Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [95]
Now it all came flooding back in a hideous, toe-curling, spine-tingling technicolour whoosh.
`Oh God, oh God, oh noooo!' The tray on Miranda'slap toppled sideways as she threw herself back against the pillows and dragged the duvet over her head.
Chloe caught the tray with milliseconds to spare. She tugged the duvet away from Miranda's burning face.
`You don't have to be embarrassed. Danny's great, we all really like him.'
`Ooohhh!'
`Miranda, come on, you and Danny got it together and that's wonderful news. You don't have to be embarrassed, just because you had sex with him!'
Heavens, Chloe marvelled, listen to me. I sound just like Florence.
`I didn't have sex with him,' whispered Miranda. To add insult to injury, her hangover was belatedly kicking in. But the spasms of pain attacking her temples were negligible in comparison with the agony of total humiliation. When you were about to be mauled by a pack of lions, you didn't worry too much about being bitten by an ant.
Chloe was looking disappointed.
`You didn't? Damn, we thought you had.' She frowned. `So why are you so upset?'
Miranda closed her eyes. She didn't need twenty questions, she needed oblivion. Having sex with Danny Delancey wouldn't have been embarrassing at all - well, maybe a bit, but she could have handled that.
Equally, being offered the opportunity of a night of wild sex with Danny Delancey and graciously turning him down would have been fine. No reason to be embarrassed there.
Except I didn't do either of those things, thought Miranda, did I? Oh no, not me, I had to pick the third card, didn't I?
I threw myself at him and forced him to kiss me and then I begged - actually begged - him to have sex with me… and he turned me down.
Awfully kind of you to offer, old thing, but no thanks, rather not.
Miranda shuddered. Her skin crawled with humiliation. Oh God, what have I done?
Total, total nightmare.
Why am I such a prat?
There was nothing else to do but come clean. Florence, true to form, thought it was all uproariously funny. `Never mind, darling, better luck next time.'
Next time, oh yes, Miranda thought miserably. I can hardly wait.
`At least you got a snog out of it,' Florence continued, her eyes alight with mischief. `You can tell us how that went, surely! Good, bad, indifferent…?'
`Average,' lied Miranda, wondering what she'd done to deserve such torture.
`Hmm. From the way Bruce described it, that's a bit like describing Torvill and Dean as average ice-skaters.' `Actually, I've got a bit of a headache.'
Florence went off into peals of laughter.
`Poor darling, is that what Danny said to you last night?'
Chloe, feeling sorry for Miranda, said, `Shall I bring you a couple of aspirins?'
`Make it a couple of hundred,' Miranda groaned. Oh dear, was it possible to feel worse than this?
The phone rang just as she was crawling out of the house.
`For you,' crowed Florence, behind her.
`Who is it?'
`No idea. Sounds like Jeremy Paxman.' Florence had recently taken to watching Newsnight at every opportunity; she thought Jeremy Paxman was the bee's knees. `Ask him if he wears pants or boxer shorts.' She wagged the receiver hopefully at Miranda. `It's so hard to fantasise when you don't know.'
Miranda snatched the phone from her, not in the mood for Florence's surreal ramblings.
`Miranda Carlisle? Glad I managed to catch you,' barked Jeremy Paxman, sounding as brisk and disdainful as he did when he was grilling some hapless politician. `Short notice, I know, but we'd like you to appear on the show tonight, and not that it's relevant, but for the record perhaps you could tell whoever asked that ludicrous question that the answer is neither. Beneath my desk I am at one with the elements, unhampered, as free as a bird-'
Miranda hung up.
Moments later, the phone rang again.
`You weren't supposed to do that,' a more familiar voice complained good-naturedly. `I was only trying to brighten your day.'
`I don't want to speak to you, I don't, I really don't