Read Online Another Night, Another Day by Sarah Rayner - Free Book Online Page B

quid, so although buying in
bulk can help negotiate a better rate, he has little bargaining power.
    No cause for alarm, he persuades himself as he collects a trolley; if I get everything else with my cash, then Bob can sort me out with some roses.
    He makes his way slowly along the first aisle, appraising. At the back of one of the stands he spies some scarlet berries – long stems make them perfect for Valentine’s arrangements.
‘How much for a couple of trays of hypericum?’ he asks the stallholder.
    ‘Forty,’ says the guy.
    ‘I’ll give you twenty.’
    The trader shakes his head. ‘I’ll take a credit card?’ he offers, eyeing Michael’s thin clutch of notes.
    ‘Thanks, but no.’ Michael moves on to the next stand. Ah, gypsophila – now there’s an idea. Never mind those pretentious florists who say the tiny white flowers are
dated; his Valentine’s Day purchasers will mainly be men who won’t give a monkey’s.
    ‘What’s your best price for the gyp?’ he asks the young woman in a trader’s apron bending over a bucket of tulips.
    ‘Tenner,’ she says, barely looking up.
    Total rip-off, thinks Michael. I should have come yesterday. He recalls the Hotel sur Plage incident with a flash of resentment – after so many years in the business, it’s unjust
that he should be floundering.
    Bite the bullet, he tells himself, or they’ll go. The trip cost a fortune in petrol – he has to make it pay. ‘I’ll take three for twenty,’ he says, and they do a
deal.
    It doesn’t take long to get through the rest of his cash – a couple of wraps of white oriental lilies, some sweet-smelling eucalyptus, a tray of red anthuriums for the customers who
prefer something more blatant, three rolls of brown paper, and it’s gone.
    He edges his trolley, now laden with purchases, across the hall. Bob has had his stall in the same spot – at the end of the furthest aisle – for the last thirty years.
    I’m not looking forward to this negotiation, thinks Michael. Usually Covent Garden traders won’t countenance any kind of loan, but Bob has been doing Michael a favour as they go back
three decades. Convention is he should settle last month’s bill before buying more, which lately he has not been able to do. Still, he tells himself, what choice do I have? And a few boxes of
Bob’s splendid red roses will help set me back on my feet . . .
    But when he reaches the end of the aisle, his heart drops like a stone.
    There’s not a bucket or box or tray or wrap of flowers in sight.
    Bob’s stand is completely empty.
    * * *
    ‘Well, well. Fancy seeing you here.’
    Abby is standing alone at the bar when she feels a finger run slowly down her spine. She starts and turns – it’s Jake.
    ‘How are you?’ he murmurs, as if they were intimate only yesterday.
    ‘I’m OK.’ She drinks in black hair, bad teeth, a leather jacket, attitude.
    ‘I’m down here on business, just for the night,’ he says, raising an eyebrow. ‘Fancy a drink?’
    There it is, an invitation:
abandon yourself again to me.
    ‘I’ll think about it,’ she says.
    ‘Well, don’t think for too long.’ And Jake turns to talk to another girl.
    Abby wakes, disoriented. Between her legs is damp. Why on earth am I fantasizing about Jake after all this time? Maybe it’s because the shops are rammed with romantic cards and gifts at
this time of year, she thinks, though Jake was hardly a hearts and flowers kind of guy. Whatever the reason, it’s disturbing. Being tempted to run away even seems to permeate my dreams. Yet
it’s not as if Jake made me happy: far from it. He was too wild, too unhinged – he almost sent me mad.
    Jake was a reaction to the sweet, loving guy who’d been Abby’s first boyfriend: with hindsight it’s so clear. Abby had grown bored, sought someone more challenging when she was
an art student in Manchester. And Lord, had she been challenged by Jake . . .
    After Jake came her husband: each man a rebound from