Free A Winter's Wedding by Sharon Owens Page A

darkly. ‘I want some young hunk to take advantage of me.’
    ‘And what good would that do? Better to phone a divorce lawyer, or whatever they’re called, and ask for some advice,’ Emily said gently.
    ‘What do you mean – a divorce lawyer?’ Arabella gasped.
    ‘I mean, only if you’re serious about it all being over. You said that David said that he wasn’t coming back,’ Emily reminded her patiently.
    ‘Yes, that’s right. I did say that.’
    ‘Well, then. Better to be organized.’
    ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it, though,’ Arabella said in a panicky voice.
    ‘You just told me he did mean it.’
    ‘I wanted you to disagree with me,’ Arabella sobbed.
    ‘Has he said this before? Has he ever said he’d leave you?’
    ‘No, he’s never said that before – no matter how bad the rows were.’
    ‘There you are, then.’
    ‘Do you think he’s really left me?’ Arabella whispered, looking fearfully at the walls, as if the room might be bugged by MI5.
    ‘Look, I don’t know if he meant it. I haven’t really met him, have I? Or really talked to him – he never comes to the magazine get-togethers. But there’s no harm in finding out where you stand, that’s all I’m saying.’
    ‘So you think I should divorce David before he divorces me?’
    ‘I said that I think you should get some advice. Why don’t you get tidied up first, yes? And eat something afterwards?’ Emily said slowly, shooing her boss up the stairs and then going towards the kitchen to fix her a snack.
    Emily usually tried not to become involved in the personal lives of other people, because she was always so tempted to take over the responsibility for everything. And she also didn’t like it when people wanted her to agree with their viewpoint, in case they blamed her later on if things went pear-shaped. So she was definitely letting the lawyers advise Arabella on this one.
    ‘Thanks for standing in for me at work today,’ Arabella called down the stairs. ‘And I know it’s a bit of a mess around here. I’d leave it for the cleaning lady, but if she saw this lot she’d march straight out of here and never come back. She’s very temperamental. And if my cleaning lady deserts me as well, I think I really will lose the will to live.’
    ‘It’s okay,’ Emily called back. ‘I think I can handle it.’
    But the kitchen was even worse than the sitting room.
    ‘Oh, Arabella, what have you done?’ Emily said when she saw the scene of devastation in the airy basement kitchen. A large pan of spaghetti sauce had been emptied into David’s open briefcase. Some of the sauce had spilt on to the floor and across the stone tiles, where it was now hardening nicely. The spaghetti itself was stuck to the kitchen window in a great, glistening lump. There were broken wine bottles and spilt red wine all over the floor. Emily counted the remains of about ten bottles before she gave up. Most of the bottle labels appeared to be vintage and expensive.
    Maybe Arabella’s husband really had meant it when he said he was never coming back?
    ‘I think the poor man got out just in time,’ she said under her breath. ‘Arabella must have been in a murderous mood to have done this.’
    Emily’s stomach did a small somersault then. She suddenly had a premonition that something very bad was going to happen – something much worse than Arabella vandalizing her own lovely kitchen in this way. But then she told herself to stop being so silly, that she wasn’t a psychic.
    ‘Okay,’ Emily said, reaching for the dustpan and brush and a whole roll of paper towels. ‘Time for my Kim and Aggie routine; whoever said a career in magazine publishing would be all about meeting celebrities, and non-stop glamour?’
    Then she thought of her little attic in Twickenham and how peaceful it was there, and suddenly she didn’t feel quite so sorry for herself any more.
    And then she thought about Dylan – and wondered if she was doing the right thing in