The eagerly anticipated follow-up to One Hundred Proposals.

If you thought Harry & Suzie’s life couldn ’ t get anymore sweepingly romantic than Harry asking her to marry him at the end of One Hundred Proposals – think again!

It’s Christmas in a snow-kissed London, and the.PerfectProposal.com have vowed to carry out one hundred proposals in December. No easy task at the best of times - made even more complicated by Harry & Suzie trying to plan their first Christmas and a visit from the dreaded in-laws. But one hundred deliciously Christmassy proposals later they find themselves asking if everything is still perfect in their own relationship…

Welcome back to the divinely warm world of One Hundred Proposals – with a sprinkling of pure, joyful, festive magic.

Have yourself a very merry Christmas indeed with Holly Martin’s Christmas novella.

One Hundred Christmas Proposals

Holly Martin

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Holly Martin 2014

Holly Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781474008419

Version date: 2018-10-23

HOLLY MARTIN

I live in sunny Bedfordshire in a house with round windows. I studied media at university which led to a very glitzy career as a hotel receptionist followed by an even more glamorous two years working in a bank. The moment that one of my colleagues received the much coveted carriage clock for fifteen years service was the moment when I knew I had to escape. I quit my job and returned to university to train to be a teacher. Three years later, I emerged wide eyed and terrified that I now had responsibility for the development of thirty young minds. I taught for four years before History Off The Page came to my school to do a Tudor day. I now drive round the country in my little white van, dressing up as a Viking one day and an Egyptian High Priestess the next.

I love to write. The characters do exactly what I want them to do, most of the time. Sometimes they do seem to go off and do their own thing without my permission. It is complete escapism into a world where I have full control.

I’ve been writing for five years now, every spare second I have, I’m scribbling ideas in a notebook or typing a scene on my laptop.

Changing Casanova, my first novel, was shortlisted for the 2012 Festival of Romance New Talent Award. My short story, One Hundred Proposals won the Belinda Jones Travel Club short story competition and was published in the Sunlounger anthology alongside some of my favourite authors including, Belinda Jones, Miranda Dickinson and Rosie Blake. My debut novel, The Sentinel, a YA fantasy adventure story, was published in 2013. I won the Carina Valentine’s competition at the Festival of Romance in 2013 and my first chicklit book, The Guestbook was published by them in February 2014 and subsequently went on to reach No.5 in the Amazon UK chart. My second book One Hundred Proposals was published in June and was recently shortlisted for Best Romantic Read at the Festival of Romance. The Guestbook was also shortlisted for two awards, Best ebook and Innovation in Romantic Fiction.

You can contact me on hollymartin.writer@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @hollymartin00

For my mom, my biggest fan, who reads every word I have written a hundred times over and loves it every single time.

To my family, my dad, my brother Lee and my sister-in-law Julie, for your support, love, encouragement and endless excitement for my stories.

To my gorgeous friends Victoria Stone, Megan Wood and Kirsty Maclennan for all your support, tweets, the endless promotion, the excitement and your love. You are truly amazing.

To Becca who read bits of this when I had my doubts and for falling in love with it.

To my best friends Gareth and Mandie, for your endless support, patience and enthusiasm.

For my twinnie, the gorgeous Aven Ellis for just being my wonderful friend, for your support and encouragement, for cheering me on and for keeping me entertained with wonderful stories and pictures of hot men. I couldn’t do this without you.

For Sharon Sant for listening to me moan and stress and panic with endless patience and for all your support and friendship.

And some other gorgeous people who have encouraged, supported, promoted, got excited or just listened; Erin McEwan, Lisa Dickenson, Jaimie Admans, Dan Thompson, Sharon Wilden, Kim Nash, Kelly Rufus, Pernille Hughes, Rosie Blake, Simona Elena, Katey Beeden, Maryline, Jo Hurst, Dawn Crooks, Jenny Marston, Laura Delve, Janet Emson, Pat Elliott, Agi, Alba, Ana, Jess Bickerton, Kate Gordon, Kiri Mills, Louise Wykes, Shaun, Stacey Hargreaves, Maggie Woodward, Trish H, Jac, Verity and Jodie.

