Married By Christmas Read online

‘But I didn’t know I was coming until today,’ Anna told him unhappily. ‘Or yesterday, I’m not really sure what day it is any more. All I know is that when I got up this morning I had a life plan, and now I have no idea what’s going to happen next … and … and … all I want is a shower and … and … a bed.’ Heavy crystalline tears filled her eyes, one rolling heavily down her cheek as she turned away from Horatio and struggled to gain her composure. ‘I’m sorry. I know the last thing you need at this time of the night is a British woman having a nervous breakdown in reception.’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ Horatio told her, kindly. ‘Look, let me ring around a few places for you. I know everyone there is to know in the hotel business in this town; if I can’t find you a room then no one can.’

  ‘Really?’ Anna asked him, her lashes webbed with tears as she dabbed her nose delicately with a tissue. ‘Would you do that for me? That is so kind.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ Horatio told her, a little bashfully. ‘Can’t have you crying on your first visit to this great city of mine, can I? Take a seat in the lobby, I’ll get some coffee brought to you while I check out what the deal is. And what about this –’ Horatio looked Miles up and down with a good deal less empathy ‘– gentleman. Will he be needing a room too?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said at once. ‘He wants a diner to sit in.’

  ‘No,’ Miles said, almost at the same time. ‘I’m just making sure that the lady is safe and secure before we part ways.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Horatio said, ‘coffee for two then.’

  ‘Clever,’ Miles said, as Anna sank gratefully onto a corporate-looking sofa, long, cubist and red, letting her body sink into its limited softness, her head lolling awkwardly on the too low back. It had been surprisingly tiring, not sleeping on an aeroplane for seven and something hours, draining all of the energy out of her, so that really all she could do was wonder what she was doing sitting in a hotel lobby on the other side of the world based on an impulse that was even more unlikely and stupid and foolish than the idiot who married a showgirl whilst out of his mind on tequila.

  And even though she and Miles had done nothing more than exchange a few civil words for the rest of the flight, in between watching endless films and eating food in trays that would certainly give them indigestion, Anna had found it a strain sitting next to him nevertheless, wondering if she should be thinking of things to say to him that would prove she wasn’t insane, or perhaps, given that she’d somehow poured her whole heart out to him before the plane had barely even taken off, things to not say. Then again Liv always told her she seemed much more normal when she wasn’t talking. Pondering which things she should or should not do had kept her on edge for the entire flight and unable to drift off to sleep for any significant period of time. Except, that was, when she woke, after who knew how long, with a sudden start, to find that her head had been resting on Miles’s shoulder. Roused by the sound of her own snores, Anna had been horrified to see that she had left a small patch of dribble darkening his shirt. Fortunately, despite her high-decibel rattling, Miles had remained fast asleep, arranged far too prettily for a boy, his head lolling slightly to the left, his rather attractive mouth remaining firmly closed and dribble free. He hadn’t seemed to notice her incursion on his shoulder, her damp patch of drool, but the fear that it might happen again, and this time she wouldn’t be so lucky, was enough to stop Anna from daring to attempt sleep again for the rest of the journey. And now she couldn’t find a bed to lie on and Miles was accusing her of being clever of all things.

  ‘What’s clever?’ Anna asked him, blowing a puff of hair out of her face and watching it descend into her eyes again, before repeating the procedure.

  ‘Hey, listen.’ Miles spread his hands as he sat in a decidedly square armchair opposite her, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘I’m not criticising you, if I had your guns I’d do it too.’

  ‘My guns?’ Anna said, uncertainly, sitting up a little and twisting her long hair into a rope, which she tied in a loose knot at the base of her neck. ‘What are you talking about, Miles. I don’t have guns!’

  ‘Babe, you are armed and dangerous!’ Miles told her, chuckling.

  Anna blinked at him. ‘Do you have to call me “babe”, because, you know, I’m not your babe. Or anyone’s babe, really. And also, what are you talking about?’

