Maria put her key in the lock of Cassie’s cottage, sighing as the heavy, red-painted, wooden door only gave an inch. Pushing and tugging at it, she finally made headway and ended up flat on her face in the hallway, having landed on a pile of post. Tutting loudly, she picked up the huge array of magazines and letters, stacking them as best she could on the hall table. For an organised person like Maria, living with Cassie in her Westfield cottage was quite the change from Darcy’s large, sleek, minimalist Harrogate abode. Cassie had bought the place from her parents after university. They had a few rental cottages dotted around the area, and Sanctuary Cottage had always been a favourite of Cassie’s. She used to sneak in there with Maria after school to study, away from her bickering mother and father, and Maria loved to spend time with her friend there. Cassie was always so much happier within its walls, so much more relaxed, and Maria loved to see this side of her. After they graduated, Cassie had gone and landed a huge job in a swanky Harrogate firm, and had begged her parents to let her buy the place; they’d ended up giving in just to get some peace.
‘Cassie?’ she shouted, already guessing her friend was still at work, given that her car wasn’t parked on the drive. Locking the front door, she headed for the shower, ignoring the blinking of the answer machine. No one would be ringing her anyway. Other than Cass and Lynn, the only other person in her life was… had been… Darcy. So now she was back to being alone, and it was worse, much worse, now. Because she was all too aware of how it had felt to be in a couple, and how close she had been to having that for ever. After her parents died, she’d got used to being alone – but being plonked back into the status wasn’t as easy. It felt like the January slump, dull and rather cruel. Just as you got used to the excitement, the build-up, the change in routine… suddenly, there you were – slap bang back in routine-ville, having to work again, the excitement over, leaving depressed, grey people contemplating major life changes and Googling holiday packages to use as escape pods. An escape pod sounded like a fantastic idea at the moment.
Rinsing off the suds from her hair, she heard a door bang downstairs.
‘Cass?’ she shouted, squinting at a stray sud that had dripped down into her eye. ‘That you?’
She listened but heard nothing. Cass was never home early; the woman was a machine. She listened again, but the shower was all she could hear.
The bathroom door burst open and Maria screamed. The other person screamed back just as loudly, and Maria grappled for purchase on the shower curtain while swinging one arm behind her for something to use as a weapon. Her fingers found a shampoo bottle, and she was just about to douse the intruder with Pantene when she heard her name being called. Wiping at her eye frantically, she looked again at the door and saw Cassie standing there, face still frozen mid scream. She put the shampoo bottle down on the side of the bath, willing her frantically beating heart to slow down.
‘Cassie! You frightened me to death! Where’s the fire?’ she laughed, embarrassed at her reaction. Cassie didn’t answer at first, looking panicked. Maria turned off the water and grabbed a fluffy bath towel, wrapping herself up. Getting out of the shower, she shivered as her feet hit the cold tiled floor. Cassie was still looking at her funny, and hadn’t moved an inch.
‘Cass,’ Maria said, concerned now. ‘What’s the matter? Bad day at work?’
Cassie grabbed her arm, pulling her slowly into the guest room. Maria followed, wondering what had happened to make her friend so uncharacteristically anxious. She sat down at the foot of the bed, her pal sitting next to her, putting an arm around her, oblivious to the wet hair that trailed down it.
‘I take it you didn’t listen to the answerphone message then,’ she said softly. Maria shook her head, concern now clouding her own features.
‘No, why? Cass, you’re seriously worrying me now. Please – just tell me what’s wrong!’
Cassie took a breath. ‘My secretary was reading one of those celeb mags at work this afternoon, and she came across a piece on Darcy.’
Maria felt suddenly woozy, her breath taken in a sharp gasp. ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice barely audible. ‘Go on.’
Cassie reached into her pocket and pulled out a ripped piece of paper on which Darcy’s face could be seen smiling out from above the crease. Maria grabbed it from her, unfolding it. The headline read HARROGATE BACHELOR LICKS HIS WOUNDS IN THE SUN. Underneath were three pictures: one of Darcy in a pair of shorts, looking out to the horizon from a tropical beach, tanned and pensive. Another was of him driving down a beach road in a flash open-top car. His hair was being blown by the wind, making him look sultry, and his lips were contorted in a sad pout. I mean, the man looked depressed, albeit in sunny weather and behind the wheel of a posh car.
