Freya North 3-Book Collection: Love Rules, Home Truths, Pillow Talk. Freya North

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СКАЧАТЬ held Thea very close as she embraced her. And when she sensed Thea was ready to pull away, she held her tighter still. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘I’m so pleased. It’s the right time. It’s brilliant news.’

      ‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’

      ‘You have to ask?’

      ‘Are you happy for me?’

      ‘You have to ask?’

      ‘You do think that Saul is The One For Me, don’t you?’

      ‘You have to ask?’

      Alice and Thea gazed at each other, manic excitement manifest and contagious in their dancing eyes and slight breathlessness.

      ‘So,’ Alice said, ‘there we have it. We’re all grown up, you and I. God, I’ll probably be pregnant by your house-warming party,’ Alice said with a slump to her shoulders, ‘and I’ll be confined to wearing some God-awful kaftan and support tights.’

      Thea looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I wasn’t really thinking of house-warming parties. But are you really thinking about pregnancy?’

      ‘I can’t see how my marriage will survive if I don’t,’ Alice reasoned, a little darkly.

      ‘Shit,’ Thea exclaimed, ‘don’t say that. You’re not serious? I mean, I know you’ve been low – ambivalent even – but we’ve talked through it all, haven’t we. Time and again. Surely you are not considering a baby to hold the answer?’

      Alice was quiet. She regarded Thea with a meekly apologetic pursing of her lips. ‘I’ll never forget your mother begging you to be the glue to keep your father from leaving. How old were you? Fifteen?’

      ‘Fourteen,’ Thea corrected.

      ‘When did you last see him?’ Alice asked.

      ‘Three years ago?’ Thea estimated.

      ‘It’s interesting,’ Alice said quietly, ‘how divorce affects a child by shaping their attitude towards love as adults. Many become totally averse or utterly cynical to long-term relationships. You come from a pretty poor example of marriage and yet it seems it’s given you the determination to truly believe in lasting love. It would make an interesting article for Adam – how blokes are affected by their parents’ relationships.’

      ‘Well, it seems you and I have struck lucky with Saul and Mark then, as they both come from good stock,’ Thea mused.

      ‘You make them sound like prize rams – in fact, you sound like your mother!’ Alice laughed. Her expression changed, she placed the back of her hand against Thea’s cheek. ‘You have always imposed somewhat fairy-tale proportions onto love and eternity. I know I tease you. And sometimes, it has landed you in a pickle. But ultimately, I think it’s your greatest strength. I may rib you for being a hopeless romantic but actually I admire you for it.’

      ‘You don’t mind that I don’t believe in your theory that your phenyl-something is the cause of love?’ Alice laughed and shook her head. ‘When I was little,’ Thea said cautiously, ‘the only way to block out the noise of the rows, the only way to put something pretty into my life, was to lose myself in this imagined world of heroes and heroines triumphant in love.’

      ‘Well, now you have your hero in Saul,’ Alice said conclusively.

      ‘And you have yours in Mark,’ Thea said, adding a note of warning to her voice. ‘Do not use a baby as glue, Alice, please.’

      Alice regarded her wedding ring thoughtfully. ‘Glue, Sellotape, Velcro,’ she said quietly, ‘some type of weathertight bonding is needed, that’s for sure.’

      ‘Bonding,’ Thea said, musing over the word. ‘It’ll be within you, within the home itself,’ she said decisively, ‘you’ll just have to patiently seek it out.’

      ‘And there ends our correlation between love and sticky stuff,’ Alice proclaimed. ‘There are only so many metaphors a girl can take in her lunch hour.’

      ‘Love is sticky stuff,’ Thea shrugged with a wink, ‘if we’re talking fellatio.’

      With his sharp suit, loud tie and verbal swagger, the estate agent at Cohen & Howard reminded Thea of Peter Glass but as Saul didn’t know Peter Glass, and as Thea assumed that all estate agents were probably alike, she didn’t comment. Just then, with the agent slicking back his already product-laden hair and rolling a fat Mont Blanc pen avariciously as if it were a cigar, Thea wondered whether they should have consulted Peter instead. He’d been in that morning. On a roll. Deposit paid for Seychelles ultra luxury. Upgrading the Beemer to a Merc. Taking a new girlfriend to Chinawhite. Hardly aware of the crick to his neck.

      ‘Miss Luckmore,’ the estate agent was saying, ‘will Cohen & Howard be handling the sale of your property too? We do have an office in Muswell Hill – and market share in N10, N8, N22.’

      ‘We would consider it,’ Saul butted in, enunciating his vowels an octave lower than Thea had heard before, ‘for a drop in your commission to 1 per cent, bearing in mind that you’ll be handling the sale of my property and most probably arranging our purchase too.’ Thea didn’t mind that Saul had answered for her. She found it quite touching. Plus he was saving her 1.5 per cent which would probably pay for an IKEA kitchen. ‘If we can agree on such a commission,’ Saul was saying, ‘you may have both premises to market.’

      ‘Immediately?’ the agent asked with a lip-lick of gleeful anticipation.

      Saul and Thea looked at each other. Saul raised an eyebrow and a smile broadened. Thea bit her lip – not with reservations but to quell a rising chirp of excitement. ‘Immediately,’ Thea told the agent.

      She and Saul left the office with a clutch of property particulars and, with arms linked and a skip to their stride, headed for Patisserie Valerie on Marylebone High Street to peruse the details over coffee and cake. For a day devoted to the exposing of fools, April 1st for Saul and Thea was proving to be a day in which they were making some very wise moves. Saul put his arm around Thea’s waist and pulled her close to him, giving her a smacking kiss to her temple. She beamed up at him. ‘I’m so excited!’ She started babbling about Shaker-style kitchens and granite worktops and Smeg fridges in retro pink. She enthused about Purves & Purves for rugs, that she’d seen Mies van der Rohe style Barcelona chairs on the web for a bargain. With a footstool and no delivery charge. Perhaps in cream. ‘Designers Guild for fabrics!’ she exclaimed. ‘And can we buy a superking-size bed? I love Farrow & Ball paint colours.’ She was hopping and weaving in her excitement. ‘Bridgewater!’ she beamed, standing outside the eponymous shop. ‘Oh my God, I adore her crockery.’ A few steps later, Thea was darting over the road and pulling Saul into the White Company. ‘Divine!’ she repeated as she ran her hands lightly over the stacks of linen. ‘Let’s make the bedroom a peaceful haven of muted tones. Mushroom. Ecru. Flax. Calico. Vanilla.’

      ‘His and Hers waffle towelling robes?’ Saul suggested, twirling one against himself, his gentle sarcasm totally lost on Thea.

      ‘Actually,’ she replied artlessly, ‘the Conran Shop’s the place for bathrobes – we could look at prices after we’ve had tea.’

      Even an old-fashioned homewares shop caught Thea’s attention as they strolled on and СКАЧАТЬ