Free Persuade Me by Juliet Archer Page A

topless – well, he lived in Australia, for God’s sake; bare breasts were part of the bloody landscape.
    And he was in no hurry to meet Anna Elliot again, married or not.
    By the time Charles arrived at the Cottage, Anna had put both children to bed; Harry was asleep and she was in Ollie’s room, reading him his favourite Roald Dahl story.
    He greeted his father with an enormous yawn and said, ‘Where’s Mummy?’
    ‘Talking to a shark wrestler,’ Charles replied.
    ‘ Really ?’ Ollie’s eyes were wide with wonder.
    ‘Well, so everyone says. Anyway, how are you feeling?’
    ‘Good. Except Harry gave me the silliest colouring book, all fairies and stuff. Aunty Anna says they’re special fairies and they’re going to make my ankle as good as new.’ He pulled the duvet over his head in disgust.
    Charles looked across at Anna and smiled. ‘If Aunty Anna says so, it must be true.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better be going back, Mum wants me to help with the party games. Rick Wentworth doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for. Do you know, I think the man’s unhinged? Tried to tell me he’d – slept with Mona!’ He mouthed the last three words so that Ollie didn’t hear, then went on, ‘Of course he didn’t put it quite like that, just said he knew my wife a long time ago “rather well”, but I could read between the lines. Then, when they met, it was obvious he’d never seen her before in his life, and he actually admitted he’d made a mistake. Weird.’
    Anna stared down at the jumble of words on the page in front of her. ‘Maybe he was confusing her with someone else.’
    ‘God knows who, there’s only one Mona.’ A short laugh. ‘Well, goodnight, Ollie boy. And you, Anna.’
    She was dimly aware of Charles leaving the room … of reading to the end of the chapter as if on autopilot … of Ollie demanding that she read it all over again, but this time with her usual funny voices. Somehow she remembered to reassure him that, if he woke up and needed anything, he only had to shout and she’d come. Then she sat and listened to the tick of the clock, until his breathing settled into the gentle rhythm of sleep.
    And still she sat, turning Charles’s words over and over in her mind. It sounded as if Rick had expected her to be at the party – as Charles’s wife! She wondered how he’d react when they did meet, and he found out that she was no one’s wife … But he had a girlfriend, so what was the point of wondering anything at all?
    Anyway, although she’d avoided a meeting tonight, one thing was certain: she wouldn’t have to wait until his book signing in Bath to see him. Now that he’d met the Musgroves, he could walk back into her life at any moment.
    Waiting in line while an orange was passed from one person to the next – an excuse for much giggling, bawdy remarks and occasional shrieks of ‘No hands allowed!’ from Barbara – Rick almost regretted turning down Mona Musgrove’s suggestion. A stroll to call on Anna Elliot, with Mona name-dropping every few seconds, would definitely have been the lesser of two evils.
    He wondered when he could escape back to Sophie and Ed’s. At least they seemed to be enjoying themselves; he watched them pass the orange rather deftly from one to the other, using the chest technique. He decided that this was a game best played by married couples, or people trying to get each other into bed; anything else was downright embarrassing.
    But, before he could slip away, the girl in front – Lou? – turned to him with the orange wedged under her chin. Knees slightly bent, head at an awkward angle, hands clenched behind his back, he attempted to take it from her using only his neck muscles.
    Shit! Out of the corner of his eye, he watched it roll down inside her shirt and nestle in her not inconsiderable cleavage. She burst out laughing, making the fruit wobble rather endearingly.
    And he recalled other fruit, spilling out of a dragon