  ‘The hot chick ammo?’ Miles said, genuinely stunned that Anna didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Come on, don’t pretend you don’t know that about yourself?’ Anna shook her head. ‘Annie, you’re beautiful, blonde, built.’ Miles verged on illustrating his last point with an ill-advised gesture involving cupping both his hands in front of his chest, but managed to pull out of it at the last moment, when he saw the look on Anna’s face. They both knew what he had been thinking though and Anna crossed her arms protectively over her front, pressing her lips into a thin line of disapproval.

  ‘And,’ Miles soldiered on, despite the certainty that he was about to get shot down in flames, ‘you’re, you know, lost in New York, in the middle of the night. All I’m saying is yeah, sure, why not rock out a heat-seeking flirt missile, and get some poor unsuspecting dude to sort things for you?’

  Anna shook her head, rolling her eyes at the ceiling and sighing.

  ‘You know your trouble, Miles,’ she told him. ‘You’re a dinosaur. You’re such an unreconstructed rock star in your own little head. You think women are objects, without any brains or purpose beyond trying to trick men into doing things for them by flashing their cleavage! My God, I run my own business, I own my own flat, I have done since I was twenty-three – I don’t need a man to do anything for me, but if I am lucky enough to come across a gentleman who is willing to help me out, out of the goodness of his heart, then I thank my lucky stars. The world is not full of leather-trousered, eyeliner-wearing sexist pigs, you know. Some people, even a few men, are actually simply decent.’

  Baffled, Miles looked like he was thinking about arguing with her and then thought better of it. ‘All I’m saying is that I would, if I could, but it doesn’t work the same way for men. I mean, I can talk a girl into a lot of things but probably not into, say, doing my laundry or filing my tax return. And that is the main difference between the sexes.’

  ‘Oh my God, you are such an arsehole!’ Anna exclaimed, almost laughing she was so horrified. ‘Thank God for the anaphylactic shock that saved me from your nineteen-seventies mindset clutches. And just so we’re clear on this, I wasn’t flirting, or playing damsel in distress or anything else. I was thanking a very nice person for doing something very nice that he didn’t have to do.’

  Miles bristled at the insult. ‘Yeah, and if you didn’t look the way you do, toss you hair over your shoulder, do that cute little pouty thing and have those big blue teary eyes, then he probably wouldn’t be doing it now. Do you think he’d be sending you coffee and ringing round hotels if you were say twenty stone and eighty-five?’

  ‘Yes!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Yes, I do think that, because he’s a nice person, who cares about other people. Which, until about three minutes ago, I thought about you. I thought that offering to stay with me until my room was booked was an act of chivalry. Oh my God, are you trying to tell me this is your way of trying to get me into bed?’

  ‘No!’ Miles protested, a little too loudly in the quiet lobby. ‘No, I gave up getting involved with crazy chicks after the last one I dated broke into my flat with a knife, and anyway I don’t fancy you. I mean you look good, yes. But being near you is like being in the same room as one of those spiders that bites your head off after they’ve had sex with you.’

  ‘Even your insults are about sex!’ Anna was exasperated. ‘Look, if in your little delusional head you think I’ve been flirting with you, then you are very, very much mistaken, which makes you the crazy one. I don’t flirt, I’m famous for not flirting, I have literally no idea how to talk to men in a sexual way, which is why when one of them asked me to marry him, I had to make
sure he wasn’t saying it for a bet. And yes, even if he is still married to a stripper, I am still with him and I would never, ever, ever cheat on him. So just get that thought out of your head right now. There is no sex for you here, mister.’

  Miles and Anna stared at each other, a gradual sense of the surreal quality of their early-hours argument dawning on each of them at precisely the same rate of insidious horror.

  ‘Are we drunk?’ Miles asked her quietly. ‘How and when did this all start, again? Because I don’t remember getting drunk.’

  A tray of coffee was deposited at their table by a miserable-looking young woman, who scowled at them as she dumped a pot of sugar sachets as a resentful afterthought.

