Married by Christmas by Scarlett Bailey Page A

she thought about it, Anna supposed that he did rather have a point, which somehow frightened her more than reassured her. She’d spent the majority of her life working hard at containing all the thoughts and feelings that she was afraid might give her away; the idea that she had somehow unwittingly let all those defences disappear without a second thought for the consequences alarmed her. Except … except if Miles was right, if that was the way Tom saw her, saw her trip, then perhaps, just perhaps, that might be a good thing?
    ‘You must love him very much,’ Miles said. ‘Your Tom. You must love him a great deal to go through all of this for him.’
    Anna sat back in her chair, leaning her head against the rest.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. I do love him. He’s the first man who’s ever made me feel … safe and normal.’
    ‘So,’ Miles said, looking at his watch, as Anna realised they had barely been in the air for half an hour and she’d already poured her heart out to a man she barely knew. ‘I think I’ll check out a movie or three.’
    ‘Me too,’ Anna said, relieved that the conversation was over by mutual consent. She noticed, as she plugged in her headphones, Miles giving her a fleeting sideways look, before he settled down to watch some slasher horror, which he probably thought would be a good deal less terrifying than listening to her rant on.
    Anna sighed heavily, debated over a romantic comedy featuring Anne Hathaway and then opted for the horror film too. After all, right now a good deal of screaming and anguish, and foolish decisions to go down into the cellar armed only with a torch, seemed like a much more accurate reflection of her love life than Anne Hathaway kissing boys in Central Park. There really was only one thing for it, Anna decided darkly. The only thing she could do as soon as she got to New York was to turn around and go home again and face up to the fact that Slutty Martha had been right, there was no way she would be married by Christmas.

Chapter Five
    ‘Hello, Tom. Yes, I know what time it is, and the thing is, you see, is that, um, well … Now that Anna’s gone to New York and left me in charge of the wedding, the last thing she told me to do was to check on you and make sure you were OK.’ Liv rehearsed under her breath as she waited for the lift that would take her to Tom’s riverside apartment. Funny, she thought to herself as she watched the LED numbers count down to the dawning of the impossibly awkward situation she had found herself in, when she’d first visited Tom’s flat, almost two years ago now, she’d never imagined that one day she’d be turning up at just after midnight, under this set of circumstances. Nope, of all the things she had imagined, which had been legion, and mainly involved her and Tom engaging in naked kissing, never, ever had she imagined this scenario. Maybe Anna was right, maybe the only way to get through life was to try and think of every single worst case scenario before fate could get to it.
    Liv remembered the first time she’d set eyes on Tom. She’d just laid out her instructor with a particularly powerful roundhouse kick to his solar plexus, screeching like a banshee as she landed on the crash mat, to find this tall, gingery-blondish, strong-looking man grinning at her with naked admiration, which wasn’t something that Liv was all that used to. When it came to attracting men, Liv realised at some point around the age of seventeen, she and Anna were as bad as each other, although in completely different ways. For although boys, and then men, were usually initially attracted to Anna, with her legs and breasts and hair, quite soon her particular little tics and foibles, fierce intellect and anxieties would mostly scare them away, and those that had stuck around for longer were invariably the sort of lowlife who liked going out with beautiful but insecure women principally to do their heads in. Liv’s problem on the other