KAT FRENCH
My Perfect Stranger

Copyright

AVON

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Copyright © Kat French 2017

Cover © Emma Rogers 2017

Kat French asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007577606

Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780007577613

Version: 2018-10-17

Dedication

For James, with love. Grouchy is the new sexy, right? You just need to get that cooking thing down … x

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Other Books by Kat French

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘Don’t you think there’s something sad about buying yourself a new vibrator for Valentine’s Day?’ Honey picked up a lurid pink model and eyed it with distaste.

‘Why?’ Tash laughed. ‘My last one was the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. When it gave out I buried it in the back garden and planted a phallic cactus over it as a tribute.’

‘How the hell did you break it, anyway?’ Honey frowned at the hunk of neon plastic in her hand. It looked pretty indestructible.

‘Overuse, probably,’ Nell chimed in on her other side. With her big brown doe eyes and smooth chignon, she was a study of tidy perfection.

‘We can’t all lead cookie-cutter lives, Nellie,’ Tash chided.

Nell sniffed. ‘I don’t hear you complaining when those cookies end up in your kitchen cupboard.’

‘True,’ Tash laughed. ‘Just don’t go looking for your next cutter in here. Although actually, maybe you should. I’d pay good money to see your mother-in-law dunking cock-shaped shortbread in her tea.’

Nell shot her a sarcastic smile, privately needled by Tash’s good-natured teasing. Had her life become too cookie cutter? Looking at the alien things on the shelves around her, there was every chance it had. A frown of concentration crumpled her forehead. She’d read enough magazines and books to know that a stale marriage was a step away from disaster.

In both looks and life, Nell and Tash were polar opposites, and Honey knew that her place in the world was somewhere between them. If they were traffic lights, Tash would be green; all flashing emerald eyes and come-hither grins that had men falling at her feet. Nell would be red: stop; don’t cross; clear and direct. For Honey, the amber light. Warm, never quite sure, approach with caution. Or perhaps it was closer to ‘don’t approach at all’, if the lack of decent men in her life was anything to go by.

‘It went rusty.’ Tash scanned the shelves with an expert eye, her riotous red waves swishing around her shoulders. ‘Don’t ask. Oh thank God, a waterproof one.’ She grabbed a gleaming turquoise vibrator and kissed the box. ‘Hey there, handsome. I need you in my life.’ She dropped it in her basket with a grin.

‘How ’bout you, Honeysuckle? Something for the weekend?’ Tash waved towards the army of vibrators lined up on the shelf like a platoon of soldiers ready to spring into action.

‘Not for me.’ Honey slid the pink vibrator back into place on the display.

‘There’s no need to be so sniffy,’ Tash said. ‘I mean, it’s been quite a while since your last, er …’

‘Not that long, thank you,’ Honey snapped. It had been more than twelve months ago since she’d split from her last boyfriend – not that Mark had ever really qualified for the title. She seemed to have a knack of attracting the wrong kind of men, men who were more interested in football and beer than romance or flowers. Or orgasms for that matter, besides their own.

Her only long-term boyfriend of note had been Sean at uni, a biology student who’d treated her body like an extension of his textbooks, something to study for cause and effect. It was little wonder that her body had refused to perform under such intense scrutiny. She’d eventually given him the push when he’d pulled a magnifying glass out of his bedside drawer before unbuttoning her jeans.

‘Honey?’ Nell said, and she realised that both she and Tash were looking at her and waiting for an answer.

‘I don’t know. A year or so, maybe?’ She shrugged and looked away from her friend’s raised eyebrows.

‘Fuck! A whole year without sex?’ Tash threw a second vibrator into her basket. ‘I’m buying you this. It’s a gift. You need it more than I do.’

‘Ha-ha.’ Honey took it back out of the basket. ‘Thanks, but don’t waste your money. They don’t work for me.’

‘They work for everybody, Honey.’

‘Not me.’

‘Have you ever tried?’ Tash asked.

‘I don’t need to, okay?’ Honey turned away, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. ‘I just don’t … well, you know.’

Tash and Nell grasped an elbow each and turned her back around to face them.

‘You don’t what?’ A frown rumpled Nell’s smooth brow. ‘Orgasm?’ She whispered the question.

‘Don’t stare at me like I’m a criminal,’ Honey muttered. A sex shop was so not the place to discuss this. She felt like an atheist in St Paul’s cathedral.

‘I’m no prude, I like sex. I just never have an orgasm. It’s no big deal.’

Tash stared at Honey as if she’d grown an extra head. ‘No big deal? It’s friggin’ huge! I’d die if I didn’t come at least once a day.’

‘Even when you’re between men?’ Nell asked. Her diamond wedding band glinted as she fiddled with the buttons on her polka dot silk blouse, which came straight from the ‘glamorous teacher all the dads fancy’ pages of the Boden catalogue.

Tash tapped the package in her basket. ‘Meet my new boyfriend.’

Honey glanced away. Glittery red hearts dangled throughout the store like a love grotto, although the dummies clad in crotchless knickers and peephole bras made it more ‘sex den’ than ‘romantic arbour’.

‘What is all this stuff?’ Nell murmured, wide eyed as they passed through a heavy velvet curtain. She picked up a dark string of beads and wrapped them around her wrist. ‘I didn’t know they did jewellery.’ She twisted her arm to admire them. ‘These would be perfect with my new purple dress.’

Tash laughed. ‘Yes. How thoughtful of them to make their bum beads multi-purpose.’

