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Or so she’d believed. The more she thought about it, the more she realised how wrong she’d been.
Simon had met Fenella in New York, fallen hopelessly in love with her, and called off his wedding to Holly at the end of his secondment—only a month before they had been due to walk down the aisle together. He’d left it to Holly to cancel all the wedding preparations and send back the wedding gifts with an apologetic note, on the grounds that she was better at that sort of thing than he was; she’d gritted her teeth and done it simply so she knew everything had been sorted out rather than Simon dragging his feet and leaving something undone.
And, although his offer to buy out Holly’s share of their house meant that she didn’t have all the hassle of trying to sell the house, it hurt that he wanted to share their house with someone else. Plus she had had to find somewhere else to live, though Natalie had stepped in immediately with an offer of her spare room until Holly could find somewhere suitable.
The last fortnight had been particularly hideous. Holly had seemed to spend the whole time alternately apologising and squirming, knowing that everyone was gossiping about the situation behind her back. Some people were kind, though she’d hated being pigeonholed as the dumped fiancée. The pitying looks were hard to take. Thankfully the veneer of politeness stopped people actually asking what was wrong with her and why Simon had been so quick to fall for someone else, but she knew they were thinking it.
And she’d had to go through all their things and divvy them up; though, once she’d started, she’d realised how few of their joint belongings had been chosen by her, or even together. How had she let herself be such a doormat? Why hadn’t she said no to Simon more often, or insisted on having more of her choices? What a fool she’d been.
Holly had honestly believed that Simon had loved her. She’d loved him, too. OK, so it hadn’t been the big grand passion she’d read about in novels or seen at the movies, with rainbows and starbursts and fanfares every time he’d kissed her, but she knew she was plain and ordinary, so she’d never really expected to have that sort of relationship. She and Simon had liked each other at their first meeting and they’d got on well together. They’d dated, moved in together, bought a house. They’d been happy.
But not quite happy enough, it seemed.
Because in New York Simon had met the woman who really was his big grand passion, the one who made fireworks go off in his head when he kissed her—something that Holly had clearly never managed to do—and everything had fallen apart.
Maybe if Holly had been the real love of his life, they would’ve got married years ago, and they wouldn’t have kept finding excuses to wait a bit longer before the wedding. Buying a house together rather than spending all that money on a party had seemed the sensible thing to do, given that house prices were going up so quickly. And then they’d both been busy with their careers. It was really only last year, when Simon’s mum had asked some very pointed questions about just when her son was planning to settle down properly and produce some grandchildren, that Simon and Holly had set the date for their wedding. Even then, they’d set it for a year in the future rather than rushing into it.
As Fenella was apparently too green with morning sickness right now to get on a plane, Simon’s mum was going to get her much-wanted grandchildren very soon, whereas Holly’s mum would just have to make do with the grandchildren she had. And Holly wasn’t going to let herself think about the children she and Simon might have had. The child she’d secretly started to want six months ago, when Simon had first gone to America. The child Simon had made without her.
‘You need a holiday,’ Natalie said.
‘I’m fine.’ Holly had cancelled her leave, not wanting to take the week’s holiday that should’ve been her honeymoon. A honeymoon for one surely had to be the most unappealing thing ever. Or maybe it was better than going on honeymoon with someone who didn’t really love you. Wasn’t it better to be alone than to be with someone who didn’t want you or value you?
And why hadn’t she realised sooner that Simon had fallen out of love with her and that being together had become a habit instead of what they’d both really wanted?
‘Anyway, it gives me time to concentrate on my career,’ she said, trying to find a positive and damp down her feelings of misery and loneliness.
‘Dry bones.’ Natalie rolled her eyes.
‘Sometimes they’re wet,’ Holly pointed out, ‘if they’re at the bottom of a rain-filled trench.’
Natalie shuddered. ‘Cold, wet and muddy. Give me my nice warm kitchen at the magazine any day. Even if I do have an over-fussy art director wanting me to make a little tweak here and there that actually means making the whole dish all over again for the photographer.’ She looked at Holly. ‘Holls, if you’re spending all your time with the bones of people who died centuries ago, you’re never going to meet anyone else. Archaeologists aren’t sexy.’
Holly laughed. ‘Of course they are. What about Indiana Jones?’
‘He’s a fantasy.’
‘All right, then. Brendan Fraser in The Mummy. You have to admit he’s utterly gorgeous.’
‘Fantasy again,’ Natalie said. ‘In real life, your male colleagues are either like Gandalf, muttering into their very grey, very straggly beards, or they’re total nerds who are terrified at the thought of talking to a real live woman.’
‘Apart from the fact that’s a horrible sweeping generalisation, it’s also not true. My male colleagues all talk to me,’ Holly said.
‘They work with you, so they see you as safe, not as a woman,’ Natalie pointed out.
Which Holly knew was true. And she tried not to mind or let it make her feel even more inadequate than Simon had already made her feel. Why wasn’t she the sort of woman that a man fell hopelessly in love with?
‘You do need a break, though. I know you’re not busy this weekend—’ because it would’ve been her hen weekend, which Holly had also cancelled—‘so let’s go to Bath. It’s the next best thing to Rome. You can drool over the curse tablets at the Roman Baths, and I can drag you off for afternoon tea in the Pump Room. And in between we can go and sigh over the lovely Georgian houses in the Circus.’
‘And you can see how many Mr Darcy-alikes you can spot?’ Holly teased, knowing her best friend well. Natalie was a complete Austen addict.
‘Something like that,’ Natalie said with a smile.
‘All right. Actually, it’ll be nice to go away with you,’ Holly admitted. She hadn’t been looking forward to moping at home this weekend. The last weekend in the house she’d shared with Simon, because next week she was moving her few possessions into a rented flat in Camden and he was moving back from his mother’s to their house.
‘Good, because I’ve already booked the hotel.’
Holly winced. ‘That’s a risky strategy, Nat. What if I’d said no?’