To all those involved in the blog tour and cover reveal. To anyone who has read my book and taken the time to tell me you’ve enjoyed it or wrote a review, thank you so much.

To the wonderful supportive Carina authors, you guys are the very best.

And finally to all at Carina who have helped to bring this book to publication, my wonderful editor Lucy Gilmour, for making the book so much better, the digital team, the design team for this incredible cover and anyone else there who has helped to make this book a reality.

Thank you, I love you all.

For my Mom

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘Suzie! Ninety-three,’ Harry shouted from the office and I hurried in with two mugs of tea.

‘You’re kidding?’ I leaned over his computer screen to see a confirmation for an ice sculpture proposal, with the sculptures dotted along a favourite walk showing different landmarks in the couple’s life – leading up to a sculpture of a man proposing to a woman. That was beautiful and it definitely had Harry’s unique fingerprints all over it.

He pulled me down onto his lap and I quickly put the mugs down so I didn’t slosh hot tea all over him. Wrapping his arms round my waist, he nuzzled into my neck, peppering light kisses across my collarbone.

‘Have I told you today how much I love you?’

I smiled hugely. ‘You tell me every day, several times a day in fact.’

‘I only speak the truth.’

I pressed my hand against his chest and then kissed the gap between my finger and thumb, right above his heart.

‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted – why don’t we go back to bed for a little bit.’ He waggled his eyebrows playfully.

‘It’s nine-thirty.’

‘Hmmm.’ He resumed his kissing, pulling the jumper off my shoulder gently so his mouth could continue unhindered.

‘In the morning.’

‘So?’

‘You’ve answered one phone call, I’ve made tea, it’s hardly a constructive use of our time.’

‘I worked hard on that phone call.’ He snaked his hand up my thigh. He had been like this ever since he had proposed to me six months before. The final proposal that is, not the hundred proposals before that. He had always been touchy feely, but since I’d said yes he had taken the tactility to new levels. Whenever we were within touching distance he would stroke my hair, hold my hand, ply me with kisses and hugs – it was like he physically couldn’t be apart from me. And the sex was incredible. I guess we were still in the honeymoon stage of not being able to keep our hands off each other. I loved it.

His computer pinged with the arrival of another email and he paused slightly in his kisses but after a second’s hesitation he resumed where he had left off. His computer pinged again with another email.

‘Well if someone hadn’t had the bright idea of doing One Hundred Christmas Proposals I’d be taking you back to the bedroom and…’ I whispered in his ear exactly what I wanted to do to him and laughed when I saw him blush. ‘But as it happens, we’ve never been busier so unfortunately there’s just no time.’

Harry scowled as I stood up and sat behind my desk.

‘If you’re good I might give you a quickie at lunchtime.’

His face lit up for a second then the frown came back. ‘There’ll be nothing quick about it.’

I fired up my laptop and stared at all the unanswered emails that had come in on the company account overnight. Our company the.PerfectProposal.com had boomed in the last ten months, ever since Harry had started his mission to find me the perfect proposal last Valentine’s Day. Over five hundred thousand people had logged on to read the final proposal post and our phone had barely stopped ringing since. To prove the point, the phone rang between us but before I’d even made a move to answer it, Harry snatched it up.

‘The Perfect Proposal, Harry speaking.’ I smiled. He was so smooth and professional. He nodded as he quickly typed something into his computer and scrolled through a few web pages.

I scrolled down the emails for any urgent Christmas proposals. After our success with One Hundred Proposals, Harry had wanted to carry on the theme but for our clients, not for us. His brilliant idea was to arrange, carry out and blog about one hundred clients’ proposals during the month of December. I couldn’t mind the extra work Harry’s Christmas promotion had created, but I was looking forward to the break. On January first, Harry and I were flying off to Canada to spend two weeks locked in a log cabin – without the internet, phones or any communication with the outside world. I couldn’t wait.