Nell yanked them off, her cheeks a good match with the violet beads as she tossed them down. ‘That’s revolting.’

‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, girlfriend.’ Tash raised a knowing brow.

Nell sat down and crossed her ankles, the image of a prim school marm. ‘I think I’ll wait for you here.’

‘’Kay. But just so you know, you’re sitting on a sex couch,’ Tash winked.

‘Christ!’ Jumping up, Nell smoothed her hands down her navy pencil skirt. ‘Is nothing normal in this place?’

‘This is normal, Nell. Simon would probably love to see you in crotchless knickers.’

‘He most certainly would not. He’d tell me to return them because there was a bit missing.’

Tash shook her head and huffed. ‘You know, I think he probably would.’

Honey slid the handcuffs she’d been examining off her wrists and grinned. Simon and Nell were the perfect couple. Childhood sweethearts. Mr & Mrs Vanilla. He’d probably have a heart attack if Nell wore anything more risqué than M&S white cotton. ‘Come on, Nell, let’s get you out of here. Tash, we’ll meet you next door in five.’

‘So, Honey. About the orgasm thing,’ Tash said as she slid into the booth in the crowded bar ten minutes later. Honey sighed.

‘Jesus, Tash. Don’t start. I really don’t need to talk about this.’

‘Okay, okay, you’re right,’ Nell soothed. ‘But … when you said you don’t, you didn’t mean you never have … did you?’

Honey reached for her wine in resignation. ‘It really doesn’t bother me.’

‘Well, it should. It’s bad for your health, if nothing else.’

‘No, Tash. It would be bad for your health. I don’t miss what I’ve never had.’

‘Are you one hundred per cent bona fide certain that you never have?’ Nell asked.

‘Jesus, Nell. If she had one and missed it then there really is something wrong with her.’

Honey cleared her throat.

‘Err, I’m still here, remember?’

‘I just don’t get how you can’t once you’re in the heat of the moment, to be honest,’ Tash said, looking genuinely perplexed. ‘You must have been sleeping with the wrong men, Honey.’

‘It’s no one’s fault,’ Honey shrugged.

‘Do you think you’re getting too wound up about it and then that makes it impossible to relax enough for it to happen?’ Nell frowned.

Honey shook her head. ‘Please … just stop? I’m not wound up, and I’m perfectly relaxed. I don’t expect it to happen, and it doesn’t happen, so let’s just move on, okay?’

‘I can’t believe we’ve been friends for ten years and you’ve never mentioned this.’

‘That’s because it’s honestly no big deal.’

Nell and Tash reached for their own glasses with something dangerously close to pity on their faces.

Tash narrowed her eyes. ‘When did you last flirt with a man?’

Honey twisted her bangles around, a jumble of gold and bright-coloured metals. Men worth flirting with were thin on the ground in her day-to-day life. She briefly entertained the idea of flirting with Eric the Lech who occasionally came in to the charity shop she managed, but the idea turned her stomach. He already tried to squeeze her bum most days as it was. One flicker of encouragement from her and he’d have her round to view his ancient Y-fronts over an episode of Antiques Roadshow in his sheltered accommodation. No.

‘You can’t remember, can you?’

Honey shook her head and sighed. ‘I just don’t meet men I could flirt with. I spend all day serving old dears, and on the rare occasion I meet anyone fanciable they always turn out to be dickheads.’

‘You’ve just been with the wrong men,’ Nell soothed.

Honey couldn’t argue. The few men she’d slept with wouldn’t win any awards for technique, but deep down she knew it was more than that. She’d simply been born without the orgasm gene. Fact.

‘Let us pick someone for you,’ Tash said.

‘No way!’ Honey could just imagine the men her friends would come up with; jet-set playboys with perma-tans on one side, trainee teachers in jesus creepers on the other.

‘You know what you need?’ Tash swayed her glass in Honey’s direction. ‘A specific. Something to sort out the men from the boys.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘Well, take me. My specific is money. No money, no Tash.’

‘You are so shallow.’ Nell laughed.

Tash shrugged. ‘I prefer to say realistic.’

‘Well, I’m not fussed for rich.’

‘No, but there has to be something,’ Tash said.

‘Good father. That was my specific.’ A faraway smile kissed Nell’s lips, doubtless thinking of Simon and their year-old baby daughter. She’d never known her own father, so Simon was her lover, friend and hero all rolled into one.

Michael Bublé crooned something sentimental from the speaker behind Honey’s ear. ‘Reckon you can fix me up with Michael Bublé?’

‘Tall order, chick.’ Tash sat up straight in her chair. ‘But … that has just given me a great idea for your specific.’ She paused, sparkle eyed. ‘You need a pianist.’

Nell laughed. ‘Where the heck is she supposed to find a pianist around here?’

‘Hey, if you can rustle me up the Bublé or Robert Downey Jr, I’m all for it,’ Honey said.

‘Think about it. All those hours of practising scales would make a man talented with his hands.’ Tash warmed to her theme. ‘And only clever, sensitive men would bother to learn the piano.’ She sounded too certain for anyone to question her logic.

‘Tash’s right, Hon,’ Nell chimed in. ‘You need a pianist.’

‘Well I don’t know any.’

‘Not yet …’ Tash winked. ‘But you will.’

‘Er … how?’ Honey reached for the wine bottle.

‘No idea.’ Tash pushed her glass towards Honey.

