Read Online Valentine Present and Other Diabolical Liberties by Lynda Renham - Free Book Online Page B

go by then it’s unlikely. I’m bleeding awful at family stuff, always have been.’
          ‘For pity’s sake,’ he cries. He tries to get up from the couch, but the springs are so knackered since Diamond’s little visit that he falls back down again.
          ‘I could lose everything. Do you have any idea what that will feel like?’
          ‘I’ve got a vague idea.’
          ‘I’m offering you twenty thousand. My family’s future hangs on this.’
    Jesus, that’s a bit of a responsibility. I stop with my hand on the door h andle. Twenty thousand, twenty thousand pounds? That would pay the finance on the van and clear a good part of the bank loan.
          ‘I just have to pretend to be your future wife, that’s it?’
    He nods eagerly, pushing himself out of the couch.
          ‘I don’t have to actually marry you or anything?’
    He shakes his head, looking at me expectantly.
          ‘No, by the time she meets you she’ll only have four months and she won’t be expecting us to get married that quickly. In fact, you don’t have to see me ever again.’
    This is ridiculous, I can’t do that. It would be a complete disaster. I’m all wrong for a start, I wouldn’t have a clue how to dress and they would realise right away it was a scam. I don’t talk like he does. But if I don’t agree to do it what the hell will I do. I’m completely exhausted, not to mention freezing. If I stay in this flat I’ll die from hypothermia. I look to my goldfish for inspiration. Julian won him at a fair last year. I’m not sure how much longer he will last either. I will probably be driven by starvation to eat the little bugger with some oven chips if I don’t sort out my finances soon.
          ‘Okay, I’ll make it twenty-five thousand. I can’t say fairer than that can I? Half now and the rest when the job is done.’
    Does he have to make it sound like we’re going to kill his grandmother? I hesitate.
          ‘Okay, thirty thousand, but I can’t go any higher than that,’ he says urgently. ‘You can’t tell anyone about this. Everyone has to believe we’re engaged and are getting married before the end of the year.’
    Holy shit. I wonder if I stay silent long enough he’ll offer me fifty thousand. I could pay all the debts and take a holiday.
          ‘But …’
          ‘The spring break is in ten days. I’ve set up all the people to prime you …’
    He is becoming animated and his eyes have lit up.
          ‘Prime me?’
          ‘You’ll need to speak better, and dress …’
    I raise my eyebrows.
          ‘Differently,’ he says quickly.
          ‘I don’t know,’ I say hesitantly. ‘I really can’t see something like this working.’
          ‘I assure you it will. Everyone will have to believe it though, and that includes your friends and family, and most importantly my grandmother. She has to love you.’
    Bloody hell, even my own grandmother doesn’t love me. He’s expecting a lot. Mind you, Mum will be proud, and it will be one over on Caron’s Gary.
          ‘Alistair will know, and Fiona,’ I remind him, ‘and my mum will think it rather odd that I got over Julian so fast. I may have to tell her.’
    He nods thoughtfully.
          ‘Yes, but no one else must know.’
    He looks into my eyes.
          ‘Well, what do you think?’
    I think it’s the maddest idea I have ever heard. Thirty thousand pounds, I bet even Gary couldn’t compete with that , I think with a little smile, but what would Julian think about it, me pretending to be engaged to some rich toff? What’s wrong with me, why am I giving a toss about Julian? He has left me in a right mess and not even bothered to phone. I could forgive him if they have actually cut out his tongue and he couldn’t actually talk. But he still has his tongue and both ears, not to mention my Mini. At that moment there is a knock on the door and