  ‘Look, I can’t remember how we started arguing, and for the record I am not trying to hit on you, Anna, or anything of the sort. You’ve got your man, and you’ve travelled across the Atlantic to try and keep him. I see that as proof positive that you are off limits. I just wanted to look out for you in the big city, you seemed so upset on the plane, and I thought for Simon’s sake, someone should keep an eye on you. He’s a mate, and you’re as good as his little sis, right?’ Anna nodded, rather ashamed that that far more noble motivation hadn’t occurred to her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just … a bloke.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Anna said. She took her coffee and drank it too quickly so that it burned the inside of her mouth. Her expression softened as she realised that she was actually glad not to be alone for her first hours in New York City. ‘I am glad that you are here,’ she added eventually. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Anna, we tried dating and it ended in a near-death experience, so shall we just say, here and now, that we are friends and that’s it?’ Miles said.

  ‘Miss?’ Horatio appeared at her side before Anna could answer Miles. He hunkered down so that they were at eye level and rested his chin on the arm of the sofa like an adoring puppy dog. ‘I made a few calls, there isn’t much going, but I can secure you a suite at the Algonquin. It’s only five minutes from here and – don’t tell anyone I told you this – it’s much nicer than this dump.’

  ‘A suite?’ Anna said uncertainly, thinking of exactly how much heat her emergency credit card could take.

  ‘It’s all they’ve got,’ Horatio said apologetically. ‘And that’s only because some celebrity cancelled at the last minute. But I know the concierge there, so I managed to get you a reduced rate of eight hundred and forty-nine a night. The room’s free all weekend, and into next week, so if you want you could book it out, which might be advisable, depending on how long you’re planning to stay. In the meantime, I’ve got friends keeping an eye out for anything cheaper that might come up, so we can always move you, if you know … you leave me your cell …’

  ‘Eight hundred and something dollars? A night?’ Anna said uncertainly. It seemed like a lot. Anna liked the finer things in life – she liked her nice clothes, and her shoes, and her hair products and a decent bottle of wine, and she liked that the ring on her finger said she was marrying a man who didn’t mind spending a healthy amount on a diamond. But everything she had she worked for, barely ever using credit, and the little girl who’d had nothing as a child still found it almost impossible to spend so much money on what was, after all, a bedroom. ‘And that’s the only room in the whole of New York?’ she asked Horatio.

  ‘Apart from my room,’ Horatio said, smiling shyly at her. ‘It’s the only room in Central Manhattan that I’d be comfortable with a pretty lady like you staying in. Alone.’

  Horatio glanced at Miles, who instantly bristled with that kind of male competitiveness that emerges from nowhere, whether or not there is actually anything to be competitive over.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Take it, between the two of us, the cost won’t be so bad.’

  ‘Between the … I’m not sharing with you,’ Anna said horrified, to Horatio’s obvious satisfaction.

  ‘No, you don’t have to, it’s a suite. That means there’ll be a bedroom and a sofa, at least. I need a place to stay, to practise before my audition, and you need a base while you’re searching for the sex worker married to your fiancé, so …’ Horatio raised a brow and Anna tried her level best to physically kill Miles with a look, bitterly disappointed that her telekinetic powers weren’t quite up to scratch. ‘So, it makes perfect sense for us to share, right?’

  ‘But you don’t have any money,’ Anna reminded him.

  ‘I’ve got money,’ Miles said, indignant. ‘Some. And when I’ve been signed by this band, I’ll have a lot more. The NYRDs make good money.’

  ‘Oh, the NYRDs, they’re cool man,’ Horatio said. ‘You up to replace Jake Evans? The one that found God and became a monk?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Miles said as the balance of rapport changed entirely and now, all of a sudden, the men were best buddies. ‘If they’re looking for a lead singer who definitely won’t take a vow of celibacy, then they’ve come to the right place, know what I’m saying?’

  Horatio guffawed, slapping Miles on the shoulder.

  ‘That is sick, man, those guys are going places.’ He grinned. ‘They were on Letterman a little while back.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Miles said, his easy self-confidence flickering for just a second, as Anna caught a glimpse of exactly how much this chance meant to him. ‘Obviously, it might not pan out, but you’ve got to hope for the best, right?’