Nell grinned. ‘We need to check out dating sites.’

‘No way!’ Honey sloshed wine onto the table in panic. ‘There’s no way I’m signing up for online dating.’

Tash and Nell eyed each other. ‘Of course not,’ Nell said. Tash coughed.

Honey narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you got your fingers crossed behind your back?’

Nell shook her head and uncrossed her fingers.

‘I can’t even think of any other famous pianists, let alone regular joes.’ Honey frowned.

‘Elton John?’ Tash suggested.

‘He’s gay. And married. I don’t want married. Or gay.’

‘Liberace?’

‘Great. Dead and gay.’

‘Right,’ Nell intervened. ‘So we’re looking for straight, breathing pianists with a thing for boho blondes.’

‘And gorgeous,’ Honey said. ‘He has to be gorgeous.’

‘Well, I think it’s genius,’ Tash said. ‘In one easy swipe you’ve managed to eliminate ninety-nine per cent of the male population, leaving only a small pool to fish in for the catch of the day.’

Honey laughed and shook her head to dislodge the image of herself in waders reeling in an unwilling Michael Bublé. ‘A fishy pianist. Every girl’s dream.’

Hal heard female laughter and doors slamming well after midnight in the shared hallway outside his flat and yanked the hard, unfamiliar pillow over his head.

Great. His new neighbour had a laugh like an alley cat as well as no respect for anyone else in the house. Had he been in a charitable mood, he might have acknowledged that she actually had no clue he’d moved in that afternoon, but her laughter annoyed him too much to be reasonable. Laughter annoyed him right now. As did people. Laughing people were a particular bugbear. He’d been here for less than a day, but he hated this house already.

CHAPTER TWO

Honey squinted like a gremlin against the glare of the morning sun. Or was it afternoon? After a morning spent lounging on the sofa, her hangover had been replaced with the dire need for a bacon sandwich and a bucket of coffee. Pan on and bacon in, she started to feel a little less deathly and ran to grab the ringing phone before it clicked to the machine.

‘Hello?’

‘You sound as rough as I feel,’ Tash grumbled. ‘What did we drink last night? Meths?’

‘The tequila was your idea.’ Honey grimaced. ‘Did you get home okay?’

‘Course. The taxi driver made me hang my head out of the bloody window in case I threw up, but yeah.’

Honey laughed at the image of Tash like a family dog on a road trip.

‘I wonder how Nell is?’

‘Fine, no doubt. She’ll have drunk two pints of water before bed, and have Simon on hand with Alka-Seltzer and a bowl of hand-mixed muesli. Lucky cow.’

Honey knew Tash well enough to detect fondness behind the grouch.

‘It’s our own fault,’ Honey laughed. ‘Nell didn’t have tequila. It’s the mixing that kills.’

‘Does she always have to be so friggin’ sensible?’

‘Yeah, but who would you rather be this morning?’

‘Er, waking up next to Simon, the dullest man on earth?’ Tash said. ‘I’ll stick to the tequila and the headaches, ta very much.’

Honey yelped as a screechy wail assaulted her ears.

‘What the fuck is that noise?’ Tash yelled.

‘Crap! The smoke alarm! Gotta go, Tash. Love you.’

Honey belted into the kitchen. Smoke and burnt bacon. Double crap. At least there were no flames yet. She hurled the pan in the sink, wincing as the high-pitched alarm battered her already thumping head. She scrabbled onto a chair and pressed reset, weak with relief as the noise stopped. Then she tilted her head. It hadn’t completely stopped. Triple crap. Wow, she’d done a thorough job. When she opened her front door the alarm out in the hallway was going full throttle, and the damn thing was too high for her to reach.

She clamped her hands over her ears, then jumped out of her skin when the door to the empty flat opposite hers flung wide open.

‘Is the fucking house on fire?’

Whoa. Where did he come from?

‘No, sorry. I burnt my bacon. Just give me a minute …’

Honey tried to hide her surprise at finding a dishevelled Johnny Depp type yelling at her in her own hallway. Well, strictly speaking it was a shared hallway, but as the flat opposite had been vacant for months she’d become kind of territorial.

She squinted at him. Dark glasses at lunchtime hinted at a fellow hangover sufferer. Maybe he was some famous rock star hiding out. She could dream. Whoever he was, the faded black t-shirt clung to his body in a way that suggested fit, and the tattoos inked down his arms suggested sexy. It was a shame then that his personality rendered him thoroughly repellent.

‘Just shut that fucking racket up, will you? I’m trying to sleep.’

‘Umm …’ Honey stared at the alarm in panic. Her head was thumping, and out here the noise was even louder than in her kitchen. ‘I would, but I can’t reach it. Could you possibly …?’

He was well over six foot; with a stretch he’d make it, no problem.

‘No I fucking cannot. What sort of grown woman can’t cook bacon? Sort your own mess out.’ He curled his lip and slammed his door.

Honey reeled. Her life was full of people who, on the whole, were decent human beings. To come up against someone so outright obnoxious came as a shock.

‘Fine!’ she shouted. ‘Fine. I’ll do it myself.’ She made a half-hearted attempt at jumping to smack the alarm box. Futile. At five foot five and not very athletic, it had always been a long shot.

Plan B was required. Honey took her slipper off and hurled it upwards, but still she missed the alarm by a good foot. Then she spotted her tall, red polka dot umbrella propped in the corner of the hallway. Bingo! Could she reach the reset button with the metal end spike? She tried, but the damn thing wobbled too much for accuracy and the close proximity to the noise threatened to burst her eardrums.

