractive. But I don’t think that would be a good idea, do you? You’d only be doing it to get at Ed and it would make you feel so much worse tomorrow morning.’
He hugged me, our bare upper bodies touching and I rested my head on his chest. He smelt so good, my arms around his body felt so entirely natural, his bare body strong and firm beneath my hands and almost overwhelmingly enticing. My body’s reaction was immediate and intense. So wrong and yet so right too. At this moment I felt sure sleeping with him would make me feel a whole lot better. Trust Ben to have his sensible head on tonight.
‘Jump into bed then,’ he said, indicating with a sweep of his head for me to join him.
‘Really?’
‘Well, I’m clearly not going to be getting any sleep with you stalking around the house all night. Although you must promise to stay over your side of the bed. I don’t want you taking advantage of me.’ He was grinning as he climbed back into bed and I slipped in beside him. Instantly everything felt so much better. My legs gently touching his, I closed my eyes and was asleep in a moment.
When I woke, it was just gone seven. Shame washed over me as I looked across at Ben’s empty place in the bed, feeling a pang of disappointment that he wasn’t there. He’d been right. Even without having seduced him I felt much worse this morning as all the events of yesterday crashed in on me. I wasn’t sure if my pounding head was down to the awful memories of the day that would surely rank as the worst of my life or the number of glasses of wine I’d drunk.
I located my jeans in the guest room, pulled them on and wandered downstairs to find Ben.
‘Hey!’ He turned round from where he was standing at the stove and flashed me a big grin. ‘I was just doing you a bacon sandwich.’
‘Oh, lovely,’ I said, my nose twitching at the delicious smells wafting my way. For the first time ever, I felt self-conscious in his company, the memory of standing half-naked in front of him making me cringe with embarrassment. I dropped my gaze to the floor. ‘Look, Ben, I just wanted to apologise for last night. Really,’ I said, catching his eye, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Forget about it. I have.’ Clearly my spectacular entrance into his bedroom hadn’t been as memorable as I thought. ‘You’d had a tough day; it was perfectly understandable,’ he said, in the understatement of the year. He fell silent as he spread butter onto bread and then scooped the bacon out of the pan and onto the bread, squirting ketchup on the top. He handed me a plate and it felt like the loveliest thing anyone had ever done for me. I wasn’t sure Ed had ever fixed me breakfast in all the years we’d been together.
‘So how are you feeling today?’ He brought over mugs of tea and sat down at the table with me.
‘Fine,’ I said, not really meaning it, although I felt a resolve that hadn’t been there the day before. I didn’t think I could shed a tear now even if I wanted to. ‘I suppose I ought to get ready if I don’t want to be late.’
‘You’re not going in to work today?’
I nodded. It was the last thing I wanted to do, especially after yesterday’s bombshell. I was supposed to have ticked off dozens of jobs on my to-do list, but I hadn’t managed any. Not that it mattered any more. My wedding to-do list was now clearly redundant. Now I didn’t know whether I should be ringing round and telling everybody the wedding was off. The thought that all my dreams and hard work could be undone in a couple of phone calls made me shudder.
I wondered if the universe had been testing me, putting me through some elaborate pre-wedding initiation task. One which I’d clearly failed. If I hadn’t read that diary then I would never have known about Sophie and Ed and our wedding would have gone ahead as planned. Perhaps it was only a last-minute fling on Ed’s part and their relationship would have fizzled out once we’d married and I would have been none the wiser. Blissfully ignorant and happy.
Only I wasn’t. Now I was very much in the know and miserable.
‘So have you decided what you’re going to do? Are you still set on going ahead with the wedding?’ He paused, his sandwich in mid-air.
‘I think so.’ I couldn’t meet Ben’s eye. Instead, I ran my tongue around the outside of the doorstop of a sandwich, mopping up the oozing ketchup. Did I even still want to marry Ed after what he’d done? The thought of cancelling the wedding was the worst thing I’d ever contemplated, but did I have any other choice? Maybe I needed to postpone it at least, to work out with Ed if we even had a relationship worth saving.
Aargh. Frustration surged around my body. One minute I wanted to rush round to Ed’s place and commit serious bodily harm upon him, the next minute I wanted to forget I’d even read that stupid diary and pretend none of this had happened.
I needed to buy myself some time. Get things straight in my own mind before I faced everyone else.
‘We’ve been together such a long time. We were so looking forward to being married. Well, I was,’ I said, wondering if Ed had ever felt the same. ‘I don’t see why I should throw my whole life away because of Sophie. If what you say is true, that it’s me Ed really loves, then maybe there is some way of coming back from this?’ I could hear the desperation in my own voice. ‘Maybe this was just a pre-wedding blip. Something he needed to get out of his system.’
Ben shrugged, taking a sip from his tea, and I felt so grateful that he was there, allowing me to talk rubbish, nodding in all the right places, without making me feel worse than I already did.
‘You might be right.’ He looked at me closely, his gaze on my face unnerving. ‘Listen, can’t you call in sick? If I’m being honest you’re looking pretty rough.’
I smiled wryly. Perhaps I could rely on Ben to give it to me straight after all. I smoothed my hair back off my face and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth in what I realised, too late, was a particularly feminine and endearing move. Ben had certainly seen me at my best these last couple of days. Something else I wish I could scrub out and pretend had never happened.
‘Thanks, Ben, but I ought to go. Hopefully it will take my mind off things.’
***
Fat chance there was of that! It seemed like the whole world, or rather the entire workforce of Purcells, was conspiring against me by wanting to talk weddings, and my wedding in particular. Head