The Nearly-Weds Read Online Free PDF Page A

panicking. ‘Where are you going?’ I try to ask casually, but sound as though I’ve just discovered my trousers are on fire.
    ‘The office,’ he replies, pulling his mobile out of his pocket again. ‘I gotta catch up with some work.’
    ‘But it’s Saturday,’ I point out.
    ‘Yeah,’ he says, as if I’ve just told him my favourite brand of exfoliator. ‘Like I said, I gotta catch up. Now, come on, you guys—’
    He leans through the rails on the steps to kiss the children, then dives into his car and speeds away. I’m left standing there with my mouth open like a stunned turbot’s.
    Not for the first time since I left the UK less than twenty-four hours ago, I feel way out of my comfort zone. The effect this has on me is the exact opposite of what I’m trying to achieve by leaving home: it makes me long for Jason. I want him to put his familiar arms round me and tell me everything will be all right. I want him to kiss my forehead tenderly in the way he always did when I was nervous. I yearn for the reassuring stability I was convinced our relationship represented, ironic as that now seems.
    Ruby appears at my side. ‘Do you like my daddy?’ she asks anxiously.
    How to answer this? I can hardly tell her that, while I think he’s heart-stoppingly sexy, my first impression of Ryan is that he’s also arrogant, evasive and downright rude. I take her hand, squeeze it and smile. ‘Your daddy’s great,’ I tell her.
    Her little face beams, leaving me in no doubt that that’s not something she hears very often. ‘You really think so?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ I say.
    She looks overwhelmed with happiness. ‘I just knew you’d be different from all those other nannies we had.’

Chapter 8
    My mother has a beautifully euphemistic phrase she uses to describe other people’s houses when she thinks they could do with a bloody good clean: ‘lived in’ – as in, ‘Well, yes . . . it could be a nice house if it wasn’t quite so lived in. ’
    It’s a phrase that springs to mind as I walk into the Miller residence, except it may not be strong enough. This house is so lived in that squatters might have taken it over.
    You can tell that the large hallway has been decorated – at some point in the distant past – by someone with taste. But the cream walls are now camouflaged with grubby handprints, the stylish antique tables so battered they’re ready for the dump, and the once bold abstract paintings now hang on the walls so haphazardly they might have been put there by a hyperactive chimpanzee.
    I cast my eyes down. It’s difficult to identify the floor between the toys, books, shoes, old fast-food cartons and random stacks of office paper.
    There’s something about the state of the hallway that makes me hold my breath before I walk into the living room. But I still let out a tiny gasp on entering it.
    Yes, at some time in its history, someone has made the most of its high-beamed ceiling and imposing stone fireplace by adorning it with what were once three stylish sofas and various tasteful antiques. The problem is, the sofas are now smothered with kiddy-food debris, including what I suspect are chocolate ice cream, peanut butter and a hideous, sticky pink concoction. Several empty coffee cups are lying around, along with black-soled children’s socks, trodden-on crisps and beakers of fermented juice. In short, the room looks as if it has just suffered a heavy night of bombing.
    Samuel marches past me, switches on the TV and, with his nose about a foot and a half from the screen, is immediately in a semi-hypnotic daze.
    ‘Samuel, wouldn’t you prefer to do a puzzle or something?’ I ask, sitting down on a sofa.
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘A puzzle, Samuel,’ I suggest, ‘or . . . we could do some drawing?’
    ‘ Noooooo !’ He shakes his head.
    ‘Ruby,’ I say decisively, ‘what are your dad’s rules on watching TV? I presume you’re not allowed to in the daytime?’
    She looks at me as if she fears for my