Gah. The next time she wanted bacon she’d go to the café on the corner.

Honey sighed and opted for the only source of action left. She swung the umbrella above her head and whacked the alarm clean off the wall. It bounced hard against her new neighbour’s door, then landed with a squawk, before dying. She closed her eyes in relief.

Johnny Depp wrenched his door open again.

‘What?’ he growled.

‘What what?’

‘You knocked my door.’

‘Oh.’ Honey bent to pick up the mangled alarm. He recoiled as she straightened, as if her nearness offended him.

‘I didn’t knock. The alarm hit your door on the way down.’

‘You smashed it.’

No shit, Sherlock.

‘I suggest you don’t attempt to cook again. You might burn the fucking house down.’

The stony look on his face told her that he wasn’t amused. As did the door slammed in her face. Again.

Prick.

‘I can cook perfectly well, thank you,’ she yelled, annoyed by his assumption. This was her home. He was on her turf. If he thought he could roll up and chuck his weight around, he could think again.

In a valiant last stand the alarm case pinged open, and the battery plopped out pathetically onto Honey’s foot. A bubble of laughter filtered up. She’d murdered it.

She threw a glance at the door opposite.

Hello new neighbour. It’s good to meet you too.

One thing was for sure. This guy was no Simon. There wasn’t a meek or mild bone in his body. Tash would love him – as long as he was loaded. Their wine-fuelled conversation from last night floated back. Her specific. She knocked on his door.

‘Umm, you don’t happen to play the piano, do you?’ she shouted, knowing how funny Nell and Tash would find it when she told them.

He didn’t need to open his door for her to hear him howl fuck off.

On the other side of the door, Hal inched along the hallway. Ten paces to the kitchen work surface, where he’d left the half-empty whisky bottle last night. The cool glass against his sweaty palms soothed his rattled nerves. The wail of that alarm had kicked him straight into DEFCON 1 mode.

Stupid airhead woman. ‘Could you possibly reach it?’ Her question still taunted him. He tipped the bottle to his lips, and the harsh burn of the whisky took the raw edge off his anger.

She’d smelled of strawberry shampoo and bacon smoke when she’d stepped close, and the ever-present laughter behind her voice had told him she didn’t take life seriously.

Well, she should.

He fumbled his way to the bedroom and walked until his shins hit the edge of the mattress. The unmade sheets scratched his skin when he sprawled out, whisky in one hand, the other balled into a tight fist of frustration. He hated this house, and now he hated Strawberry Girl too.

CHAPTER THREE

Honey emptied out the latest bin liners on Monday morning and picked through the worn polyester blouses and elasticated skirts without enthusiasm. When she’d first started work at the charity shop, this had been one of her favourite bits of the day – tipping out the innocuous black bags in the hope of unearthing vintage treasure, or that some It-girl might have cleared out her summer wardrobe of all last season’s Prada to make room for her winter collection.

It hadn’t taken long for the shine to wear off. Honey had soon come to realise that the average age of people who gave to charity was around eighty. Either that or it was families clearing the decks of a deceased relative’s possessions. Cheap chain store separates. Moth-eaten dresses or suits that had been held on to for sentimental reasons that had died with their owners. Thrift shop jewellery with broken catches. Chipped teacups long since separated from their saucers. Stiff leatherette handbags with brass clasps and screwed-up bingo tickets in the bottom, or a yellowed letter that relatives hadn’t cared enough to hold on to. Honey could never bring herself to throw treasured mementoes away, so she slipped them into a drawer in the old bureau that doubled up as her desk in the small back room of the shop.

‘Tea.’ Lucille popped out of the kitchenette, a vision in tan support tights and an egg yolk-yellow sundress cinched in at the waist by a rhinestone belt. Lucille and her sister Mimi were the lifeblood of the charity shop, full-time volunteers who asked for nothing in return for their services apart from company and the occasional bright string of beads. They were magpies for colour and sparkle; or rather a pair of colourful canaries, singing wartime hits as they fluttered from customer to customer and batted their eyelashes against their heavily rouged cheeks to encourage a sale. Honey adored them both; fabulous aunts she’d chosen rather than had foisted upon her by the inconvenience of bloodline.

‘Thanks, Lucille.’ Honey took the dainty teacup and saucer. ‘No Mimi yet this morning?’

Lucille bent to pull a sequinned dress from the pile at Honey’s feet and shook it out at arm’s length in front of her. ‘She was entertaining last night.’ Her perfectly lipsticked mouth puckered into a tight, sour little raspberry as she turned the dress inside out to squint at the label.

‘Was she really?’ Honey whistled. ‘Not with Billy Bobbysocks again?’

Lucille sniffed. Her sister was far too smitten with Billy for her liking. Exactly what Mimi saw in him, with his ridiculous quiff and purple drainpipe trousers that were indecently tight for a man well into his eighties, was anyone’s guess.

Honey glanced down to hide her smile. Both Lucille and Mimi lived in fear of the other leaving, when history really ought to have taught them better. Men had come and gone in each of their lives, but their sibling bond had remained undiminished by romantic entanglements. It was a bond Honey well understood, having spent her formative years in the comfortable sweet spot between her elder sister Bluebell and their equally fantastically named youngest sister, Tigerlily. Their mother Jane, a failed actress forever saddled with the moniker ‘Plain Jane Jones’, had made certain that her daughters would never suffer the same indignity of anonymity.