I clicked on an email and read through the request. This man wanted to go snowmobiling. In England. I turned round and looked out the window. The sky was slate grey, rain lashed against the window in great sheets and the trees outside on the green bowed in the unforgiving wind. But not a single flake of snow had fallen since the start of December, and as it was the twenty-first it didn’t look likely that I could arrange that sort of thing by Christmas Day. We could do fireworks, helicopter rides, brass bands, even a ride in a submarine – but I couldn’t make it snow. Instead I priced how much it would cost to go to Iceland for the weekend – they would almost definitely have snow at this time of year and hotels and flights were quite cheap, especially with my contacts.

I sent the details over to him and then noticed I had another email from Alexander. I smiled. This was one of many proposals that were happening on New Year’s Eve, but one that was closest to my heart as it was taking place in St Dunstan-in-the-East, a public garden inside an abandoned church and one of my favourite places in the world.

Alexander had seemed very laidback about the whole proposal and what to include. He was adamant that it should be at St Dunstan’s, apparently his bride-to-be loved the place, but the other details he had left to me. I loved proposals like this, a whole project I could get behind. So far I had arranged for fairy lights to be strewn across the church and around the old windows. Using Harry’s idea that he had come up with for our penultimate proposal with the jam jars, I had arranged for a hundred jars filled with real candles to create a small path through the church to where the proposal would take place. Friends and family were going to be there too so I’d booked a hog roast to cater for forty people. Alexander loved the sound of that. He wanted something to mark their life together so I had suggested that on one of the walls we could arrange for a projector to beam photos of their relationship. Apparently he had a ton and said he was going to create a slideshow of all the best ones. He wanted music but when I’d suggested a harpist, he’d told me to pick something more lively that they could dance to. In the end I’d picked a local jazz band who I loved – Harry and I had seen them on many occasions and there was nothing more romantic than dancing to the soft, happy tones of the saxophone and piano. I wasn’t sure if Alexander would like it as it didn’t really go with the Christmassy theme but when I suggested it to him, he loved that idea too. I had a snow machine booked to add a frosty covering to the plants and trees that twisted and climbed across the walls. I’d even ensured that the snow was going to come with extra glitter. The place was going to sparkle and I couldn’t wait to see it. Alexander had been quite insistent that Harry and I came, and as such this was set to be the big finale for our Christmas Proposals promotion.

This email from Alexander wanted silver chairs to be dotted around the perimeter for the family to sit on and a carpet of flowers – as many different kinds of red flowers as possible. That was an easy task.

I smiled to myself as I sent out a few emails to book the chairs and flowers and then a reply to Alexander to say it was all in hand.

‘What you smiling at?’ Harry asked, staring at me fondly from the other side of the room. I hadn’t realised he had finished his call.

‘Oh I’m just emailing Alexander about the St Dunstan’s proposal. I love this proposal so much, it’s going to be perfect.’

His grin grew at my enthusiasm. ‘What is it about this proposal that has you so excited?’

‘I don’t know. It just feels really personal to me. I just hope Cassandra likes the same things I do, because Alexander is giving me total freedom to create the proposal I want. And you know I love St Dunstan’s. I’d like us to get married there one day – you, me, the stars above us. Nothing could be more romantic.’

Harry turned back to the computer and made a noncommittal sound. I felt the smile fall off my face. Everything had been perfect between me and Harry since we had got engaged. We were with each other twenty-four hours a day, we never argued, our friendship had intensified instead of becoming strained and I counted my lucky stars every day that this perfect, wonderful man was with me. But there was one niggle, one thing that was gnawing at the back of my mind. Harry didn’t seem to want to get married.

I had thought we would get married the very next day after I’d said yes, especially after he’d spent a hundred days proposing to me. But we had returned home after a week of pure honeymoon type bliss without a ring on my finger.

I’d thought then that we would get married in London shortly after our return, with our friends and family around us, but that didn’t happen either.

I had brought it up on countless occasions about setting a date and what plans did he have but he always shrugged it off.

It had only been six months and some people liked a long engagement, but this was normally because the couple were saving up.

