One Hundred Proposals. Holly Martin

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      Jules walked in carrying two glasses of wine and passed one to me. She was wearing a bright yellow top today, one that I hadn’t seen on her before. Her hair was freshly dyed with warm honey coloured highlights and she was actually smiling. It had been a long time since I’d seen her smile. Maybe she’d been given a proverbial kick up the bum as well as me. I liked it, life was for living.

      ‘You look good.’

      ‘I feel good. Bella’s sleeping properly at night now and she is such a delight during the day. And I know I shouldn’t be glad of this, but Jack’s insurance money has meant that I haven’t had to rush back to work. I get to spend all day with her and I love just being a mum. Jack didn’t want me to work again after she was born anyway, so he’d be happy that I’m taking care of her.’

      ‘You’re doing a wonderful job, she’s such a happy child.’

      Jules smiled fondly at Bella, smoothing out her wayward locks. Her eyes moved to mine.

      ‘You look happy too. How’s Harry?’

      I failed to see how the two were connected. ‘He’s good, gave me a good talking to yesterday about not clinging to the past, hence I’m back to my colourful clothes again.’

      ‘I’ve always loved your sense of style, or lack of it.’ She smirked mischievously. ‘And I hear he proposed.’

      Back to Harry again. ‘Not properly.’ I laughed at the thought. ‘Just, you know, business.’

      She peeled a banana and passed it to Bella’s eager hands. ‘I like Harry.’

      ‘I like him too.’ I jiggled Bella on my lap, deliberately trying to avoid Jules’s eyes.

      ‘And you two have never…’

      ‘No not at all, never. We’re friends. He doesn’t see me like that. Plus his reputation with women is hardly squeaky clean. He used to be with a different woman every week. The man’s a complete tart.’

      ‘Maybe he’s just looking for the right woman. Jack was the same, you know that. Famously sleeping with two different women on the same night.’

      ‘Whoa, I knew he had lots of girlfriends, I didn’t realise he’d had a threesome.’

      Jules spat out her wine and Bella giggled, blowing raspberries with her own lips.

      ‘Not a threesome. Just slept with one girl, she broke up with him and by the end of the night he was in another woman’s bed.’

      ‘How do you know this?’

      ‘I was the other woman.’

      I felt my mouth fall open. ‘And didn’t it bother you that he’d been with someone else hours before?’

      Jules shrugged as she mopped up the wine. ‘He wasn’t anything serious, not for me. And his ex-girlfriend at the time was a complete cow so I was just pleased to get one over on her. Then we started seeing each other, just the odd night here and there, and then those odd nights became every night. He didn’t look at anyone else after that.’

      ‘Weren’t you worried, that he would stray?’

      Jules smiled hugely. ‘I don’t want to sound big-headed, because the feeling was entirely mutual, but I could see your brother was head over heels in love with me. That look never faded in all the eight years we were together.’

      I smiled.

      ‘Harry’s probably the same. He’s looking for The One.’

      ‘I don’t think he is. He doesn’t actually believe in love or The One.’

      ‘Oh that’s rubbish. I know he was hurt badly when he was a kid, and he’s holding back from falling in love in case he gets hurt again, but when he finds the right woman, he’s never going to let her go.’

      I felt myself go very still.

      ‘What do you mean, he was hurt as a kid?’

      Jules went very pale. ‘I thought you knew.’

      ‘He told me he didn’t believe in love, not long after we first met. I thought he’d just come out of a painful break up. What do you know that I don’t?’

      Jules turned away and started picking up Bella’s toys. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. You and Harry are so close, I thought you knew.’

      ‘He hasn’t really told me anything about his past. I know he doesn’t speak to his parents.’ I swallowed. ‘Did they hurt him?’

      ‘No, he wasn’t beaten or abused, it wasn’t like that. It’s not my place to say. I only know because Badger accidentally let it slip to me once. Just forget I said anything.’

      As if I could. Although I didn’t feel I could push Jules into telling me. If Harry wanted me to know then he would have told me.

      Jules threw the toys into a big chest and picked up her wine glass, swirling it around and studiously staring at the contents. ‘You know he was offered a job.’

      My wine got stuck in my throat and I coughed to release it. She seemed very caught up on her gossip, especially Harry gossip.

      ‘Where, when?’

      ‘Last week. It would have paid very well. I don’t know what you’re paying him but I doubt it would come close to this. Company car, pension plan, private health care plus lucrative shares in the company.’

      I gaped. ‘He doesn’t like big companies and office politics. He’s always said he’d never go back to working somewhere like that. Remember that job he turned down in America?’

      ‘His dream job?’

      ‘It wasn’t his dream job.’

      ‘He sure did talk about it for months, about how excited he was.’

      It was true that when Harry first came into my life there was a big plan to move to New York and the great job he was going to be starting out there. But one day he’d told me he’d had second thoughts.

      ‘Apparently people weren’t happy with the merger that was taking place and the new CEO. He didn’t want to get involved in all of that. As I said, he doesn’t like office politics.’

      ‘Didn’t he cancel the contract around the same time that Jack died?’

      Words dried in my mouth. No. He couldn’t possibly have cancelled the contract because of me, to be there for me. Not if it really had been his dream job.

      ‘I’m just saying, he keeps being offered these fabulous opportunities and he keeps turning them down. His Connected money isn’t going to last him forever, especially considering how generous he is with it. It would be hard to turn down that kind of salary.’

      ‘What kind of salary?’

      She СКАЧАТЬ