Page 71 of A Manny for Christmas

I smile. Jess is a foul-mouthed mother hen, but her tone does indeed shut everyone up. It seems I have the floor. Thank goodness, in a way, Theo’s here. His presence will stop me from spitting out too many indiscreet details.

‘The whole thing was quite cool, actually.’ I take a fortifying sip of wine.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight and three orgasms, I can enjoy the Cassandra part of the story far more than I did after she and Caspian left last night.

‘A mum from school came to pick her kid up from ours last night—she’s one of those impossibly manicured blondes with a superiority complex—and she was lecturing me on how I needed to make more of an effort if I wanted to find a new husband.’

‘Bitch,’ Jess offers. ‘That is all. Please proceed.’

‘Anyway—you cannot make this shit up—at that very moment, Max walked into the kitchen. Topless and wet. Daisy had soaked him when he was giving her a bath, and he’d stripped his shirt off.’

There are theatrical gasps all around. ‘Noooo,’ pretty much everyone hisses.

‘So you jumped him, there and then, in front of her?’ Theo guesses.

‘Romeo, keep your mouth shut or piss off to your porn den,’ Nora tells him in a tone that brooks no argument. I assume she means his study, but you never quite know with those two.

‘Not exactly,’ I tell him in a kinder tone. ‘But I wanted to. And let’s just say Cassandra was feeling it as much as I was. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for better timing. But when he’d disappeared back upstairs, she asked me if he and I were involved. And I said yes.’

Sadie wrinkles her sweet little button nose in sympathy as she smooths her suede mini-skirt over her thighs.

‘Exactly,’ I tell her. ‘And I felt like shit all evening. I don’t know; it just made me feel so pathetic, that I’d had to lie about a relationship with a gorgeous guy to make myself feel better in front of someone whose opinion shouldn’t matter, anyway.’

‘We’ve all been there, honey.’ Clara nods sagely.

‘Yeah,’ Sadie concurs. ‘And that was too good an opportunity to turn down. I wouldloveto have seen her face.’

‘It was pretty priceless,’ I say. ‘But I was in a weird mood for the rest of the evening, and after I’d put the kids down, Max confronted me about it. He thought I was pissed off with him. I kind of admitted that faking it with him had made me feel shitty and pathetic. And then he was all like’—I fake a gruff voice—‘you think it’s not real? It’s fucking real. It’s never stopped being real.And then we kind of grabbed each other, and everything went up in flames.’

‘Dear, sweet mother of Christ,’ Sadie says in an awed whisper.

‘Oh my God. It’s like you were inThe Notebook, or something!’ Nora squeals. ‘That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard!’

‘Yeah, because you’ve always been so good at knowing when things go from fake to real, Belle,’ Theo says to her with heat in his eyes.

Evelyn sighs. ‘I mean, even I can’t argue with that.It’s fucking real?The man deserved to get laid, just for that.’

‘And for showing up half-naked when bitch-face was giving her a hard time,’ Jess points out.

Evelyn inclines her head with characteristic graciousness. ‘That too,’ she concedes.

‘Er, we’re not finished yet. Then he took you off to bed?’ Clara asks.

‘Um.’ I chance a self-conscious glance at Theo. ‘The living room, actually. It has a perfectly good rug.’

‘Nice.’ Sadie nods approvingly. ‘That’s seriously hot.’

‘Okay, so here’s what I want to know.’ Clara leans forward and picks up a tiny quiche, her hand poised to pop it into her mouth. ‘Was it, like, better than you remembered? More intense? Did it feel like coming home? Because the first time I slept with Alex, second time around…’ She shakes her head. ‘It was moreeverything.It was like I’d only been half alive for the previous twenty years.’

I stare at her as she eats the quiche. She and Alex had ittough. Torn apart when he was imprisoned without warning, and kept apart for two decades. My and Max’s break-up was more civilised. On the surface, it was voluntary. Even though it felt anything but.

I attempt to put into words the maelstrom of emotions that last night stirred up. ‘It was this overwhelming sense of relief. We talked about it, actually. Afterwards. We’d both wanted it so badly, and neither of us was brave enough to make a move. When we were together, years ago, it was incredible, but last night felt like a dam breaking. You know? Like we’d denied ourselves for so bloody long, and there was so much passion, and history, and crazy amounts of lust and frustration. We’ve both been through a lot. It felt like a reward.’

‘Like closure?’ Evelyn asks, wincing slightly, and I shake my head.

‘No. I know that’s not what you want to hear, because I know you feel protective of me, but I’m afraid not. It feels more like…’

I pause. I know the gorgeous humans seated around me want what’s best for me.

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