Honey sorted the last of the clothes into washing and ironing piles and moved on to unpick the sticky tape from around a dog-eared cardboard box. The musty smell of long-discarded possessions assailed her nostrils as she peeled back the lid, and just as she was about to reach inside to remove the top layer of yellowed newsprint the telephone trilled in the office.

‘It’s probably Mimi ringing to say that she’s still indisposed,’ Lucille said with a scandalised arch of her eyebrows.

Honey grinned at the idea of being too swept away by the tides of passion to go into work at the ripe old age of eighty-three. ‘I sincerely hope so.’

But when she picked up the receiver, she found herself doubly disappointed. One, it wasn’t a love-swept Mimi and secondly, it was Christopher, the manager of the shop and the attached old people’s residential home. A man of much influence and no charisma, which he masked with borderline rude officiousness.

‘Staff meeting. Seventeen hundred hours. Don’t be late or I’ll start without you.’

‘But we don’t close until five p.m.’

‘So close early. You’re not exactly Tesco’s, are you? And don’t bring those old women, either. Paid staff only. Got that?’

‘Loud and clear, Christopher. Loud and clear.’

Honey sighed as the dial tone clicked in her ear. ‘Yeah. Goodbye to you too,’ she muttered into the empty ether. Would it kill the man to feign politeness? Lord knows how he got people to entrust their frail relatives into his care; Honey wouldn’t trust him with so much as a hamster. It was a great shame, then, that her financial security rested in his sweaty little hands.

Several long and eventful hours later, Honey dropped her plastic shopping carriers down on her front step and groaned with relief as she flexed her bag-sore fingers. Baked beans and tinned tomatoes were heavy but essential items on the non-cooking cook’s shopping list.

Her heart lurched at the crunch of broken glass as she shouldered the door open. Shit. Had she been broken into? Honey flicked her eyes over the undamaged panes in the stained glass door, confused, until she noticed the pink tulips strewn across the parquet hallway floor. The very same pink tulips she’d placed in her favourite glass jug in the hallway a couple of days ago to welcome herself home. Or at least it had been her favourite, until now. There was no mending it – whoever had broken it had made a very thorough job.

By the looks of the still dewy flowers and the huge wet patch on the floor, whatever had happened had happened fairly recently, and as everything else in the shared hallway looked ship-shape, that left only one possible culprit. Only one person who would come through here and smash her jug without bothering to clear up the mess or leave an apology note.

Thanks a million, Johnny Depp.

Honey slammed the hallway door shut and leaned against it. It had turned into one hell of a day. Christopher’s words at the earlier staff meeting scrolled around inside her head like ticker-tape on the twenty-four-hour rolling news channels. ‘Funding being pulled. Threat of closure. Six months. Period of consultation.’

The shop was under the cosh, and unless they secured new funding soon they’d be closed down within a few months. And it wasn’t just the charity shop, either; the whole home was under the hammer, leaving thirty residents facing eviction. What do you do when you find yourself unexpectedly homeless at ninety-seven? Honey had no clue, and Christopher had offered precious little in the way of answers. The day had gone from bad to worse as she’d struggled home with heavy shopping on the packed bus, standing next to a drunk teenager who had touched her bum at least twice. He’d been lucky not to have a can of beans wrapped around his head, but Honey was all out of fight. Until now.

The sight of her pretty jug and dying flowers strewn across the floor turned out to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

‘Hey, rock star!’ Honey yelled at her new neighbour’s door as she picked her way over the shattered glass. ‘Thanks for nothing!’ She dropped her shopping bags by her front door and leaned against it. ‘That was my favourite jug. Just so you know.’

She paused. Stubborn silence reigned, even though she was sure she’d heard movement beyond his door.

‘Fine. I’ll just send you the bill then, shall I?’

It had actually only cost 50p from work, but it had been pretty and his silence riled her. He was in there, she was sure of it. Although, thinking back, Honey couldn’t recall seeing his lights on when she’d passed his windows. Another day, another hangover. Too bad.

‘You’re not the only one who had a bad day, you know. I almost lost my job today.’ She screwed up her face as soon as the words left her mouth. Why was she telling a complete stranger her woes? Or worse yet, yelling them at someone who was clearly too much of an arrogant cock to care less?

Hal lay on the sofa, dark glasses over his closed eyes even though he was wide awake, pained by the effort of holding himself still rather than storming out there to tear a strip off Strawberry Girl. Flowers. Stupid, fucking, stupid flowers.

Storm out there. Who was he kidding? It had taken him almost ten minutes to make his way out into the hallway earlier that afternoon. All he’d wanted to do was answer his own goddamn front door. To stop the door-to-door salesman from banging on it, from banging on the inside of his head.

Who the hell put fresh flowers in a communal hallway anyway? How was he supposed to know they were there? The first rule of living with a blind person – don’t place unexpected hazards in their way. But then, Strawberry Girl hadn’t realised he was blind yet, had she? Thank fucking God, because when she did, she’d no doubt switch straight into that same mode most other people did around him these days, a vomit-inducing mix of sympathy and desperation to make things easier for him. He didn’t want to hear that falter in her voice when she first realised he couldn’t see, so he lay on the sofa and listened to her berate him instead. Not that he could have gone out there even if he’d wanted to. Not with a soaked crotch and hands still sticky with warm blood where he’d cut his hands to ribbons trying to gather the glass up.

