Page 58 of One Bed

‘No, I’m waiting for Golly to choose a new fabric. She said she would, but only when she got back to London.’

The interfering witch! ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath, Jack,’ Bea drily suggested.

‘What do you mean?’ Jacqui asked, equally bewildered.

‘My godma is playing matchmaker. She removed the couch from the cottage, to make sure Gib and Ihadto share the bed.’

Jacqui glanced from her to Gib and back again. ‘Frankly darling, you could do worse. To be fair, youhave.’

Yeah, yeah, Gerry was a cockroach. Tell her something she didn’t know! Anyway, that wasn’t the point.

‘Golly has no right to manipulate my sex life!’

Jack sent her a pitying look. ‘But, darling, at least now youhavea sex life.’

She did. A freakin’ hot, look-at-me-and-I-melt one. A ‘sex in the sunshine, in the shower, on the deck’ sex life, one that most women craved. Bea looked down at her feet and smiled. Gib was a fantastic lover, generous, assertive, and demanding.

But she was only in this position because bloody Golly had forced them to share a cottage and a bed. Bea was both grateful –what woman wouldn’t be? –and annoyed by Golly’s interference. Apart from a couple of conversations about how it was time to get back on the dating horse, and that lack of orgasms caused wrinkles, Golly generally stayed off the subject of Bea’s love life.

Bea’d never, not once, expected her to go to these lengths to push her and Gib together! And hell, gratitude and annoyance were uncomfortable bedfellows. But the thing with Golly was, if you gave her an inch, she took your whole arm. Sometimes a kidney. And half of your spine.

She definitely needed to be reined in! Where was she? They needed to have a word. Or six hundred. Bea looked around and spotted her on the other side of the dancefloor, talking to a tall man with a shock of white hair. He looked vaguely familiar, but Bea couldn’t be arsed to work out who he was.

‘Tell Gib I’ll be right back,’ she told the Two Jacks. ‘And if I murder your friend, tell everyone I had a justifiable cause!’

Bea slipped around people, and stepped up to Golly’s side and gripped her forearm. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but can I have a minute?’

‘Bea-darling!’ Golly cried, her eyes glassy from too much wine. Well, Bea hoped that was all she’d had. Again, it was another of those ‘don’t ask unless you really,reallywant to know the answer’ questions. ‘Do you remember Llewellyn Baker?’

Bea smiled at Golly’s friend. ‘Would you excuse us? I need to talk to Golly.’

‘You’re her goddaughter, am I right?’ Llewellyn took her hand and lifted it to his lips. Some men managed the old-fashioned action with aplomb, but he wasn’t one of them. It took a lot of effort to not yank her hand from his damp fingers.

‘Sort of,’ Bea replied, half turning her back to him. She widened her eyes at Golly, and she finally took the hint.

‘Lew, darling, fuck off,’ Golly told him. When he was out of earshot, she cocked her head to the side. ‘Now what is so important?’

‘He’s a sleazeball,’ Bea told her. ‘He made the hair on the back of my neck rise.’

‘He has a title,’ Golly shot back, taking a whisky from a waiter with flashing dark eyes. ‘Thank you, darling. Keep them coming.’

‘Then he’s an aristocratic sleazeball.’

Golly wrinkled her nose. ‘You’re not wrong, I recall he was very handsy with his staff when he was an MP. The PM had to talk to him about it a few times. He should’ve been fired, but that was a long time ago, and thank God there are different rules today.’

‘Right,’ said Bea. Unfortunately, the issue of legislating against matchmaking old ladies had yet to be given the attention it deserved. ‘I’mverycross with you!’

Golly didn’t look remotely fazed. ‘For ordering the psychic? I wanted to hire some male strippers, but Reena said you’d be furious.’

‘She’d be right. And no, hiring a psychic is fine, and she’s very popular. She’s booked up for the rest of the night and has bookings for tomorrow and Sunday.’

‘I know, I booked the two o’clock slot.’

‘I thought you saw her earlier?’ Bea asked, perplexed. ‘And what do you want to know? You’ve been everywhere and done everything, as you keep telling me.’

‘Not for me, foryou.’

Oh,hellto the no!

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