Page 5 of How to Get Even

‘Olly, a friend of mine needs a place to stay in Cornwall for a bit in the New Year. She’s very nice and won’t bother you,’ she read as she typed.

She paused. It needed somethingmore.

‘You have room,’ she typed. ‘And you owe me,’ she added for good measure, before hitting send and putting the phone onto the table.

And there it sat, in the centre of their circle, everyone staring at it as if it were an unexploded bomb.

Don’t answer it.

Answer it.

Her conscience wavered back and forth. A nervous silence stretched over the table until it became almost funny until the incoming text chimed and startled them all.

‘Is she a Roger Prendergast groupie?’ she read out loud.

Not, lovely to hear from you. How are you? How have you been? Are you okay after telling our family and friends that I couldn’t bring myself to marry you?

When Paige admitted that she didn’t know Olly’s famous actor father, Bellatyped out a single word, ‘No.’

And his response was lightning fast.

‘He says fine,’ Bella confirmed, unable to believe how easy that was.

Because that’s what it had been. Easy. And now, all of a sudden, Paige, a virtual stranger, was going down to Cornwall to stay with her ex-fiancé to wreak revenge for her. And she was going to take revenge against Astrid’s married lover Chase Miller.

But as she looked around the similarly shocked faces of women who she knew with absolute conviction were no longer strangers but friends who had bonded deeply, no matter how quickly, she felt something that she hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Excited.

‘Okay then,’ Paige said with a smile. ‘Looks like I’m off to Cornwall.’

Without quite knowing how, another bottle of prosecco arrived on the table, and Astrid filled their glasses.

‘To just desserts,’ she announced as ‘Last Christmas,’ could be heard over the PA system and they all tapped their glasses together.

Paige took a hefty swallow and turned to Bella. ‘Now, tell me more about this Olly.’

* * *

With the table now littered with water bottles and packets of chips, a concession to savoury carbs that they had all agreed on, Bella sat back in her chair. She was surprisingly exhausted after info-dumping an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the man she’d been about to marry onto Paige who had just excused herself to make a phone call.

Bella was beginning to sober up and the sugar high was threatening to turn into a sugar crash. She’d thought that perhaps that might make her see sense. Might make her feel a little wary about what they had agreed. But it hadn’t.

If anything, this gave her something to do over the Christmas period. Something to think about instead of her parents’ awkwardly given concern. It gave her something toplan. And Bella was very good at plans.

She picked up her phone, pulled up Google and typed in Chase Miller.

The first few hits were various photos of him in poses that would be considered an ‘artist at work’. Bella huffed out a cynical laugh. He probably had art assistants who did most of the actual painting. The next result was a picture of Chase grimly staring into the camera lens.

‘That’s from my profile. The one I wrote,’ Astrid said, leaning over and peering at her screen. ‘It’s how we met,’ she explained.

Bella scanned the piece. ‘It’s good,’ she observed. ‘It’s really good.’

‘I know,’ Astrid said, with an easy, and wholly justified, confidence.

Astrid’s profile was informative, easy to read, and wry. Her personality shone through but didn’t dominate, giving a solid impression of her subject. It was as if Bella was reading a meeting of the minds and she could see how Astrid would have found Chase Miller fascinating.

Fascinating and dangerous.

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