He knew exactly what she’d think. He reeked of whisky, and no doubt looked like he’d tried to slash his own wrists. And on top of that he must look like he’d pissed himself.

A new low, even in Hal’s new world.

And she thought she’d had a bad day. She didn’t know the meaning of the words.

Honey dumped her bags on the kitchen work surface and headed back into the hallway with the brush and pan. She’d briefly entertained the idea that her mini rant might have piqued his guilt enough to make him clear up, but no such luck. His door remained resolutely closed, and her flowers were still scattered across the floor. She rescued them one by one, and then set to work sweeping the glass shards together. The water still on the floor made the job extra awkward, and tell-tale streaks of red caught her eye as it mingled with the glass and water. She frowned and stilled for a second. If that was blood, then maybe he had attempted to clear up after all. Or, oh God, maybe he’d injured himself and knocked over her flowers by accident, or maybe he’d had some sort of fit, or nicked an artery with the glass and was at this moment lying dead in his flat and it would be all her tulips’ fault. The way Honey’s day was shaping up, accidentally murdering her neighbour wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. The floor cleared, she took a few steps towards his door and turned her ear towards it to listen. Nothing. She raised her hand to knock, but then stopped just before her knuckles made contact. What was she going to say if he answered? If you’re dead or injured then I’m sorry, but if you’re not then I’m not really sorry at all?

‘Hello,’ she called out tentatively. A stony silence filled her ears, and Honey felt the very edges of panic start to unfurl. ‘Hello.’ She tried again, a little louder, a little firmer.

Still nothing. She bunched her hand and banged on his door. ‘Are you alright in there?’

This time she put her ear right against the door and listened hard. Was that a shuffle?

Hal swore under his breath and hauled himself upright on the sofa. Strawberry Girl was fast becoming his nemesis. Why was she thumping on his door? Did she seriously want the money for her stupid bloody jug?

‘Look, I know you’re in there. I just heard you move.’

Hal shook his head. It was like living next door to Miss Marple’s over-zealous granddaughter. She must have her ear right against his door.

‘Just answer me, will you? Are you alright in there?’

Fuck. She was already checking up on him, and she didn’t even know he was blind yet. He made a mental note to keep it that way for as long as possible. He winced with pain as he rolled his shoulders and flexed his lacerated palms.

She must have heard him, because she thumped on his door even harder.

‘Do you need help?’ she called out as he made his way along the hallway, for all the world as if she were checking on an elderly neighbour who might have tumbled over their zimmer frame. Sour resentment settled over him.

‘What would it take to make you go away?’ he grouched through the closed door, and heard her puff out loudly as if she’d been holding her breath. Drama queen.

‘Are you always this rude?’ Her tone changed abruptly from concerned to snarky.

‘Only to people who piss me off.’ Her answering gasp made him smile for the first time since he’d moved in.

‘I piss you off? Is that why you smashed my jug and left the flowers all over the floor? Because I piss you off?’ The fact that she was shouting at him brought Hal perverse pleasure. No one shouted at him anymore.

‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’

This time it was her foot that hit the door rather than her hand, and it was in anger rather than concern.

‘Pig. What have I done to you? Besides have the audacity to set off the smoke alarm and disturb your sodding hangover?’ Her unnaturally fast breathing gave away how riled she was. ‘Well, you picked the wrong day to mess with me, pal.’

Hal almost laughed. Miss Marple Jr had just morphed into Rambo. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door as he waited for her to carry on.

‘Unlike you, my life isn’t just one big round of parties and hangovers. I have responsibilities. I have a job. People who depend on me.’

The sudden rush of anger her words provoked had Hal groping for the door catch. He wrenched it open.

‘One big party? Is that what you think this is?’ He spat his words out and flung an arm back towards his hallway.

‘No,’ she shot back. ‘I’d say this is your lair. Somewhere to lie low and recover from your hangovers.’ Hal could hear the disdain drip from her voice, and he knew she must be taking in the details of his dishevelled appearance. ‘Look at you. You stink of booze, and God knows what else. You need a shave and a change of clothes …’ her voice trailed off, and he knew that she would be drawing all the wrong conclusions.

It pissed him off royally. He wasn’t a man given to hysterics before the accident, but keeping his temper seemed much more difficult these days. Strawberry Girl’s accusations felt as if someone had hurled a grenade into his brain and pulled out the pin.

‘My lair?’ he roared. ‘My fucking lair?’ A laugh started way down in the base of his gut, except it felt more like something dark and ugly trying to fight its way out of him. It rattled through his entire body, and he heard it leave him, a harsh, alien sound somewhere between a laugh and a scream of anger.

‘This isn’t my lair,’ he ground out, when he could speak again. ‘It’s my goddamn prison.’

Strawberry Girl didn’t speak, but her shallow breathing told him she was still there, still staring at him.

‘What?’ she said, eventually. The heat of anger had left her voice, edged out by bewilderment and something else that might have been fear. Hal heard it and knew he had her on the ropes. It would be so simple to go for the kill now, to reveal his blindness and have her fall over herself in her hurry to apologise. In his previous life he’d thrived on being the one in control, and the urge to take control of her now pressed hard against his skull. His aggressive streak had aided his meteoric rise as one of the country’s brightest stars in the restaurant industry. And he’d loved it all. The money. The cars. The celebrity patrons. The girls. One girl in particular. And he’d lost it all in a split second of showman distraction.

