Free The Life and Second Life of Charlie Brackwood (The Brackwood Series Book 2) by Stacey Field Page B

will be there.”
    “The lawyers?” I sighed loudly. Lara and John had even less of a sense of humour than our hosts, Evie and Geoff. The handful of times I have encountered them, they have gone on and on about the large Edwardian house they’re renovating. A subject that I would normally find interesting was made less so by them dragging it out through all three courses, plus coffee and mints. I wasn’t sure I could take much more of: “Oh, but you simply must install an antique roll top bath,” or, “A house is not a home without an orangery, I’m afraid.” It just seems pretentious to me and I knew from our first encounter that Emma and I are too different from them to slot easily into their world, something I knew my wife was secretly hoping to do.
    I parked on the driveway outside Evie and Geoff’s monstrosity of a house and as I listened to our shoes crunch their way along the gravel driveway I had a sudden desire to flee. I had made it clear enough to Emma that I would rather spend my evenings with her and Ben, not at an oversized table desperately trying to make small talk with people obsessed with materialism, so what were we doing here?
    We were greeted by Evie, pleasant and elegantly dressed. We followed her through the grand hallway, complete with overstuffed, red velvet armchairs and oil paintings of stern-looking women with distinctly male features. My feeling of dread increased.
    We joined the rest of the party in the sitting room and the usual pleasantries were exchanged, false words and forced smiles. Eventually we sat down for the first course.
    “Wine, Adam?” Geoff asked. “You’ll like this one, brought it all the way back from the French Riviera and kept in our wine cellar for the past few years. You can’t beat a good French red. Worth every penny.” His grin was almost manic.
    I nodded in agreement. I know nothing about wine and don’t particularly enjoy it but I was trying to be polite. Emma gave me a stern look and once again I was reminded of the promise I’d made to her two months ago, the day she disappeared and abandoned our child. The day she discovered what I’d spent the best part of a year hiding from her. I looked at her and offered a small shrug, my way of saying I didn’t have much of a choice. As Emma’s eyes bored into mine Geoff’s voice droned on. The hostility between Emma and me was apparently lost on the others.
    Geoff’s lesson on the origin of the red substance with which he had filled my glass to the brim was interrupted by his complaint that I had not yet sampled this magnificent specimen, this life-altering, pleasure-inducing grape juice that almost the entire table were raving about.
    “Come on, Adam, don’t let a good red go to waste,” said Geoff, and as I looked up I realised I was being stared at by everyone. Was this my initiation? Did my admission into this secret society depend on my view of this ridiculously expensive wine?
    They all continued to watch me intently. I had two options: drink the wine and break my promise to Emma or refuse to drink the wine and ruin Emma’s chances of being accepted by a group whose approval was obviously incredibly important to her. I decided to do what was best for her: I sipped the wine. I had only intended to drink a drop of it but throughout the night Geoff would give me unwelcome top ups and before I realised it I had drunk a few glasses.
    We didn’t stay for coffee or the fabulous mints that were also a topic of conversation. Emma’s hostility towards me became more apparent as the night continued. Of course, she would never reveal the reason for her sudden irritation to the rest of the party; doing so would almost certainly render us outcasts. As I expected, on the way home an argument erupted.
    “Don’t ever make me a promise again, Adam,” Emma spat. “What were you thinking?”
    “I was thinking that drinking the wine was the correct option. I thought that’s the one you’d want me to go