Almost Perfect Read Online Free PDF

mother only ever called me Liam,’ he said, staring off into space for a moment. Then he snapped out of it. ‘It comes from William, you know. It’s the way the Irish shorten it.’
    â€˜I didn’t know that,’ said Georgie, slipping the book into a bag. ‘Trust the Irish to do it back to front.’
    The man aka Liam smiled and his eyes crinkled up again. He couldn’t possibly be a criminal.
    â€˜So what’s the name on your credit card?’ he asked.
    â€˜I don’t have a credit card.’
    â€˜How do you get by without a credit card?’
    â€˜A lot better than I get by with one, let me tell you,’ she winked, passing him the bag.
    â€˜Are you going to make me ask again?’ he said.
    â€˜Hmm?’
    â€˜What name do you go by?’ he persisted.
    â€˜Oh.’ She hesitated, fingering her necklace. It was one of those plastic ones with letters on squared-off beads strung together to spell out a name. The kind of jewellery you ended up with when you had time to fill with a precocious niece. She slipped her thumb under the necklace to hold it up as she leaned forward across the counter. Liam bent to read it, his face close to hers.
    â€˜Georgia,’ he said slowly.
    â€˜No, it’s an “e”.’
    His eyes flickered up to meet hers, questioning. Their faces were very close.
    â€˜Georg ie ,’ she croaked.
    He smiled. ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Georgie.’
    â€˜So, married or gay?’ Louise asked when he had left and Georgie had wandered back out to the office.
    â€˜Neither apparently. It was a new shirt.’
    Louise smiled slowly. ‘What do you know?’
    â€˜Shut up.’
    â€˜Hey, Ad, did you see Georgie and the suit in a clinch before?’ Louise asked him as he walked into the office.
    â€˜It was hard to miss. I just finished lunch and I thought I was going to bring it all back up again.’
    â€˜He was just checking out my necklace,’ Georgie insisted.
    â€˜I bet that’s not all he was checking out.’
    â€˜And I bet he comes back before the week’s over,’ Louise predicted.
    Adam narrowed his eyes, considering. ‘Do you want to make it interesting? I’ll stick my neck out, ten says he’s back tomorrow.’
    Georgie rolled her eyes.
    â€˜Ooh, high roller. Nuh, I’ll give him till Friday,’ Louise decided.
    â€˜Oh, look at that out there,’ said Georgie, interrupting them.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜It’s the real world. Excuse me, I have to get back to it.’ She walked out to the shop, removing herself from the target range.
    Besides, she needed a moment. A very unsettling thing had occurred when Liam had leaned across the counter to read her name. The words I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him had popped into her brain, uninvited and out of nowhere. Like some giant cartoonist in the sky had drawn a bubble above her head, imposing the thought on her against her will. It was ridiculous. This was all because she’d spent the entire day in the romance section. It was probably written on one of the covers.
    Charlotte knew she would spend the rest of her life in Dashiell’s arms .
    Lame.
    Georgie took one look at the enigmatic stranger and knew she was destined to spend the rest of her life with him.
    Lamer.
    But try as she might to put it out of her mind, and she did try, it would not go away. Georgie had a profound respect for psychic experiences. The thought had come out of nowhere. It had to mean something, though not necessarily something good. He might be a criminal after all. Bill the Butcher, a serial killer who was going to murder her and then turn the gun on himself. There, she would have spent the rest of her life with him. Come to think of it, this had nothing to do with the rest of his life. He didn’t have to die. It was only the rest of Georgie’s life being spent here. So maybe they would