But I didn’t think it was from a lack of money – our little company was going from strength to strength and it wasn’t like I wanted an all singing, all dancing big wedding. I’d have been happy if it was me, Harry, the registry office and a trip down the fish and chip shop afterwards. I just wanted to be married to him, to be Mrs Forbes and shout from the rooftops that this man was mine.

I wasn’t sure if it was the demons from his past that were making him hesitate. His parents abandoning him as a child had messed him up spectacularly, but I thought we had moved past his inability to trust.

I knew he loved me, I knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, but he seemed to be in no rush to actually get married – which struck me as a little weird with the amount of effort he had put in to ask me to marry him in the first place.

I stood up and scooted onto his lap – he immediately wrapped his arm round my waist, holding me tight as if he never wanted to let me go.

He was scrolling through some photos of us, putting them into some kind of slideshow.

‘What are you doing?’

‘The projectionist wanted us to send some photos over so he can test what they look like projected onto a stone wall. As Alexander hasn’t sent through his photos yet, I’m just sending through some of us so he can test it.’

I looked at the photos of us he was fiddling with and smiled. He uploaded them onto an email, pressed send, and then gave me his undying attention.

‘Harry… we are getting married right?’

‘Of course.’

‘I just kind of thought we’d be there by now.’

‘We’ll do it next year. It’s just been so manic for the last few months. Besides, it won’t change anything between us. Everything is pretty damned perfect, right? We don’t need rings on our fingers to prove our love for each other.’

‘You’re not putting it off for some reason?’

‘We’re getting married baby, I promise you that. There is absolutely nothing that will stop me walking down the aisle with you. I just…’ The phone rang again. ‘We’ll talk about it properly when we go away, when we’re not dealing with this every day.’

He picked up the phone, effectively ending that conversation, but he kissed my forehead to soften the blow.

I went to stand up, but he caught my hand, kissing my ring finger in the exact place my wedding ring would be. I smiled. He was right, we had been ridiculously busy. There was nothing to worry about. No one would propose one hundred times without actually wanting to get married.

‘We’re leaving in five minutes,’ he whispered, covering the mouthpiece of the phone.

I nodded. Finn and Molly’s proposal was going to be a fun one – and was going to be our seventy-fourth December one so far. Most of the others were happening on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve but we had the details for them so even if we couldn’t be there for the proposal itself we had asked for videos or photos to be sent in and we would still put them on the blog. The bonus reward of free champagne, flowers and chocolates with every December proposal booked with us was encouraging a lot of people to be a part of it.

I grabbed my coat, wrapped a gold fluffy scarf round my neck and pulled on Harry’s favourite gold and red toadstool hat. He grinned at me when he saw me wearing it.

‘Yep, I can send you over the basic package now, if you give me your credit card details…’

I left him to it and wandered downstairs to our living room. Ours. I smiled at the haphazard Christmas tree, teetering at a very wonky angle as the sheer size of it forced the top three feet to be bent across the ceiling. It was decorated with hundreds or probably thousands of baubles, icicles, funny Santa ornaments, snowmen, angels, candy canes and it was rammed full of fairy lights and tinsel. There was quite simply no part of the tree left untouched.

Harry was so excited about this Christmas, our first together. Christmases in his past hadn’t really been that fun. In the short few years he had spent with his mum after his dad had left, there had been no Christmas at all. His mum had drifted along in a drunken stupor for much of those four years and she had barely bothered to care for him and his sister, let alone buy presents or decorate the house. Even before his dad left, he had no recollection of a tree with presents stacked neatly underneath, or stockings filled with oddly shaped lumps and bumps. His years in and out of foster care hadn’t been that much better. They had at least celebrated Christmas, in a sort of fashion, but with several unwanted angry children in whichever house was unlucky enough to have them over Christmas it never made for a pleasant environment. After that, Harry had spent several years celebrating Christmas in the most unconventional ways possible – gambling in casinos in Vegas, at a barbeque on Bondi Beach, hiking up Snowdon, anything to avoid the happy, rose-tinted, sparkly traditional Christmases that happened inside the homes of thousands of British families.

We had at least spent the last few years together, but we had normally gone out to a pub for lunch and then met up with friends later in the evening.

