Dog Handling Read Online Free PDF

him a sidelong glance. For signs of a joke or panic or silliness. None of the above were evident in either his tone or his expression. “Sorry?” She frowned.
    “The wedding. I just don’t think it’s right. I know that I should have said something before now, but . . . well, I thought maybe I could work it all out in my mind. But I can’t. It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. You’re my best friend and the most important person in my life. But I think we’re more like brother and sister now. I don’t think that I’m in love with you anymore. I’m sorry.”
    Liv continued to frown. Was she meant to say something? She swallowed and stared at Tim, who was looking at her steadily, awaiting her response. “Right. Well. So you’re not in love with me then?” she whispered. Her body began to shake as though she were very, very cold.
    “No.” Tim was suddenly a stranger. Not fluffy, snorkelling, beer-guzzling, bad joke–telling Tim. She didn’t know this serious man in a suit who claimed not to love her. Or want to marry her. “I think I should go,” he said, and stood up gravely.
    “Excuse me?” Liv finally said, her voice cracking. “You sit there and tell me you don’t want to marry me and then think you’re free to go?” She shook her head as though someone had just slapped her hard across the cheek. “Somehow I don’t think so.”
    “I don’t know what else there is to say,” Tim said, his composure slipping so that for a second he looked like
her
Tim again. Not the imposter who had just shattered her world.
    “We can start with why,” Liv uttered as Tim sat back down on the bed and ran his hand through his hair.
     
    That had taken the better part of a night. The uncontrollable sobbing and sleeping pills had taken about a week. Alex had cancelled all her bikini waxes and trips to the library and appointed herself clearing-up-the-tissues monitor and running-out-to-the-shops-to-buy-more-whisky girl. Alex had also been the one to call Fay and tell her that Liv would be taking a bit of unofficial compassionate leave and was the one who slipped all the vital platitudes to Liv as she huddled under the duvet.
    “You know that this is what you wanted deep down. It’s just that Tim’s a bloke and he was ruthless enough to do it, whereas you’re a woman and you’re too kind. Anyway, he did play golf and somewhere that has to make him an incredibly dull fuck really, doesn’t it?”
    “But I love him. How could I not have known what I had until it had gone?” Liv wailed plaintively.
    “Remember Roger, the beautiful biker frog in the wedding dress shop?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, there are loads of Rogers out there. And let me tell you another thing: Men always think the grass is greener; they always think that once they’re free life will just be one big bloody pitcher and piano full of women with big breasts and small underwear who want to shag them senseless. Then what happens is that they discover that not only is the grass not greener; it’s
mud
on the other side of the fence. Then in three months’ time when you’ve moved on they come back with their tail between their legs and stalk you and beg you to have them back and marry them.”
    “Oh god, is that true? Please let it be true, Alex.” Liv sat up in bed. This was the only glimmer of sunlight on her horizon right now, and it had to be true.
    “Always. But the thing is, Livvy love, that women cope and men mope. When he does drag his soggy golf bore of a tail back here you’ll have moved on. You’ll have Roger in your bed and butterflies in your knickers and you’ll say, ‘Tim who?’ when he rings your doorbell in the middle of the night and begs to be let back into your life.”
    “But he’s the only man I could ever, ever love. What am I going to do now? I’m never going to meet anyone again.”
    Alex forgave Liv these needlessly pessimistic thoughts as this was her first real heartbreak. Absolutely everything that Alex