One Hundred Proposals (7 page)

‘Whoa, I knew he had lots of girlfriends, I didn’t realise he’d had a threesome.’

Jules spat out her wine and Bella giggled, blowing raspberries with her own lips.

‘Not a threesome. Just slept with one girl, she broke up with him and by the end of the night he was in another woman’s bed.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I was the other woman.’

I felt my mouth fall open. ‘And didn’t it bother you that he’d been with someone else hours before?’

Jules shrugged as she mopped up the wine. ‘He wasn’t anything serious, not for me. And his ex-girlfriend at the time was a complete cow so I was just pleased to get one over on her. Then we started seeing each other, just the odd night here and there, and then those odd nights became every night. He didn’t look at anyone else after that.’

‘Weren’t you worried, that he would stray?’

Jules smiled hugely. ‘I don’t want to sound big-headed, because the feeling was entirely mutual, but I could see your brother was head over heels in love with me. That look never faded in all the eight years we were together.’

I smiled.

‘Harry’s probably the same. He’s looking for The One.’

‘I don’t think he is. He doesn’t actually believe in love or The One.’

‘Oh that’s rubbish. I know he was hurt badly when he was a kid, and he’s holding back from falling in love in case he gets hurt again, but when he finds the right woman, he’s never going to let her go.’

I felt myself go very still.

‘What do you mean, he was hurt as a kid?’

Jules went very pale. ‘I thought you knew.’

‘He told me he didn’t believe in love, not long after we first met. I thought he’d just come out of a painful break up. What do you know that I don’t?’

Jules turned away and started picking up Bella’s toys. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. You and Harry are so close, I thought you knew.’

‘He hasn’t really told me anything about his past. I know he doesn’t speak to his parents.’ I swallowed. ‘Did they hurt him?’

‘No, he wasn’t beaten or abused, it wasn’t like that. It’s not my place to say. I only know because Badger accidentally let it slip to me once. Just forget I said anything.’

As if I could. Although I didn’t feel I could push Jules into telling me. If Harry wanted me to know then he would have told me.

Jules threw the toys into a big chest and picked up her wine glass, swirling it around and studiously staring at the contents. ‘You know he was offered a job.’

My wine got stuck in my throat and I coughed to release it. She seemed very caught up on her gossip, especially Harry gossip.

‘Where, when?’

‘Last week. It would have paid very well. I don’t know what you’re paying him but I doubt it would come close to this. Company car, pension plan, private health care plus lucrative shares in the company.’

I gaped. ‘He doesn’t like big companies and office politics. He’s always said he’d never go back to working somewhere like that. Remember that job he turned down in America?’

‘His dream job?’

‘It wasn’t his dream job.’

‘He sure did talk about it for months, about how excited he was.’

It was true that when Harry first came into my life there was a big plan to move to New York and the great job he was going to be starting out there. But one day he’d told me he’d had second thoughts.

‘Apparently people weren’t happy with the merger that was taking place and the new CEO. He didn’t want to get involved in all of that. As I said, he doesn’t like office politics.’

‘Didn’t he cancel the contract around the same time that Jack died?’

Words dried in my mouth. No. He couldn’t possibly have cancelled the contract because of me, to be there for me. Not if it really had been his dream job.

‘I’m just saying, he keeps being offered these fabulous opportunities and he keeps turning them down. His Connected money isn’t going to last him forever, especially considering how generous he is with it. It would be hard to turn down that kind of salary.’

‘What kind of salary?’

She told me and I felt the blood drain from my face – it was nearly five times what he was on with me.

‘So the question is, why would he stay?’

‘He likes working for our company. It’s his now too, he’s built it up to what it is.’

‘Ok, I can see he would have some kind of loyalty towards you and the company, but I think there’s another reason.’

She stared at me, her pale blue eyes unblinking.

‘Well it’s not me is it?’

She stared at me. Thankfully, then the timer on the oven went off indicating our pizza was cooked.

Jules smiled as she got to her feet. ‘Just think about it.’