This year Harry was determined to do it right and every surface, every wall, every picture had been draped with Christmas decorations. Garlands of holly, ivy and other leaves and berries curled around doorways, the fireplace and up the stairs. It looked like Santa’s grotto, albeit a Santa that had collected decorations from all over the world for the last hundred years and emptied his entire collection inside our house.

But the thing that made me smile the most was the two stockings hanging from the fireplace, side by side.

‘It’s too much isn’t it,’ Harry said, wrapping his arms round my waist as he snuggled into my neck.

‘No, it’s gaudy and it clashes and I love it, but you do realise that the fake snow you’ve sprayed on the windows will never come off.’

I felt him smile against my neck. ‘I don’t care. I may even leave the Christmas decorations up all year round, I love it all so much. Would you be ok with that?’

‘If it makes you happy then yes.’

He slid his hand down my arms and took my hand, pulling me towards the door. ‘Come on, we’re going to be late.’

*

Proposer’s Blog

Christmas Proposal 74: December 21st. Finn and Molly’s Proposal. Location: Leicester Square

Finn and Molly have been together for four years, eight months and three weeks, or so Finn tells me. It would have been five years but Molly stubbornly refused his advances for the first four months. Molly wanted to concentrate on her studies, Finn wanted to concentrate on her.

They first met when they signed up to do some charity carol singing for their university, with the money raised going to the local kids’ hospice. Molly sung loud and proud and every note wildly out of tune. Finn fell in love with her there and then.

Five years later he wanted to celebrate their love by proposing to her in the exact spot where his heart had been irrevocably changed forever.

Finn stood with his arm round Molly’s shoulders as they watched a small group of carol singers singing Away in a Manger but as they finished the second verse, the music changed, the carol singers ripped off their Santa hats and our little proposal began. The carol singers donned ’80s mullets and soon were singing along to Prince’s ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World.’

I could see Molly laughing at the way the carol singing had suddenly turned but it was clear that she had no idea this was all for her.

More dancers ran to join in, falling in seamlessly with the dance routine and she realised she was witnessing a flash mob, although at this stage I still don’t think she had any idea where it was going.

The music changed again, this time it was Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)’ with the dancers pulling on legwarmers and fingerless gloves, as more dancers ran in to join with the flash mob and the flawless dance routine.

As the song came to an end, Finn pulled off his jacket and passed it to Molly to hold, which was obviously an odd thing to do considering how cold it was – but as the music changed again to Bruno Mars’ ‘Marry You’, he ran in and joined in with the dance himself, leading his backing singers and dancers to a full scale, hundred person strong crescendo with them all on one knee in front of Molly at the end.

Molly was crying so much by this point we all had to wait almost two minutes to get any kind of answer from her. You could have heard a pin drop. Even the traffic seemed to come to a stop as we all waited with bated breath for the answer which could ruin us all.

Fortunately, when she stopped sobbing her answer was a resounding yes.

The crowd cheered and Suzie and I and probably Finn breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I don’t know what I’ll do if any of our proposals ever end in a no.

Suzie was in tears as Finn and Molly hugged and cried, so I think the proposal was a big success as far as she was concerned. Though to be fair, she’s been in tears for the last three proposals too.

*

‘I’m going out,’ Harry called. ‘I’m meeting Badger for some man time.’

‘That’s fine, give him a big hug from me.’

‘I will do.’ Harry walked into the front room fastening his coat. ‘What you doing?’

‘I’m probably just going to have a bath and read my book.’

‘Well I probably won’t be too long, if you hold off on the bath for an hour we could have one together.’

‘That sounds good.’ I reached up to kiss him as he leaned over the back of the sofa. He lingered over the kiss much longer than was necessary for a goodbye kiss and I couldn’t help smiling as he kissed me as if he wasn’t going to see me for months. Eventually he pulled away.

‘Just stay right there and I’ll be back soon to finish that kiss.’

He pulled his woolly hat on and left. No sooner had the front door closed, the phone rang. I ran to answer it, thinking it would be Harry telling me how much he missed me already but it was Jules.