The third picture was of him lying on a sunlounger, caught in mid laugh, cocktail in hand. Scanning the pictures, she stopped dead. It wasn’t the hand holding the cocktail she was focused on, but the other one. The one held by a slender set of fingers, a woman’s, her thumb bearing a fleur-de-lys ring. The person was obscured by a wall of loungers, so only the hand showed, but it was unmistakable. Darcy had gone on honeymoon, their honeymoon, and was holding hands with another woman. The article was brief, just a few lines about how Darcy Burgess, heir to the Harrogate tea empire, was ‘consoling’ himself with an ‘unknown female companion’ after his aborted wedding to Westfield girl Maria Mallory.
Cassie took the piece of paper back from her. Maria allowed it to slip through her fingers. It felt like it was on fire anyway, her fingertips tingling from the contact.
‘How can it say that? It makes it sound as though I left him at the altar. He broke my heart, and he went on holiday! We were supposed to be married now!’
Cassie said nothing, thrusting the article back into her pocket. She strode over to the wardrobe, throwing the doors open, and started thumbing through the hangers. Maria looked across at her.
‘What are you doing?’
Cassie grabbed a red dress and thrust it at Maria. ‘Put this on.’
Maria looked at the dress, which had been a daring purchase, never worn. The tag scraped at her arm as she laid it on the bed. ‘I can’t wear that, I should never have bought it!’ Trust Cassie to have rescued that from her old place, Darcy’s home. She should have left it there. She pushed the thought from her head. She shouldn’t be ungrateful; after all, she had got all her belongings back without even having to put a toe near Darcy. Which was good, since the toe was attached to her foot, and if she had seen him, she would have used that foot to give him a good kicking. If Cassie hadn’t got there first and ripped him limb from limb like she’d threatened to, that was.
Cassie glared at her, oblivious to the violent thoughts swirling round in her friend’s head. ‘Why buy it then? Come on, get your hair dried. We are going out… NO ARGUMENTS,’ she boomed as Maria opened her mouth to protest. Maria felt her foot itch but ignored it. Not tonight, angry toe.
Two hours later, Maria found herself in Harrogate, squeezed into the red dress, shoes pinching her feet, wondering why the hell she wasn’t sitting on Cassie’s couch eating ice cream, sloshing wine down and crying. She said the same to Cassie as they walked on tottering heels to the nearest trendy bar, Ice, in the wine-bar-and-posh-eatery part of Harrogate’s city centre, which, coincidentally, butted up against the legal quarter of Harrogate, and no doubt the two sides kept each other in business quite well too. Walking into Ice with Cassie, it was hard to ignore the stares her friend attracted. Cassie Welburn was, she had to face it, sex on a twenty-nine-year-old stick. She was always tanned thanks to her meticulous salon treatments, plucked and shaped to perfection, and tonight, as usual, she was dressed to kill. Even Maria’s daring red slinky number looked tame in light of Cassie’s black and silver dress, slashed to the thigh, combined with sparkly silver heels that made her even taller than her just-under-six-foot frame. Maria blushed and nudged Cassie’s elbow with her own.
‘People are staring, Cass.’ Cassie shrugged, propelling them both forward into the bar with a determined swagger.
‘Let them stare, girl. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.’ Maria belatedly realised that tonight, thanks to that ridiculous article, the stares might indeed be for her and not her glamorous friend. She cringed inwardly and planted a smile on her face. She took her friend by the arm and, pushing her boobs out and her chin up, headed to the bar. ‘Let’s get smashed,’ she declared.
