Read Online A Most Desirable Marriage by Hilary Boyd - Free Book Online

to come round? Was he expecting a card or something? It seemed an odd day to choose if he wasn’t. For a moment she felt bad that she hadn’t even said Happy Birthday. He would think she was being deliberately mean. Jo wondered if either Cassie or Nicky would ring him. She doubted it, certainly in Cassie’s case. But Lawrence took family birthdays very seriously. There would always be presents, a homemade cake, some sort of celebration to mark the passing years.
    As she took her cup to the sink, she glanced up at the cork board, where Nicky’s birthday photo from three or four years ago had pride of place among much more ancient holiday snaps. Faces glowing in the light from the chocolate cake candles, all smiling, Matt even looking happy, Lawrence waving to her as she took the picture. Tough, she thought, staring at her husband’s features. You chose Arkadius.

Chapter 5
    17 August 2013
    ‘It’s not good news. I spoke to Frances and she really likes your new treatment. She said the bisexual theme was “very real”, I think was how she put it. But . . .’
    Jo groaned. ‘But she’s not going to publish it.’
    She had spent quite a bit of time researching bisexuality online, not just for her book but in the vague hope of understanding Lawrence’s behaviour better. It seemed to come down to the plain fact that some people are attracted to others, regardless of gender. And although the number of people who actually defined themselves as bisexual – now defined by some as ‘pan-sexual’ – was small, according to Stonewall, there were thought to be many more who simply had an ‘aesthetic, romantic or sexual attraction’ to more than one gender over a lifetime. This was a crumb of comfort to Jo. Clearly you didn’t need to have actual sex with both to feel bisexual. So maybe Lawrence hadn’t until now.
    One man she emailed reminded her that most people had preferences within a sex – blonde hair, small breasts, fat/thin etc – so why did everyone think it weird when the preferences included both genders? Jo saw his point, but still couldn’t imagine herself having sex with a woman. It certainly, by all reports, was not an easy option to identify yourself as bi. ‘No one understands,’ another correspondent complained. ‘People think we’re greedy, helping ourselves to both sexes. And promiscuous. Although they can’t prove it, because we aren’t, not any more than any other group.’
    She and her agent, Maggie, were seated on stools at the counter of a tapas bar in Soho, each with a glass of cold white wine. It was barely six and a Tuesday, the small bar still almost empty. By seven it would be crammed and noisy.
    ‘Not exactly. She’s prepared to give it a go . . . very kind of her I must say . . . but she’s only offering two five, divided into the usual three chunks.’
    Jo sighed. ‘Two and a half grand? Bloody hell. I got three times as much last time. It’s not worth doing for that.’
    ‘Well, don’t be too hasty. It’s just the publishing industry is in dire straits at the moment. And if you get a smaller advance you’ll make the money on royalties more quickly.’
    Jo could hear Maggie struggling to put a positive spin on it.
    The frenetic white-jacketed chef, cooking on a grill against the wall, reached over from behind the wooden counter, delivering a white dish of hot, salty green
pimientos de padrón
, placing it between them with a flourish, followed swiftly by a platter on which lay thin slices of Serrano ham overlapping each other at one end, while on the other was a heap of small crumbly nuggets of parmesan cheese. The room was hot and smoky from the cooking.
    Maggie picked up one of the peppers by the stalk and popped it in her mouth. ‘Ooh . . . hot!’ she flapped her hand in front of her open mouth. ‘But yummy. Love them, don’t you?’
    Jo nodded, but she found her agent’s news had robbed her of her appetite. She was beginning to be really worried about money.