Free Straight Talking by Jane Green

your arse, woman, and get dressed. I want to show the country bumpkins the women they’re missing out on in London.”
    I did get up, I had a bath, and while I was sitting at the dressing table, putting on my makeup, making myself look perfect, I suddenly saw Simon watching me in the mirror. There was such an intense look of love in his eyes, I nearly started crying, but I didn’t, I just turned round and said, “What are you looking at?”
    “I’m looking at your right eyebrow,” he said, although I know he wasn’t, he was looking at the whole picture and he loved me. “Did you know that your right eyebrow is perfect, but your left eyebrow is ever so slightly crooked?”
    I turned back to the mirror in a panic. “What are you talking about, what do you mean?”
    “It means you’re not perfect, doesn’t it? I’d hate it if you were perfect, but that little imperfection makes you vulnerable.”
    “Do you think I’m vulnerable?” But I was pleased. It made me feel like a little girl when he called me that, like he was the big strong father figure looking after me.
    “I didn’t when I first met you. When you walked into that party I thought what a hard bitch, not my type at all. But when I took a closer look I thought, nah, she’s not hard, she’s a softie, you just have to break her.”
    “Break me? Bloody cheek. And have you, d’you think, broken me?”
    “I’ve just done a bit of remodeling, just to make you into the perfect wife. Wifey Fanny, my wifey fanny,” and he started nuzzling my neck until I started laughing.
    Simon was always talking about marriage, but much as I wanted to believe him, I always felt that it wasn’t necessarily me, he was in love with the idea of being in love. He wanted to get married because then he’d have someone to look after him all the time. It just didn’t really matter who. Although I only really knew that afterward, didn’t I?
    We climbed into the car and on the way, while we were waiting at traffic lights on the A40, Simon turned to me, took my hand and opening my fingers planted a kiss on my palm.
    “You know, Fanny, I’ve never been happier in my life. I never thought I could be this happy. You’re everything I ever wanted. I love you so much.” He looked me in the eyes. “I can’t believe sometimes how much I love you.”
    There was a silence while I digested the words, the seriousness of them and then I turned to him with a wicked grin. “I love you to infinity.”
    We had a perfect day, too perfect, something was bound to go wrong. And isn’t it ironic that just when you think it couldn’t get better, just when you start to trust, the bombshell hits and your world explodes in your face.
    But how do you know? I didn’t know then. I didn’t know until later that week, when Simon was back to being a moody bastard, and even then I didn’t know.
    I was watching television, some early evening interview show, and I was thinking about my own show and who I would get as a fill-in guest, when the phone rang.
    “Hi hon, it’s me.” It was Mel.
    “Hey, how are you?”
    “Fine, really well actually. Daniel’s being really nice at the moment. I’m a bit worried, I don’t know what’s come over him.”
    “I wouldn’t worry, Simon’s being amazing too, apart from the last few days but work’s tough. Most of the time he’s treating me like a bloody queen. Maybe it’s something in the air, maybe all the bastards have reformed.”
    “As if Simon’s ever a bastard! I saw him today actually.”
    “Oh?” I was only vaguely curious, Simon’s out and about in Soho almost every day, nothing new in that.
    “Yeah, he was walking through Soho but I was in a rush so I didn’t cross over and say hello. He was with a tall blonde girl.”
    Don’t ask me how I knew, but at that moment I knew that wherever Tanya had been for the last month, the last month that had been the best of my life, she was back and she’d burrowed her way back under his skin.
    I