  ‘Sure.’ Horatio nodded enthusiastically. ‘You’ll smash it, you’ll see.’ He glanced at Anna as if he’d just remembered she was there. ‘So you two want this room or not?’

  ‘Yes please, I suppose,’ Anna said reluctantly, looking at Miles. ‘Although you’ll stay on the sofa, you’ll keep your pants on and you do not interfere with what I’m doing in any way, shape or form. Agreed?’

  Miles held his hands up. ‘Agreed! I’ve already told you you’re completely safe from me, Anna,’ he assured her.

  ‘I’ll tell them you’re coming over,’ Horatio said. ‘Ask for Sebastian, tell him I sent you. So the guy you’re going to marry is already married to a hooker?’

  ‘Erotic dancer, actually,’ Anna said. ‘Charisma Jones, have you heard of her?’

  Horatio shook his head. ‘Nope, but I knock off at five if, you know, you want to hook up for breakfast?’

  By the time Anna and Miles finally made it into their suite, which was styled in what Anna could imagine was classic modern New York chic – modern clean lines, muted colours accented with orange, everything square and positioned at neat right angles – completely at odds with the grand old glamour gilt, marble and crystal of the lobby, Anna was so exhausted, so confused by life in general, that she didn’t even have the energy to cry. Which, considering she had somehow found herself in a luxurious hotel suite in the most exciting city on earth with a man she barely knew, and not her already married husband-to-be, was exactly what she wanted to do.

  After trudging into the bedroom, dragging her suitcase behind her, Anna sat heavily on the edge of the bed and switched on her phone, which after a moment or two locating a network finally buzzed into life, imperiously declaring seven missed calls from Tom. It would be just be about 9 a.m. there now, Anna thought, checking her watch, which was still stuck on London time, somewhere in the uncertain future. Tom would have certainly discussed things with Liv, and by now he’d probably have had a chance to think about what she was doing. The question was, how did he now feel about it and her? Would he be thanking his lucky stars that he’d had a fortunate escape from a such a textbook psycho, or would he be bowled over by the romance of her grand gesture, as Miles had suggested? It came as something of a surprise to her that she really couldn’t tell how Tom was going to react once the dust had settled, she couldn’t even imagine it. Funny how they’d gotten to this point in their relationship, literally inches away from the altar and there was so much they didn’t know about each other. And not just the stupid ludicrous things like pre-existing wives and reckless mothers, but the other s
tuff too. They’d spent almost every day together for the last year and a half, and yet Anna could not imagine what was going through Tom’s mind now, and she was certain that he couldn’t even begin to guess what she was feeling, because her chest was racked with such a jumble of emotions that she didn’t even know herself. For a second Anna thought about calling him, but only for a second, because as exhausted and befuddled as she was, she knew that at that precise moment in time she had absolutely nothing to say to him.

  Anna kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed, her head fizzing with exhaustion.

  ‘You going to sleep?’ Miles asked her, pausing in the doorway.

  ‘If I can,’ Anna said, the sudden sadness in her voice weighing down her words.

  ‘Look, get some shut-eye,’ Miles said gently. ‘Things will seem better when you’ve had some sleep, they always do.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Anna said, turning her face from him.

  ‘And then when you’re refreshed you can start looking for this Charisma woman,’ Miles said. ‘Where are you going to start looking for her anyhow?’

  Anna closed her eyes and discovered a symphony of bright lights dancing behind her lids, as she heard the bedroom door gently closing.

  ‘Honestly, I haven’t got the foggiest,’ she said.

  Chapter Seven

  Anna’s watch told her that it was almost midday back at home when she finally opened her eyes again to find a thin watery light seeping in through the thick curtains. The seemingly endless night in which she had arrived in New York was finally over, and a new day was dawning, which was hard not to feel optimistic about. Getting up, she went to the window to find several well-proportioned flakes of snow wafting downwards towards the street and that the building across the road was swathed in fairy lights which still twinkled in the grey of the early morning. There was something more, also. Something that Anna could detect even from her lofty suite, high above the city with the sidewalk well out of view.