Life was different now. It was made up of the four walls of this flat, daytime TV he was almost glad he couldn’t see and wished he couldn’t hear, and microwave dinners that tasted of the boxes they came in.

He screwed his face up and sighed hard. Everything had gone to hell, but none of that was Strawberry Girl’s fault. Everything else in his life may have changed, but frightening women had never been his style and he wasn’t about to start now.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re right. You don’t understand, and I hope for your sake that you never need to. Can I go now that you’ve been a good girl guide and checked on your needy neighbour?’

Hal heard her draw breath to answer, but closed the door so he didn’t have to listen.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘It was so weird, Nell. He had blood all over his hands, and looked like death warmed up.’

Honey perched on a high stool at Nell’s breakfast bar, a sleeping Ava nestled in the crook of her arm.

‘Maybe he’s a vampire.’ Nell closed the dishwasher and spun around with a startled look in her eyes. ‘God, you don’t think he’d been trying to …’

Honey shook her head. ‘There were no cuts on his wrists, if that’s what you mean. I checked. It was his actual hands, but both of them. That’s weird, isn’t it? I think he’d tried to clear up my glass jug, but then why would he have been so clumsy? And then not finished the job!’

‘Prison’s such an odd thing to call your home,’ Nell said.

Honey glanced around the warm, welcoming kitchen. Nell’s tidy, gorgeous home embraced everyone who entered through the door in a big warm hug. Just being there was balm for her tattered nerves.

‘He was angry, Nell. Proper angry.’

Nell frowned. ‘I don’t like the thought of you living alone next to him, Honey.’

‘That’s another odd thing.’ Honey reached for her coffee mug. ‘I’m not scared of him, not in that way. If anything, I felt sorry for him.’

Nell leaned back against the kitchen surface with her steaming mug cupped in her hands. ‘I’m not sure I do. He’s been nothing but rude to you from the day he moved in.’

‘Well, I won’t be nominating him for neighbour of the year, that’s for sure.’ Honey stroked the sleeping baby’s fragile fingers, struck by how vulnerable and innocent she was. She couldn’t imagine the man she now shared a house with ever being like this. She had no clue who he was, but something had happened to him. Something awful, and it had made him just about the most angry, jaded person she’d ever met.

‘Tash texted me this morning from Dubai,’ Nell said, changing the subject.

Honey glanced out at the rain through the window, her train of thought broken.

‘Lucky cow. She moans about that job, but at least she gets to see the sun every now and then.’

‘She’s found you a pianist.’

Honey looked up sharply. ‘Jeez, Nell. It was a joke. She isn’t serious?’

Nell shrugged with a half-suppressed smile. ‘I think she is. She’s going to call you when she gets home tomorrow.’

‘Nell. I’m about to lose my job and Freddy Krueger has just moved in next door to me. Do you think I need any more hassle in my life right now?’

Ava stirred, her sleep disturbed by Honey’s agitation.

‘Probably not,’ Nell conceded. ‘But then what if he looks like Michael Bublé?’

Honey grinned. ‘Then I’d let him buy me dinner.’

Nell eased the half-awake baby out of Honey’s arms and into her own, where Ava slipped straight back into contented sleep.

‘Just wait and see then, okay?’ Nell winked as she headed upstairs to lay the baby down. Honey sighed. The relentless gloom outside was a fitting reflection of her mood, and the idea of having to endure a blind date with some random stranger to satisfy Tash and Nell’s ridiculous quest wasn’t a welcome addition to her burden.

Honey walked past the chemist on the way home, and then backtracked and went inside. A few minutes later, she emerged with a carrier. When she let herself into the house she approached her neighbour’s door rather than her own.

‘Umm, hello?’ she called out without knocking, as he must have heard her come in. She could make out the strains of music, something heavy metal by the sounds of it. Maybe he hadn’t heard her after all. She rapped on the door, loud enough to be heard, but hopefully not loud enough to be annoying. She waited, and then knocked again when he didn’t answer.

‘I have something for you,’ she called out. In answer, he turned the music up full blast, loud enough to drown out any further attempt at conversation. Honey shook her head and growled with frustration. He really was a nightmare neighbour. She bent and left the carrier leaning against his door, and after a few uncertain seconds she turned away and left him to stew in his misery.

Hal sat in the hard, unforgiving armchair with his forearms clamped against the sides of his head to drown out the noise of MTV and Strawberry Girl’s knocking. Only when he was sure he couldn’t take it any longer without putting his foot through the TV did he turn it off. The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the music. Was she still out there, waiting for him? He sat stock still and listened for a while until he was sure she’d gone, then sat there some more with his head in his sore hands, for some considerable time. He wanted a drink. He needed whisky, but the empty bottle was on his bedside table after he’d tipped the last of it into his mouth last night. He ran through his options in his head. Go without. Not an option. He could call someone, but who?

His close friends would no doubt feel duty bound to let his worried family know where he was, and anyone who didn’t care very much about him would value the gossip above his friendship. Poor old Hal, living in a grotty flat with just a whisky bottle to talk to. Such a shame.

No, calling someone he knew was out of the question. Maybe he could just go out in the street and hope that some kindly passer-by took pity on him enough to take his twenty-pound note and fetch his whisky? He thumped the arm of the chair in temper. How low did he have to go with this fucking thing? It scared him that as low as he was, there were still further depths to which he could plummet. There was only one option available to him; he’d known it even as his mind had cast around for alternatives. Strawberry Girl. He scrubbed his hands over his face and pulled his dark glasses over his eyes, then heaved himself out of the chair and along the hallway which had fast become familiar territory.

