The Birds and the Bees Read Online Free PDF Page B

toilet to seal her intentions. By the time his breathing had got back to normal, he had booked the flights and the five-star hotel on his already overloaded Visa card.
    Now he was here and it was heaven. He kicked away a stray spore of remorse, imagining Stevie, ironing his shirts and looking forward to him coming home. She would be worrying about him driving all the way from Aberdeen and not having a clue that he was 1,500 miles in the other direction sponging up the Spanish sun, blood running like sangria through his veins making him permanently half-drunk with lust.
    Stevie would be okay, he had convinced himself of that. Well, heartbreak didn’t kill you, did it, and she had come through far worse. She would have to move out (thank God the house was still solely in his name!) so that Jo could move in. Little Danny would forget him soon enough. It wasn’t as if he had got used to calling him ‘Daddy’ or anything, and kids adjusted. He tried not to let the thoughts in about Danny’s Euro-Disney trip because that really would make him feel bad. Especially as the savings for it were financing his Majorcan expenses. He would put the money back in the account, obviously. He wasn’t a thief.
    If asked, he would say he got the tan in the leisure facilities at the Aberdeen hotel, while Jo would say she had been under the sun-bed at the Welsh health farm. At least Stevie would never know he’d jetted off with another woman to the sun. That detail really would be too cruel.

Chapter 6
    Lindsay flicked at Stevie’s long, honey-coloured hair and together they studied the difference it made to her reflection. First she pulled it back, then she swooped it forwards until she looked like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.
    ‘Know what? I think you should have it all lopped off. To here,’ said Lindsay, making a chopping motion on her client’s shoulders.
    Stevie’s eyes registered horror. ‘A bob?’ She wasn’t convinced.
    ‘Not quite,’ said Lindsay, shaking her head vehemently. ‘I don’t think that would suit your face shape. You could end up looking like a child of royal first cousins. Something funkier, I think. Nice and choppy and really easy to do yourself at home.’
    Stevie gulped. She was just about to change her mind and ask for a trim when she heard Catherine’s voice in her head nagging her: ‘ What’s the point of booking in with the top stylist at Anthony Fawkes and then not taking her advice? ’
    ‘And a few really pale highlights running through it as well,’ Lindsay went on. ‘I think it will make you look a hell of a lot younger.’
    Younger .
    There. She had spoken the magic word. At thirty-six, Stevie was five years older than Jo, who had just recently had her thirty-first birthday. Stevie had bought her the (size ten) bikini they had both spotted on display in a shop window and wowed at. It was glistening white with a glittery rhinestone clasp at the front. Wouldn’t that be ironic if Jo had it on now–modelling it for Matthew on a Balearic beach whilst she was oiled up to buggery with Piz Buin. Stevie smacked that thought away before she showed herself up by crying in public, supplanting it with one of Matthew’s delighted face when he saw her new image.
    ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ said Stevie, taking a deep breath as the scissors went in for the kill.
     
    Two hours later and she was staring at herself in the mirror, from varied angles, admiring the shorter, chopped style, brighter in colour at the front and the sides and infinitely lighter in weight. She was astounded how much thinner her face seemed. If only it could have done the same to her bum.
    ‘I’m stunned!’ said Stevie, who was. Whatever the damage on her Switch card was, it would be worth it. It cost a lot, but she didn’t care. The plan had started to work. Now there was just the rest of her body to sort out.
     
    Adam smoothed the plaster over the wall with the trowel. Apart from the colour, there was no evidence that