Free The Chocolate Lovers' Diet by Carole Matthews Page B

‘That’s what being in love does for you,’ I tell her. ‘Just when you think it’s all going swimmingly, along comes the dreaded Family Christmas and messes it all up.’
    ‘Well, my Family Christmas was fabulous,’ Nadia says with a contented smile. ‘Lewis and I had a great time with Toby. He really tried hard and it was so nice being a family again. I’ve missed that so much.’
    ‘Will I be looking for a new lodger?’ Chantal asks, a little sadly.
    ‘I think we might get back together eventually, but I don’t want to rush into anything,’ Nadia tells us. ‘Toby promises me, faithfully, that his gambling is a thing of thepast. But we still have our mountain of debt to tackle. Life isn’t a bed of roses just yet.’
    Then Clive comes over with some more coffee and chocolate supplies for us. This man really knows how to look after a woman. Shame he’s gay. He perches on the arm of the sofa next to me and squeezes my shoulder. ‘Sorry I had to abandon you at the soup kitchen,’ he says brightly, while I wish that the ground would open up and swallow me whole. He kisses me warmly on the cheek. ‘You’re a wonderful woman. I’m so proud of you.’
    ‘Ha, ha,’ I say.
    When he’s gone, the girls fix me with a collective stare. ‘Soup kitchen?’
    I hug my legs to me and avoid their eyes. ‘That’s where I spent Christmas Day,’ I fess up. I feel bad because it sounds as if I would rather have spent the day with a pile of dossers than with my best friends. ‘Clive was there too. It was nice. It was fun.’ That might be stretching it too far. None of them look as if they believe me – except for Autumn, who seems to be viewing me with a new regard.
    ‘I think that was a lovely thing to do, Lucy,’ she tells me earnestly. ‘Very selfless.’
    ‘Thanks.’ They continue to stare at me and I don’t know if they all got X-ray vision as Christmas presents, but I can tell that they know that there’s more that I’m hiding. So I might as well fess up the rest as well. I give a shrug that’s intended to look casual. ‘Then I went home and shagged Marcus.’
    Three jaws drop. Three mouths fall open. Three faces look at me, aghast.
    ‘I think that was an unwise thing to do, Lucy,’ Autumn tells me earnestly. ‘Very silly.’
    ‘I know.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘I was lonely. I was vulnerable. I was drunk.’ They’re still staring at me in amazement. ‘I was
incredibly
stupid,’ I add before anyone else does. None of my friends disagree. But they weren’t there and they don’t know how miserable I felt. ‘That was it. One night. Then I sent him on his way. Without breakfast.’
    ‘Boy,’ Chantal remarks. ‘You know how to treat your men mean.’
    For one who comes from a nation who don’t understand irony, she makes a pretty good stab at it.
    The excruciating rash on my back from my night of passion under the Christmas tree has very nearly gone and that’s the last trace of anything remotely connected to Marcus that I ever want to encounter. I try not to itch. I had no idea that I was allergic to pine needles – or perhaps it’s Marcus I’m having a severe reaction to.
    ‘Nothing from Crush, then?’ Autumn asks.
    ‘No.’ How can I tell them that he’s been calling me repeatedly but that I’ve been steadfastly ignoring my phone and the messages on my computer? I never want to go near that damn and blasted thing again.
    Nadia says, ‘What was Clive doing at the soup kitchen?’
    I lower my voice. ‘He and Tristan are having relationship difficulties too. I don’t know what the problem is.’ Which means that no matter how much I probed Clive, he wasn’t dishing the dirt.
    ‘Gay men have trouble with long-term commitmentdue to their voracious sexual appetites,’ Autumn pipes up in the manner of an expert on the dynamics of homosexual relationships.
    ‘Christ,’ Chantal says miserably. ‘Why couldn’t I have been born a gay man? It’s been so long since I’ve