Page 19 of Lie For Me

She tossed Jack his crisps.

‘Boring is better. Boring is easy to remember. Let’s just say…. we went out one night with friends. They went home early, we stayed on for a couple more drinks, we kissed.’

She licked her fingers and shoved the rubbish back into a carrier bag.

‘And it went from there.’

‘Wow,’ Jack said. ‘And when was this magical night?’

‘Hmm.’ She thought about when she’d confirmed with Ollie that she would definitely be plus one for the wedding. ‘About three months ago.’

Jack nodded.

‘Okay. So about three months ago, we got pissed and hooked up?’

Lucy frowned.

‘Try to make it sound a bit less sleazy.’

‘Oh, okay. Let’s see.’ He lowered his voice in the style of a movie trailer voice-over. ‘About three months ago, that extra glass of wine broke down our barriers and enabled us to see what should have been obvious all along—that we are meant for each other.’

Lucy honked with laughter.

‘If you can say that to my mother with a straight face, I will call you big man for the rest of the weekend.’

Jack held his hand up for a high five.

‘Deal.’

Lucy high-fived him and worried that he might somehow manage it.

‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘Let’s go. Don’t want to be late.’

Jack glowered at her sideways, but she ignored him and flapped her hands at him to start the engine.

***

A brace of spaniels lay in a patch of shade beneath a tree, panting. The golden one raised its head briefly as Lucy and Jack clambered out of the boiling car, then flopped back down, too hot to bother with the new people.

The hotel sat in wide, manicured lawns at the end of a tree-lined driveway. Age had softened the building around the edges and mellowed the brick to muted red, orange and yellow in the sunlight. Virginia creeper, knotted with clematis, covered much of the front of the original building. A sympathetic extension, done in the original style of the house, had tripled the size of the original Manor House footprint, and the old barns and outbuildings had become function rooms and guest cottages.

Lucy peeled her sweaty dress off her back and wafted it back and forth in vain hopes of a cooling breeze. Jack, sweat beading on his forehead, swore when he opened the boot and one of her bags tumbled out and fell on his foot. Lucy crunched across the gravel to help him and he growled at her. A shout came from the direction of the hotel terrace.

‘Lucy, darling!’

Her mother, elegantly dressed in linen trousers and a crisp cotton blouse, waved from the terrace and began picking her way over the gravel drive in heels. Jack heaved the bags out of the car and piled them up, his face red with heat and effort, his lips pressed into a thin line. The journey had taken them about an hour longer than expected after it turned out Lucy had entered the post-code into the sat-nav incorrectly. The last thirty minutes of the drive had passed in a tense silence.

‘Let me help you,’ Lucy squeaked, reaching towards the bags.

Jack glared at her with an expression that clearly said, don’t bother, it’s done now, and she stepped back out of range.

Lucy’s mother tottered up to them, heels spiking gravel out of her way.

‘Lucy,’ She took her daughter by the shoulders and looked her up and down. ‘I can see the drive has been quite the ordeal.’

She kissed Lucy on both cheeks, her lips barely grazing the skin.

Jack, red-faced and sweating beside the tower of bags, shut the boot with as little force as possible.

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