Saving Nathaniel Read Online Free PDF Page A

understanding. 'Point taken.'
    'It was my own fault for actually marrying one,' she said bitterly. 'That's three and a half years of my life I'll never get back.'
    'What happened?' he asked.
    'What always happens, he left me for someone else. He took everything I had, physically, mentally and emotionally and then he turned round and said he'd had a better offer.'
    He watched with growing caution as she began to stir the soup in a dynamic figure of eight, flushing with hostility toward her ex-husband.
    'That man really was the most manipulative, deceitful, faithless piece of shite that ever walked the face of this Earth. He was a vile, gutless animal who screwed every woman his shadow fell on and if I ever clap eyes on him again I swear to God I'll knife him.' She gave the large, metal spoon a vicious mid-air twist. 'I'll cut out his dirty black heart and shove it on a spike. And then for good measure, not to mention the sheer, glorious pleasure of it...' She jabbed the spoon savagely upwards. 'I'll ram a red hot poker up his arse!'
    She banged the spoon on the side of the pan and Nat visibly recoiled at the loud metallic clang .
    'Jesus!' he said, alarmed at the unexpected potency of her animosity, 'I hope you don't ever get that pissed off with me!'
    'Don't you worry yourself,' she said smiling with all the serenity of an angel. 'You have a long way to go yet and I've calmed down a lot since then. If you piss me off, you'll know all about it, believe me.' She placed his bowl of soup on the table in front of him and picked up a heavy serrated bread knife. 'Bread and butter?' she asked, pleasantly.
    He reached up and carefully removed the knife from her hand 'If you don't mind,' he said, 'I'll do it myself.'
     
    Contrary to Rebecca's gloomy predictions, Megan found Nat could at times be fun to be around.
    He often amused her with his dry, irreverent sense of humour and could become flustered by the simplest of tasks. Finding the end of a roll of sticky tape or folding up maps were his particular bugbears. To her these were so pitiable as to be comical.
    'Don't just stand there, woman, help me with this fuc…blasted thing,' he pleaded when faced with an overly large and particularly uncooperative map that had draped itself over the whole of his desk.
    'For Heaven's sake it's just a piece of paper,' she said in a manner she would use with a petulant child.
    'Aye, it may well be,' he complained, 'but it's got a life of its own. It doesn't like me.'
    'Don't be so silly.' She shooed him out of her way. A quick flick of her hand brought order to the crumpled mess and with a few deft movements, folded it back into its original form, not a crease out of place.
    The triumph of single-mindedness over incompetence , she thought.
    She held out the map, eyebrows raised in an unspoken, 'That wasn't so hard now, was it? ' and he meekly took it from her.
    Saying not another word, she turned on her heel and walked from the room, her lips pressed tightly together to suppress a smile. A faint, 'Thank you,' floated out after her.
    Once out of sight she generated a grin so wide it almost split her face in two. Laughter welled up and she let it go, not caring whether he heard or not.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    The day after his return from another business trip, Nat took advantage of a spell of good weather and spent an entire sunny morning washing and polishing his Range Rover.
    Megan took his coffee out to him, but before handing it over, she took a moment to survey how carefully he wiped the cloth over the body of the vehicle. Anyone would think he was in love with that car, she thought. Talk about your proverbial pride and joy…
    'You can do mine if you like,' she said, tipping her head towards her own means of transport. The tiny blue Citroën C1 squatted, mud spattered and rusting on the gravel.
    He afforded it a fleeting glance, looked back at her and said, 'I don't think I'll risk it. It might just come apart at the seams under the weight of