Read Online A Little Crushed by Viviane Brentanos - Free Book Online Page A

him uneasy?
    “Oh no. Don’t you dare put this on me. I am trying.”
    “I know.” Max closed his eyes against the headache pounding his temples. “I think…we need more time. My contract, here, runs for a year. You have no idea when things will wrap up over there. I just got here, Kate. I want to do this. I need to do it.”
    “I guess… Max, are you sure you’re okay?”
    “I’m bushed. Kids are hard work.” He aimed for humour.
    “Are you sure that’s all?”
    He cursed her ability to read him so well. Truth was, he had no answer—not one that made sense. “Hey, I’m fine. Look, it’s late. We’ll talk again. Next week, maybe?”
    “Sure.”
    Kate sounded nervous, vulnerable; two words he’d never have aligned with his tough, independent fiancée. Was she afraid? He knew her well. She thought she could lose him. Kate didn’t like to lose.
    Flipping his cell shut, he threw it onto the table and picked up his cup. He wished it would turn into whisky.
    He packed his briefcase ready for the next day. Suddenly he felt restless, wishing he’d taken Tom up on his offer of another one of Fiona’s great meals, but he had a feeling Fiona didn’t want to see too much of him. Oh well, time to check out the box.
    He walked into the sitting room and put a match to the already laid fire. At once his tiny living space seemed warm and cosy. Kate’s photograph drew him in, taking him back to their Oxford halcyon days. He supposed their finding each other had been inevitable: two rich Sydney kids together in a foreign country.
    At first, her golden-beach beauty had left him cold. Girls like Kate had thrown themselves at him since he’d hit puberty and ditched the braces. But he’d been no match for her persistence. Subtlety wasn’t a word in Kate’s vocabulary. When she wanted something, she took it, just as she had on their first date. He’d been surprised and delighted to find her cool exterior hid a very passionate woman. Of course, later on in the relationship, he realized Kate had used every weapon in the book to steal him away from the woman he’d been dating. Fiona. In their first year, he, Tom, and Fiona had been inseparable. The three Musketeers, Tom named them, but then Kate had come along and changed all that.
    Max crossed to the mantelpiece and picked up the gilt-framed picture. With his thumb, he caressed Kate’s delicate cheekbone. No doubt about it, she was stunningly beautiful, but was it enough? Where was the bonding of souls he’d heard so much about? A cynic, he’d always scoffed at that tired old line, but now, when he saw Fiona and Tom, with their gorgeous daughter, he wasn’t so sure. Would he and Kate ever share what his best friends shared? Somehow he doubted it.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    “So how was it? Judging from the idiotic expression on your too-made up face, I’d say good.”
    Emma ambled along at Rebecca’s side, expression vacant, eyes over-bright, and lips drawn in a smile that would have made Mother Theresa vomit it was so nauseatingly serene.
    “It was nice.”
    “Why so reticent?” Rebecca zeroed in on her nervousness. “Nice is hardly the term one uses when in the first throes of true love.” Hand on forehead, she struck a Bette Davis pose. “Oh dawrling, he is simply divine.”
    “Stop.” Emma’s complexion changed from fuchsia pink to pickled beetroot. “If you must know…Andy asked me out.”
    Rebecca stopped walking. “ Out, out —as in a date?”
    “Yes.” Emma gushed. “Becs.... don’t be mad. This is my big chance.”
    “For what? To see if you can last longer than all the other poor idiots who fell for his line? You besotted fool.”
    Thick-skinned as ever, Emma did not take umbrage. “I’m in love.”
    “Oh, please.” Rebecca picked up the pace again. “Still, at least you got over the colonial nitwit fast enough.”
    “I have not.” Emma giggled. “I still think he is drop dead gorgeous, but I have to be realistic. He is out of my