Read Online Broken Truth by Beth Ashworth - Free Book Online

champagne to her lips.
    Judging by the size of each person’s glass and the large ice filled bucket on the table that held several bottles of bubbly, the group were clearly out to party tonight.
    “I’m sorry,” she replied. “I had to deal with my sister on the phone before we came out.”
    Amelia’s eyes immediately softened with sympathy. “Was she alright with you?”
    “Surprisingly so,” Charlie said. “She wants me to go to Ben’s birthday party next Saturday.”
    “And... Are you?” Lucy asked.
    Charlie sighed. “I guess I have to. I mean, I love that little guy to pieces, but the thought of being in the same room with my sister and Dr Prick is already starting to make my skin crawl.”
    “Our Cal will go with you,” Jack winked in his direction. “I’m sure he couldn’t think of anything better to do than spend a Saturday afternoon with a bunch of five year olds.”
    “No fucking chance,” Callum laughed.
    Charlie cocked her head to one side and gave him her best ‘are you shitting me’ look.
    “What do you mean not a chance? Don’t you even think for one minute that I’m going into that hell hole on my own. There is no way that I am going to handle both of them and my mother on top. You can definitely come and help me take the heat a little.”
    “But...”
    Charlie fixed Callum with a glare that screamed she meant business. There was no way for him to find an excuse to back out of this one. At least with Callum by her side she knew that things couldn’t get as ugly as they could if she were going alone.
    Conscious that all eyes around the table were now fixed firmly on their little display, Charlie leant a little to the side so that she could whisper into his ear. “Believe me when I say that you have a lot of making up to do to me at the moment. We will just call this a small portion towards you attempting to redeem yourself.”
    Pulling back in confusion, Callum furrowed his brow. “Have I done something?” he asked.
    “Forget it,” she dismissed, reaching for a bottle of champagne to fill her glass. She needed to get some alcohol into her blood stream before she absolutely lost it. Of course she should have known that he would assume his behaviour this morning to have been acceptable. Clearly he thought it normal for boyfriends or husbands to leave on a Sunday night and return the following Friday evening having had barely any contact with their partners all week.
    In Charlie’s world this was not normal. Relationships were about giving your mind, body and soul to the person that you love. It was about sharing your deepest and darkest secrets to the person who could find and connect all of the loose pieces in the dangerous puzzle within our hearts.
    Never in her wildest dreams did Charlie imagine falling in love with a multi-millionaire property developer. Stumbling into her life at just the right time, Callum unknowingly became the knight in shining armour that she had been searching for.
    “So, who wants to hear a joke?” Jack casually interrupted, attempting to diffuse the awkward atmosphere.
    “I need to get back on the happy train. Those two mood wreckers just put a downer on the party,” Lucy grumbled, throwing back at least half of the champagne in her glass. “C’mon little Jacky, hit us with a joke.”
    Charlie eventually pulled her stare away from Callum whose face looked more annoyed than confused. “I’m all ears,” she smiled in Jack’s direction.
    “Okay,” he replied, clearing his throat. “What did the egg say to the pot of boiling water?”
    “What?”
    “It's going to take me a minute to get hard; I just got laid this morning,” Jack answered before cackling at his own joke.
    Amelia scoffed as she lightly hit Jack on his chest. “Wow, Baby. That joke was the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard!”
    “I’ve got to agree, Mate. That was pretty bad,” Ollie said, shaking his head.
    “But look,” Jack said, gesturing around the table.