She went into the kitchen. As if I could do anything but think about it.

*

I sat on the tube, staring at my bag, feeling the envelope burning through the leather onto my lap. My mind had been filled with Harry all night, and why he would turn down such an opportunity and the job in America, but all thoughts of him had been wiped clean when Jules handed me this envelope at the end of the evening.

The train rattled to a stop at another underground station.

A letter from Jack. Jules had found it amongst his things. There had been one for her and one for Bella too. She hadn’t opened it, of course, she gave it to me to read at the end of the night. She obviously wanted me to read it then and there but I wanted to be alone for that. I promised to tell her what it said after I’d read it.

Now my hands were itching to tear it open, but not here, not with the late night Friday drunks and party goers. I just wanted to get back home as quick as I could to my little flat to be alone with Jack’s words.

What had he wanted to say to me all those months before? Why didn’t he say it in the last few days? Everything had happened so quickly. From the time he was diagnosed with leukaemia until the day he’d died had been just six months. But he had been fit, strong and laughing almost to the very end. He had never let it get him down. The last week had been awful, where he had deteriorated before our very eyes, but even then, even in the last few days he had still kept his humour. We had been with him at the end, all of us. Mum and Dad had flown over from New Zealand, me, Jules, Harry, Badger and a huge number of his friends had stayed with him as he just went to sleep and never woke up.

And now, here was a message from him.

My train arrived at my stop and I hurried up the steps and along the streets. It was quiet in this part of town, even though we were very central. The old Victorian style street lights lit the way ahead with sporadic puddles of light. The green was deserted but I habitually looked over to Harry’s house as I walked down the opposite side. The downstairs light was still on, but then he was always a night owl. I ran up the steps to my front door and then up the stairs to my top floor flat, whipping out the letter as I closed the door behind me.

I stared at the letter in my hand. I wanted to open it and devour the words inside that Jack had written eight months before. But I was scared as well. I started pacing the lounge. Suddenly I didn’t want to do this alone. I grabbed the phone and dialled Harry’s number. It was late but he was still clearly awake.

It rang several times before he answered. He sounded croaky.

‘Hey.’

‘Hi, are you busy?’

He paused for a moment before he spoke. ‘Are you ok?’

I was silent. It was pathetic really, needing Harry to hold my hand as I read the message from beyond the grave. But I knew that opening this letter would unleash a whole heap of emotions, and I didn’t want to be alone when that happened. But Harry had been there for me so many times over the last few months – at the funeral and afterwards – just holding me when I would suddenly burst into tears, and the lovely day out he took me on the day before just to cheer me up. I was suddenly hesitant about asking him again.

Though my silence spoke volumes.

‘I’ll be round in two minutes.’

I tried to protest but it was quite clear Harry was no longer there.

There was a muffled noise and Harry obviously hadn’t realised he hadn’t hung up properly.

‘Don’t look at me like that. I know you were warm and cosy but Suzie needs me,’ Harry said to someone, probably Sexy Samantha. I winced.

I didn’t know if she said something to him or was just giving him the evil eye but Harry carried on talking, clearly as he was getting dressed.

‘I know, I know! I’m sorry. You know you’re the most important woman in my life, heck the world. I know I need to get my priorities sorted, but Suzie is pretty damned important too.’

I smiled, hugely flattered, although that wasn’t going to go down well with Sexy Samantha.

‘Look, just make yourself comfortable and I’ll be back real soon.’

I heard him give her a quick kiss, then another muffled noise as he no doubt picked up his phone.

I heard his footsteps run down the stairs and his front door slam and the phone went dead.

Crap. The last thing I wanted was to come between him and his girlfriends. He would be pissed off when he got over here to find the only thing that he had left his hot girlfriend for was a stupid little letter.

I heard the key in the lock and then his footsteps as he ran up the stairs towards me. Crap, crap, crap.

He appeared in the lounge, took in my worried face and in a second was across the room and holding me in his arms.

‘Oh Harry, I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have called,’ my voice was muffled as my face was pressed into his wonderful hard chest.