Hal paused as his fingers found the catch on the door. He hadn’t stepped foot outside since he’d knocked her flowers over. Apprehension encroached on his psyche, but he shoved it aside. He wasn’t going to become that man.

He swung the door open and stepped out, then lost his footing over something and slammed hard onto the floor.

Honey heard the almighty crash as she wandered out of the steamed-up bathroom in her dressing gown with a towel wrapped around her hair, still hot from the shower. She dashed for the front door without thinking, and opened it to find her neighbour sprawled face down across the floor, surrounded by the antiseptic cream and bandages she’d left for him.

‘Go back inside and shut your fucking door right now!’ he roared at her without looking up as his hands scrabbled around on the floor for something.

‘What? No, let me help …’ Honey’s hands flew to her cheeks in panic. It went against her every instinct to leave him there, but she was under no illusion – he meant exactly what he’d said. She stepped forward, and her toes touched against something unexpected. When she looked down, she found his dark glasses about to disappear beneath her foot. She bent and picked them up, relieved to find they were still intact.

‘Here.’ She held them out to him, and at the sound of her voice he went from groping around on the floor to absolutely bone still.

‘My glasses?’

Honey nodded, then after a beat she let out the softest of gasps at the significance of him needing to ask the question. ‘Oh.’

He reached out towards her without looking up. ‘Give them to me.’

She stepped out of her doorway and placed them in his fingers. He grabbed them and shoved them onto his face, then rolled over and scooted back against the wall, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

Honey moved quietly around him, collecting up the chemist supplies back into the bag and putting them on the hall table. Shit. Why couldn’t she have just left them there in the first place?

‘I brought you bandages. And antiseptic. It was for your hands,’ she murmured, knowing it was insignificant. ‘I’m sorry.’

He made a guttural sound and scruffed up his hair with his fingers.

‘I was wrong when I called you a girl guide. You’re way beyond that. You’re a regular Mother fucking Teresa.’

Honey hesitated, unsure whether to stay or go. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Not setting up any more obstacle courses in the bloody hallway would be a good start.’

‘Deal.’ Honey realised in that tiny moment of thaw that she didn’t even know his name. ‘I’m Honey, by the way.’

‘Well, that’s ridiculous. What’s your real name?’

‘Honey is my real name. Well, it’s Honeysuckle, actually.’

‘Fuck me. That’s even more ridiculous.’

Honey was well used to her name being cause for comment, yet still his blatant derision riled her. ‘Just another thing about me to annoy you then, rock star.’

‘“Rock star”?’

‘Yeah. That’s your name in my head. Mostly because you’re an arrogant twat who swears all the time and drinks whisky for breakfast.’

‘I’ll take that,’ he said. ‘Or Hal. Just in case you ever feel the need to revise your opinion.’

‘Where were you going?’

‘To knock on your door.’

‘To apologise about the flowers?’

‘Not fucking likely. Do you have any whisky?’

Honey contemplated her answer. She didn’t. She did, however, have an almost-full bottle of tequila in the back of the cupboard, but enabling a drunk felt wrong. Was he a drunk? He certainly seemed to drink enough to qualify for the title. ‘Not whisky, no.’

‘But you do have something?’

Honey sighed. He might not be able to see her expression, but her voice had obviously given her away and lying wasn’t her strong point. ‘I have tequila.’

‘Thank fuck. Can I have it?’

‘Mother Teresa wouldn’t give it to you.’

‘Will you give it to me if I apologise?’

‘For smashing my jug, or for calling me Mother Teresa?’

‘Either. Both. Hell, I’ll even apologise for the fact that your mother named you Honeysuckle if you give me tequila.’

‘Do you have lemon and salt?’

He lifted his head towards Honey slowly, and even though his eyes were hidden behind his glasses she could clearly read the incredulous look on his face. For a second she thought he was going to yell again, and then he started to laugh. And not just a snicker. A great, huge, belly laugh that shook his shoulders first, then his entire body, and it went on and on uncontrollably until tears poured down his face.

Honey didn’t laugh with him, because it was pretty obvious that despite his current appearance, her mysterious neighbour was far from amused.

She slipped into her flat to dig the tequila out of the cupboard. When she returned to the hallway Hal had pulled himself up to standing and almost pulled himself together, although tear streaks still dredged across his face.

‘Tequila,’ Honey said, and stepped close enough to touch his arm. He took the bottle she placed into his hand with muttered thanks. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ she asked. ‘You know, any help with … stuff?’

Hal huffed. ‘Don’t start the Mother Teresa thing again just because you know I’m blind.’

‘I won’t. I still think you’re an arrogant twat who drinks too much.’

The smallest twitch of humour tugged at the corner of Hal’s mouth. ‘And I still think you’re a frustrated girl guide with a stupid name.’

‘Good. Then we understand each other.’

‘Don’t bang on my door again.’

Honey watched him turn and walk away, staying close to the wall until he reached his own doorway. ‘Fine. But shout if you need anything.’

‘I won’t need anything you could possibly give me, Honeysuckle,’ he said, his voice low and gravelly. He clicked the door closed, leaving Honey alone in the hall – a little enlightened, a little troubled, and, strangely, a little in lust.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.