Free Any Way You Want Me by Lucy Diamond Page A

he’s lovely.’ She smirked and twizzled some rocket leaves round with her fork. ‘And he’s wadded .’
    ‘Of course,’ Cat nodded. ‘Wouldn’t expect anything else.’
    ‘So what happens now?’ I asked. ‘Seeing him again?’
    She munched through her leaves. Becca was one of the few people I knew who actually chose to eat salad because she liked it, not just because it wasn’t fattening. The freak. ‘ Seen him again already,’ she said. ‘Last night. He took me to Nobu.’
    ‘Ooooh,’ we chorused. Blimey, even I’d heard of Nobu.
    ‘Oooh indeed,’ Becca said. ‘Do you know, I really really like him. He made me laugh. And he’s good in bed as well. He makes me feel like . . .’ She broke into song. ‘Like a natchural wooooman . . .’
    Her cheeks were flushed as she waved her microphone fork around. Sparkly eyes. An I’ve-had-fab-sex-in-the-last-twenty-four-hours glow in her skin.
    ‘Well, I’m very happy for you and not jealous at all,’ I said, trying to keep the sigh out of my voice. All that sex and romance and giddiness . . . It had been a long time since I’d felt like that. My cheeks were only flushed from alcohol, and shouting at my children these days.
    ‘I’ve got some news too,’ Cat said. ‘Tom and I are going to move in together. A domestic tom-cat, as he put it.’
    ‘Ooooh!’ Now it was my and Becca’s turn to be the Trisha -audience-style chorus.
    That was good news. Tom was lovely. Cat had been with him for years, but it had been quite on-off, on-off – mainly because they both had feisty firework tempers and the kind of rows where one person stormed out or threw books at the other one’s head or said horrible, hurtful things that made the other one cry and say even more horrible, hurtful things back.
    Cat had always been charming and lovable in my eyes, though. She was the sweet youngest sister, as opposed to the sensible oldest sister (Lizzie) and the awkward, troublesome middle one (me). Cat was the kind of person that everyone adored. She had long blonde hair, green eyes and freckles and a nose that scrunched up when she laughed. If you strayed into her bad books, though, ouch – you knew about it. That cat could scratch.
    ‘That’s brilliant, really brilliant, Cat,’ I said warmly, squeezing her hand across the table. ‘His place or yours?’
    ‘Neither,’ she replied, grinning back. ‘We’re going to sell up and buy somewhere new. Somewhere that’s ours. It’s so grown-up it’s terrifying. Which is why we’re going to have a fuck-off-great, month-long, young-guns holiday first, to cushion the blow.’
    ‘Like it,’ Becca nodded. ‘Anywhere in mind?’
    I poked my cutlery around my plate and tried not to listen too hard as Cat started telling us about her plans for India, how she couldn’t wait to get back there, how she was desperate for a sunny beach to lie on, Goan fish curries, haggling for rugs in Anjuna market, palm trees, cold beers on the balcony at the Panjim Guest House . . .
    I slugged my wine down. ‘Shall we get another bottle?’ I said, interrupting Cat’s Passage to India monologue. There was only so much jealousy I could deal with in one evening, after all. Any more of this and I’d be forced to run out of Swanks screaming and crying and checking myself into the nearest loony bin. Or something.
    ‘Have we finished it already?’ Becca asked, picking up the bottle and peering through the murky green glass. ‘That didn’t take long.’
    As she waved a hand to the waitress, I noticed somebody staring at me across the room. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place him. Blue eyes, sharp shirt, sexy cheekbones. Was he one of the dads from Molly’s playgroup scrubbed up for a night out? Someone Alex played football with? He was smiling and waving, and then he made one hand into a phone shape and held it up to his ear. ‘Call me,’ he mouthed.
    Then I remembered. Jack.
    Oh my God, it was Jack from the other night, the one