‘Yes you should. You always should.’

‘I didn’t realise I was interrupting a night of passion.’

He pulled back a bit to look at me in confusion.

‘I heard you on the phone, talking to Samantha.’

He laughed. ‘I was talking to Jemima.’

For a second I wondered if he had moved on already from Samantha to a new woman – it wouldn’t be the first time – then I remembered his beloved cat.

‘I was asleep, she was lying on my chest. She wasn’t impressed about being moved.’

I laughed. ‘Well, please send her my sincerest apologies. And I’m sorry to you too, I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’ He shrugged.

‘It’s nothing though, nothing serious.’

He was going to hate me.

‘It’s obviously something or you wouldn’t be calling me.’

I sighed and pulled away completely. I picked up the letter and showed it to him. ‘It’s from Jack.’

Harry’s eyes widened. ‘Now that does sound like something serious.’

Oh God, I loved this man.

‘Have you read it?’

‘No, I wanted you to be with me when I did.’

He smiled. ‘I’m honoured you would think of me. Where did you get it?’

‘I had dinner with Jules tonight, she found it amongst his things.’

He pulled me down next to him on the sofa.

‘How’s your gorgeous niece?’

He was delaying, trying to distract me, and I let him as I curled up at his side, the letter in my hand.

‘Beautiful, getting more beautiful each day. God she looks like Jack. The same dark hair, the same eyes. Even the same feet. It breaks my heart that she’ll never know him. He would have made a wonderful father.’

‘He met her though. Got to hold her. And when’s she old enough you can tell her all about him. Play all the practical jokes on her that he played on you.’

‘I’d like that.’

He looked at the letter. ‘Do you want me to read it to you?’

‘No, I want to read it.’

I stared at it. He stared at it. It would have been so much easier if the letters were like the Howlers in Harry Potter, where the envelope would simply shout the contents at you, whether you wanted to open it or not.

‘Come on love.’ Harry put his arm round me. ‘It’s a big deal, I get that. But are you not dying to see what he says. I know I am.’

I quickly slid my thumb under the flap and ripped open the envelope. The letter inside was small, so no huge reams of big brotherly advice then.

I pulled it out and opened it. Harry respectfully waited for his turn to read it. As I started to read, Harry’s fingers stroked the back of my neck.

Chapter Five

Dear Stinky,

Stinky Sue, his childhood name for me that had stuck and was subsequently shortened to Stinky, or rather childishly Stinky Poo, or even just Poo. I smiled. I loved my brother so much.

So I’m dead, that kind of sucks. And I had the best practical joke to play on you too. Took months of planning and I was just about to spring it on you when the whole leukaemia thing took over. I’ve asked Jules to finish it for me, so I’d watch your back if I were you.

My biggest regret about dying is not being able to whip your arse on Mario Kart again. You know that I was the better driver and that last time we played you won purely because I was tired from the chemotherapy. But if I thought you were going to go easy on me because of my condition, I was sadly mistaken. I don’t know how you can live with yourself, beating a dying man at a video game. You could have let me win.

I laughed at this.

Know this, as revenge, I put my toe nails in your bed and hid several more around your flat. I know toe nails freak you out. Every time you find one, think of me, and know that I’m watching you. And not in a big brotherly protective way, but in an evil, stalky kind of way. If I can, I’ll rattle my chains and moan a lot now and again just to scare you. I swear, if I can come back and haunt you I will.

Ok now for the serious bit. I talked about this with Jules but with everything else that happened in the last few weeks we just never got round to talking about it with you. I want you to be Bella’s godmother. She needs a wonderful aunt and I know that you will always be there for her, with trips to the zoo and sleepovers and I know you will spoil her rotten. But also I know that if anything were to happen to Jules there is no one else in the world but you that I would want to raise my daughter.

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

I love you and I’m so very proud of you. I want you to be happy. I know you so well and I bet any money that Harry is sitting next to you whilst you read this, probably holding your hand. Tell him I said hi, and that Chelsea sucks, that will piss him off.