Second Chance - Jane Green [9]
‘Trust me,’ Tom had cracked up, ‘Paul’s still exactly the same. I was his best man, and I had to stand over him with the razor and supply the hair gel to make him look half decent. He’s still happiest in his scruffy old jeans and T-shirts with holes in them.’
‘I don’t know,’ Holly had said dubiously. ‘It sure as hell looks as if he’s changed. What’s she like, anyway? She looks terrifying.’
Tom had sighed in sorrow. ‘Don’t be so bloody jealous, Holly. She’s lovely. You think she must be a bitch because she’s beautiful but she’s not. She’s incredibly sweet, and she adores him.’
‘You’re right, you’re right. I was making assumptions because she is completely stunning. Lucky Paul. Lucky couple.’ She’d sighed. ‘Looks like they have a completely glamorous, perfect life.’
‘Not so much,’ Tom had said, serious now. ‘Vogue made it look like that, but trust me, their life isn’t nearly as glamorous as it looks, and nobody’s life is perfect.’
‘Mine is,’ Holly had said wryly, and Tom had snorted.
With these memories Holly gets up from the kitchen counter and switches on her computer. Why not email Tom now? It’s been, what, seven months? Eight months? Ages, anyway, since their last contact, and she misses him. He and Marcus had never seemed to gel, and Sarah wasn’t exactly Holly’s cup of tea, hence their drifting apart.
Not that Sarah wasn’t nice, she had always been perfectly pleasant when they’d attempted to get together on the rare occasions Tom had brought Sarah back to England to see his family, but Holly had found her cold, unyielding. Polite without giving any more than she had to.
Holly first met Sarah after she got back from Australia, the trip on which she met Marcus, marrying him a year later.
She hadn’t spoken to Tom the entire six months she’d been away, but soon after getting back she got in touch again. It wasn’t long before Tom started talking about this cute American girl who was working in his London office.
‘How’s the Yank?’ Holly would tease, secure once again in their friendship now she had Marcus, unable to believe that she had ever had feelings for Tom, ever thought of him as anything other than her best friend, even after that night…
‘She’s pretty amazing actually,’ Tom would say hesitantly, going on to tell Holly how much she would love this Sarah, how he couldn’t wait for them to meet, that they should all get together as a foursome.
And so they did. The four of them going to a pizza place in Notting Hill one night, Holly excited about meeting this girl that Tom had been talking about for so long, who had now become his girlfriend, whom he was talking about moving in with him.
Holly wanted to love her. Was convinced she would love her. But she approached Sarah with a warm smile and an open heart and found Sarah to be prim, proper and cold.
‘God, she’s awful,’ she hissed to Marcus when they were safely in their car on the way home. ‘What does he see in her?’
‘She’s quite sexy in a stand-offish kind of way,’ Marcus said, instantly regretting it as he watched Holly’s eyes narrow.
‘Sexy? What’s sexy about her? What? Because she’s clearly addicted to the gym? Is that why she’s sexy? She’s had a complete sense-of-humour bypass as far as I’m concerned, plus she’s intense beyond anything I’ve ever known. Christ, do you think she’d even crack a smile? Gender politics all evening. Please. Does this woman even know the meaning of the word relax?’
‘You liked her, then?’ Marcus had said with raised eyebrow and a grin.
‘Did you like her?’ Tom phoned first thing from the office.
‘I thought she was great,’ Holly lied smoothly.
‘Isn’t she? I knew you’d think so.’
‘She’s quite serious, though,’ Holly ventured.
‘Is she? I think it’s probably because she doesn’t know you that well, but you’ll get to know her much better now she’s moving in.’
‘What about us?’ Holly’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘Did she like us?’
‘Oh yes,’ Tom lied smoothly. ‘Very much. She thought you