Read Online Watching You by Michael Robotham - Free Book Online Page A

really sorry.”
    “So you said.”
    He told her the story of the accident. He shattered his knee on a black run and had to be stretchered off the mountain and airlifted to hospital. He showed her the scars from his surgery.
    “I’ve forgotten you,” she said.
    “I’d have done the same.”
    “How is your knee?”
    “It’s fine. I’m cycling to get fit.” He tried to take her hand. “That’s why you didn’t hear from me. I was concussed. I was hurt. Then I had weeks in a wheelchair and on crutches. I figured you wouldn’t want a boyfriend who was a cripple.”
    “You could have called.”
    “I lost your number.”
    “You knew my father’s address.”
    “I know, but I wanted two legs so I could sweep you off your feet.”
    She stood up. “I have to go to work.”
    “Can I see you?”
    “You can meet me here tomorrow for lunch.”
    Daniel grinned.
    “It’s a sandwich not a date,” she said.
    And that’s how it began. It was another month before Marnie allowed him into her bed, but they didn’t make love. She slept with her arm around him and her face pressed into his neck. In the morning they each averted their eyes as the other one dressed.
    On the second night she let him kiss her. On the third night she let him take off her clothes. On the fourth night she opened her heart. Marnie had been married once before when barely out of her teens, but had no idea she was capable of being so ridiculously in love. She was full up with it. Overflowing. Daniel was the boy she should have waited for the first time. Gorgeous, funny, adventurous, romantic, smart, uncomplicated, and laid-back, he was her big handsome Aussie bloke, her surf lifesaver, her Crocodile Dundee.
    The sex was equally great. They collected locations: on a beach (Turkey), in a deck chair (Green Park), on the front seat of a Mini Cooper (not easy), in a rowing boat next to a herd of cows (uncomfortable), and in a medieval church during a rainstorm (sacrilegious).
    They married at a registry office in Chelsea in the summer of 2008. Zoe was bridesmaid. Although it was the second time around for Marnie, it felt completely different because she had found a man who made up for all the things she didn’t like about herself.
    Daniel had been in London for three years, working casual shifts for various newspapers. Soon after the wedding he was offered a full-time job with the Sunday Telegraph, news rather than features, but that was OK. He loved working for a Sunday paper—the extra challenge of predicting where a big story would be by the weekend. He reported stories and broke them, always searching for the next exclusive.
    He didn’t have hobbies. When he opened his eyes every morning, he turned on the radio and listened to the news. Then he collected the papers from the doorstep, reading them over breakfast, cutting out paragraphs and tearing off pages as he constantly made notes.
    A year after they married, Daniel was promoted to features editor, a meteoric rise, everybody said. He bought champagne for the staff and later trawled the casinos in Covent Garden and Soho. The promotion meant more money. They could save a bigger deposit and get a nicer house, perhaps in Clapham or Kingston.
    Marnie knew she shouldn’t make Daniel out to be perfect. He could be abrasive, opinionated, pig-headed, and cruel. He hated when she pointed out his flaws, particularly his gambling, but he didn’t go to the casino very often—normally only to celebrate a big exclusive or to commiserate about a story lost to the competition.
    Unbeknown to Marnie, there were more lows than highs. The world of newspapers had begun changing. Readers were deserting “dead-tree technology,” fleeing to the Internet where they expected to pay nothing for their news. Advertisers followed, chasing “clicks” and certainty. Circulations crumbled. Budgets were slashed.
    Daniel used to rail against the “bean-counters” who were cutting expenses and curtailing overseas travel.