‘Hey lovely.’

‘Hey.’

‘Want to come round for dinner tonight?’

‘I’ve already eaten but I could come round for dessert?’

‘Perfect, just come when you’re ready.’

I pulled on my coat, snow boots and hat and stepped outside into the cold.

*

I was surprised when Badger opened the door and pulled me into a giant bear hug. He was just in his shorts and clearly had no intention of going out anywhere soon.

‘Aren’t you meeting Harry?’ I asked with my face squashed hard against Badger’s chest.

He released me from his death grip. ‘No, I thought he might be with you.’

‘He said he was going out to meet you for some man time.’

Badger stared at me as if I’d grown a spare head. ‘Erm that was tonight? I thought that was tomorrow.’

‘No, tomorrow me and Harry were going to catch a show.’

‘I…’ Badger ran his hand through his hair nervously.

‘Don’t just stand in the hall, come into the kitchen where it’s warm,’ called Jules.

‘You go ahead,’ Badger said. ‘I’ll give Harry a quick call to see if he wants to come round here instead.’

Confused, I walked into the kitchen to see my beautiful niece chasing the cat around the dining table. I swung her up into my arms, giving the poor cat a temporary reprieve.

Bella giggled and planted a wet kiss on my cheek. She was the spitting image of my brother, Jack – every time I saw her she had grown more and more like him. I buried my face into her hair, stifling the grief I felt every time I saw her. How painful it must be for Jules to be reminded of Jack every day. Although she did have the distraction of Badger to take away that pain. I closed my eyes against that sudden uncharitable thought. I hated that I was still angry at their relationship – especially when it clearly made Jules so happy.

‘What’s going on?’ Jules said, greeting me with a kiss as she gestured towards Badger speaking quietly to Harry in the hallway.

‘Harry’s gone out to meet Badger, Badger doesn’t seem to know about it.’

‘That’s odd. Harry spoke to Badger earlier, he certainly didn’t mention anything about meeting up then.’

‘Maybe Harry assumed Badger knew.’

Jules scrolled through her phone. ‘There’s nothing in our diary. Badger is normally really good at putting things like that in the diary as he always forgets things otherwise.’

‘Maybe Badger forgot to put it in this time.’

Jules pulled a face. ‘Unlikely.’

Badger walked into the kitchen. ‘I forgot I was meeting him, I’m such an idiot.’ He passed Jules a meaningful look as if to say play along.

Jules stared at him for a moment. ‘Ohhhh yes I remember now, you were meeting at The Rhubarb and Pickle – darts night wasn’t it, with Marv and Leon?’

It was true that Marv held darts night at his pub once a month, but I was pretty sure that had happened at the beginning of December. What was going on?

‘So is Harry coming here?’

‘I erm…’ Badger looked back at Jules, clearly panicking. ‘He’s too far away.’

‘But the Rhubarb is only down the road. It’s one stop on the tube?’

‘He’s not there, we were supposed to meet somewhere else. I think he’s just going to head home once he’s finished.’

‘Finished what?’

‘Want some chocolate cake? I made it fresh this morning,’ Jules said, loudly.

Bella tugged gently on my hair and wriggled to escape, distracting me momentarily from the look of pure fear on Badger’s face. I put her down and she ran straight to Badger. He scooped her up and the look of fear was replaced with love as he peppered her face with a thousand kisses. I smiled at them.

‘Sure, cut me a big slice, I think I need it.’ I sat down on one of the barstools, feeling like I was missing something.

‘So what are your plans for Christmas Day, it’ll be your first proper one with Harry?’ Jules tried to deflect the conversation away from my boyfriend’s absence.

‘I just want to make this one special for him – he’s not really had any good Christmases, certainly not as a child. Last year was… well it was my first without Jack so I was pretty miserable, we both were. This one will be special for both of us.’

‘Are you guys going to get some time off with all these Christmas Proposals?’ Badger said, around Bella’s fingers that she was shoving in his mouth.