Four bars later, the two friends were knocking out shapes on a dancefloor. They were now in a place called Fresh! which had a large dancefloor in the back, complete with strobe lighting and a large DJ booth that overlooked the whole area. It was all neon lights, tacky road signs, and club kitsch, but it went well with the Eighties pop they were currently playing. Maria was laughing at Cassie, who was singing her head off to a Wham! hit while several suitors flanked her, unseen, ready to make their move, like big cats on a gazelle. If only they’d known Cass was the biggest cat of them all. No man could take her down; just ask her clients. Cassie illustrated the point by wiggling gracefully away from a man who dared to wrap his arms around her, shooting him a look that could curdle milk. As the song merged into another, Maria licked at her lips. The remnants of the last shot were sticky on her mouth and she needed something to rehydrate. Motioning to Cass over the loud music that she was heading to get something to drink, Maria took a rare empty stool at the surprisingly quiet bar. It seemed everyone was writhing and thrashing on the dancefloor, all the stools occupied but hers and another next to it. The bartender, a bored-looking youth in a uniform consisting of a black T-shirt and the tightest jeans known to mankind, gave her an enquiring nod as she sat.
‘Bottle of water, please, thanks,’ she said, getting only an eye roll in return. ‘Jesus, who died?’ she said under her breath.
‘No one yet,’ came the answer from her left. She looked across, surprised anyone had heard over the music, and met the brown eyes of a man who made the barman look positively cheerful. He looked wretched; bloodshot eyes under hooded lids, a near-vacant expression, all topped by a head of very unruly brown hair. He had a look of Droopy the cartoon dog. Cute, though – what Maria would call a fixer-upper. Good bones, just needed a bit of renovation. The cut of his rather creased but obviously expensive clothes did him no favours either. He looked like he needed to be steam-cleaned from head to foot.
She shook her head, snapping herself out of work mode. When it came to suits on men, she was always dressing them, rather than undressing. She thought of Darcy’s honeymoon suit, the time she’d taken designing it from scratch, making it with her own two hands, just to hang in some wardrobe, untouched and unloved. A bit like her. Unless he had taken it with him, to hang in some foreign wardrobe with another woman’s clothes. A traitor suit. One that waggled its sleeves at any bit of clothing going. A slut suit, with no ounce of honour among its fine threading.
‘Bad day?’ she asked, paying the bartender and taking a refreshing swig from the ice-cold bottle of water. He turned to her again, a half-smile playing on his lips.
‘A bad month, to be honest,’ he said glumly, throwing back a shot with a flick of his head. Maria nodded in understanding.
‘I get that – me too.’ He looked across at her, and Maria felt his eyes run over her, scrutinising her from head to foot. She blushed, remembering she looked like a damn Bond girl.
‘Ignore the get-up. My mate Cass “dressed me” and dragged me out to cheer me up.’
The man nodded, turning towards the dancefloor, where it seemed everyone but them was. Maria pointed to Cassie, who was currently rubbing body parts suggestively with a man who looked like Channing Tatum’s slightly better-looking stunt double. Cassie caught them watching and waved emphatically, tossing her hair into Nearly-Tatum’s face, not that he seemed to mind. Maria laughed despite herself. Her friend was mad, but she loved her to bits, despite their normally different views on romance. The man peered back over his shoulder at her, flashing an amused grin. ‘So, she’s supposedly here to cheer you up, yet you’re sitting at the bar alone, drinking water, while she does that?’ He pointed again to Cassie, who was now pretty much in danger of being mauled by the males surrounding her. Mauled or peed on territorially. Neither was an appealing prospect. Nearly-Tatum looked all set to beat his chest and run up the speaker tower with her under his arm, taking a few rivals down along the way. Maria sighed and turned back to the bar, hailing the lazy barman, who looked like he was reading a comic book in the corner.
‘Two of whatever he’s having, please,’ she said, motioning to the empty shot glasses.
‘Make that two each,’ the man added, thrusting a twenty onto the bar. Maria couldn’t be bothered to argue, so she grabbed a twenty from her purse and put it on top of his. He smiled.
‘In the mood to get drunk?’ he asked. ‘I’m Mark by the way.’
She looked across at the unkempt but handsome man. Cassie was with her, she was pretty safe where she was, and the thought of getting blasted and having a laugh with a man who wasn’t going to jilt her at the altar and take another woman on honeymoon sounded like a pretty welcome way to spend the evening.
‘Maria,’ she said in reply, as the shots were lined up. ‘And you bet your ass I am.’