‘We’re definitely having Christmas Day off. We might get a last minute rush between Boxing Day and New Year’s but most people will have already booked our services for New Year’s Eve and all the other proposals will be organised by then, so hopefully we’ll have a quieter patch – but we’ve got our holiday in January so we can relax then.’

‘Oh yes, the honeymoon,’ Badger waggled his eyebrows playfully.

‘Hardly, we need to be married for that.’

Badger buried his face against Bella’s belly and blew a loud raspberry on her stomach. She squealed with delight. ‘I just meant, erm… your first proper holiday together… as a couple.’

‘Well yes,’ I frowned with confusion. ‘But we spent three months in each other’s pockets, travelling the world.’

‘Yes but this will be the first time you’re going on holiday specifically to have sex.’

I laughed.

‘You do realise that Harry has no intention of doing anything else. If you’ve got any notion of going for walks or eating out in fancy restaurants, you can forget it. Harry said that once the food is delivered, he’s locking the door and hiding the key.’

I laughed again. ‘We have sex all the time Badger, it’s not like I deprive the poor sod. It’s pretty much two or three times a day.’

‘Oh I remember those days, eh Jules, couldn’t keep our hands off each other.’

I closed my eyes and clamped my hands over my ears. ‘Nooo that’s way too much information.’ That was way too much information, especially considering how quickly after Jack’s death that Jules and Badger had got together.

Realising that Badger had overstepped some boundary, Jules plonked the biggest slice of cake on my plate. ‘Cream? Or ice cream? Or both? I could do both? I’ll do both.’

I smiled at her. This was Jules’s coping mechanism. When things went wrong she made cake or she served cake. When Jack was first diagnosed with leukaemia, Jules was making nearly a cake a day. She couldn’t eat it though. While Jack, Badger and Harry were stuffing their faces with cake, Jules didn’t eat a thing. She went from a healthy size twelve to a gaunt size eight in a month. I was glad to see she was back to normal again now.

‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I said, standing up and moving out into the hall. I stopped to look at a new photo hanging up of Badger and Bella, both grinning inanely at the camera. There was another of the three of them, the happy little family unit. The ones of Jack were still there but some of them were faded slightly. Life was moving on without him.

‘Just stop talking Badger,’ I heard Jules hiss. ‘Jeez how many times are you going to put your foot in it tonight?’

‘I’m rubbish at secrets, you know that.’

‘I know, just stop talking about Harry and honeymoons and sex.’

‘I will, I promise – but to be fair, I had no idea Harry was going to use me as an excuse tonight. He should just tell her, it would make it easier on all of us, stop all this sneaking around.’

‘Oh god, I don’t want to be there when he does tell her. She’s going to kill him. It’ll be grounds for divorce even before they walk down the aisle.’

‘As much as I love Harry, I have to agree. I think she’ll be gutted.’

‘I’m tempted to tell her myself.’

‘We can’t do that.’

‘I know. Oh god, I know. Here, have some more cake.’

‘I’m going to be the size of a house by the time this comes to a head, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, you are and I’m not even going to apologise for it. You want someone to blame, blame Harry.’

‘Pass me the cake, me and him are going to have serious words.’

I stood frozen in the hall. Badger wasn’t the only one who was going to have serious words with Harry.

*

I walked back into our house later determined to get to the bottom of the secrets, only to find Harry was sprawled out on the sofa fast asleep. With his eyelashes casting dark shadows on his cheeks and his mouth open slightly, he looked the picture of angelic innocence. I turned the TV off and he stirred slightly, smiling in his sleep.

I ran my hand across his cheek and his eyes fluttered open.

‘Hey beautiful,’ he said, sleepily. ‘I was just dreaming about you.’

I smiled and held out my hand. ‘Come to bed.’

His smile grew as he sat up – swinging his legs off the sofa, he pulled me between his legs and buried his face in my stomach, running gentle kisses through the fabric of my jumper.

He stood up and swung me into his arms, kissing me hard. Whatever was going on with him could wait until tomorrow.

‘Have I told you today how much I love you?’ I said, fastening my arms round his neck.

‘Ha! That’s my line.’ He carried me upstairs. ‘Let me show you instead.’

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