Not OK Cupid: A sparkling rom-com you won't want to put down! Read online

  ‘I was going to break up with you, I swear, but then Gavin started making digs about how far out of my league you are, and how you’d leave me for someone better-looking. So I made us more and more in love. Please don’t be angry, you know I—’

  Ally clamped a hand over his mouth. ‘You know, I’m so damn impressed you’ve got away with this that I can’t be angry. Man, how did you do it? Haven’t they wanted to meet me before this?’

  ‘Of course. But you’ve been working so hard at your career, and you had a few placements at different hospitals around the country. It’s amazing we lasted through all that long-distance stuff. We must really be in love. But Gavin keeps hinting so I agreed to bring you today . . .’

  So that’s why the big fat liar wanted her to go with him, not for moral support. Well, probably a bit of both. Gavin still terrified him, even though he was no longer a nervous schoolboy.

  ‘Hang on.’ Ally frowned. ‘Did you say hospitals? And career? What career?’

  ‘I told them you’re a nurse.’

  ‘Hey! What’s wrong with my real job?’

  Sam winced. ‘Nothing. It’s just that you’re so caring and sweet. The perfect nurse. And, uh, Gavin’s fiancée is a lawyer . . .’

  ‘Oh, and being a starving artist isn’t as impressive as being a lawyer?’

  ‘I should’ve saved the lolly for this bit.’

  ‘Does that mean you didn’t bring any more gifts? No, don’t answer that. You’re not distracting me with lollies. You didn’t think this through, did you? I can hardly keep my story straight when I’m telling the truth. And what if one of your relatives shows me a rash and asks me to diagnose it?’

  Sam shuddered. ‘I don’t know. Just never, ever describe it to me.’

  ‘Ugh. Are we going to have a fake wedding when they start hinting?’

  ‘Uh, about that . . .’ He rubbed his chin.

  ‘Please tell me we’re not married?’

  ‘Not yet. But I proposed to you a few months ago.’

  ‘Oh, Sam. You muppet.’

  ‘Look, Mum and Dad have been talking more since Gavin and Kaitlyn’s engagement. This party is the first time they’ll have been in the same room in months. If they see us as well, all these happy couples, they’ll remember why they got together in the first place and Dad might come to his senses, finally. Please, Ally. Mum needs him.’

  Ally sighed. ‘I am not having a fake wedding. Or a real one. When I become a world-famous artist, you’re not getting half my paintings.’ She shook her head at the window. Sam was usually so sensible, giving her a familiar, weary look when she confessed the latest foolish thing she’d done. But he wasn’t sensible where his brother was concerned, forever seeking the prat’s approval. If this was what it took to save him from Gavin’s taunts, then fine.

  She hopped up and looked down at her dress. Perhaps not ideal for meeting-the-parents; it just about reached mid-thigh, and the strapless sweetheart neckline just about covered her breasts. But screw it, she looked good and it was a shame to cover up on a beautiful summer’s day. Or a day ending in Y. ‘Come on, dear fiancé, or we’ll be late.’

  Sam followed her down the hall, looking delighted. ‘You’ll do it?’

  Of course she would. She’d pretend to be a Teletubby if it would help Sam.

  But she would make him squirm by laying it on thick about how in love they were.

  She made a mental note to call their other best friend before he did. It would take some convincing for Rachel to believe Sam had come up with this hare-brained scheme, not Ally.

  ‘Ally?’

  She stopped, finding herself at the bottom of the stairs with Sam behind her, looking like a puppy who was trying so hard to be good and not snatch a treat.

  ‘Oh, of course I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘What are best friends for? But you owe me. Big time.’

  He kissed her cheek, grinning. ‘I do. I’ll let you name all our fake babies.’

  ‘Eurgh. No babies. Real or fake. Where is this party, anyway?’

  ‘At Mum’s. Essex.’

  Ally forced her outraged feet into high heels – dark blue, strappy, and doing wonderful things to her calves – and followed him outside to his Honda.

  ‘I get to control the radio today,’ she informed him. ‘For the rest of our lives, probably.’

  She tuned it to Heart FM, and Michael Bublé crooned at them. Sam’s eyes slid to the radio display, but he kept his mouth shut. Ally unwrapped her lolly and crossed her ankles on top of the glove compartment so the sun could catch them. She just had to remember to re-cross them every few minutes to get an even tan.

  ‘Ally?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Don’t flirt with my cousins, will you? They’re all arrogant pricks who’d only be interested in your body. Just your type.’

  ‘Hey!’

  Sam raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she conceded. ‘I won’t. Spoilsport. Do you actually like any of your family?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ He tapped the wheel. ‘My parents?’

  ‘Well, that’s a start. Do you really think they’d be upset if you come out?’

  The tapping stopped. ‘Mum would. She thinks it’s unnatural. Perverted. When we were kids Gavin used to call me a fag when we argued, and she’d get so angry. Say it was disgusting even to suggest it.’

  ‘Oh, Sam. But she loves you. She’d get over it.’

  Ally had only met Mrs Kinsell once. She and Rachel had gone to Sam’s place after school, back when the family lived in London. Mrs Kinsell, a petite woman with a strong limp who looked like a gust of wind might blow her away at any time, had hovered over them from the moment they arrived.

  She’d given them orange squash and mini packets of Haribo, then told them fond stories about Sam while he sat red-faced and radiated silent apologies. For dinner she’d fed them chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs with smiley potato faces on plastic neon plates, then insisted they go home for their bedtimes even though they were twelve and it was seven o’clock. They were out of the house before Sam’s dad was home from work.

  Even now he lived seventy miles away, Sam visited her weekly and called every other day. The strain of keeping up his lies must be awful.

  Ally squeezed Sam’s hand on the gearstick. ‘She’d come round.’

  ‘I don’t want to upset her. She’s really fragile. You’ll see.’

  And Sam blamed himself for her disability, even though it wasn’t his fault she’d had pregnancy complications. That was yet another reason for Ally to use an IUD, condoms, and take a monthly pregnancy test just in case the universe hated her.

  She was about to change the subject when ‘Islands in the Stream’ started playing, and she sang at the top of her lungs.

  Sam suffered in silence and didn’t even try to turn down the volume.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sam and Ally arrived an hour before the party was due to start. The house was a run-of-the-mill semi-detached, clad in white stucco with picture windows. Well-kept but unremarkable, apart from the flowers – bright pansies and geraniums in window boxes, pink and yellow roses entwined around trellises, chrysanthemums and gladioli and flowers she didn’t even know the name of in the borders around the driveway. It was surprising that Sam’s mum could look after all these plants, but she did a great job.

  ‘This’d make a great watercolour,’ she said.

  Sam wasn’t listening. He stared with tight lips at a red BMW on the driveway.

  ‘Gavin’s?’ she guessed.

  Sam made a noise that might’ve been a confirmation. Ally took his hand, squeezed it, and dragged him to the front door. While he prodded the bell as if it were a ruptured cyst, she breathed in the scent of roses.

  The door opened and Gavin smirked out at them. Ally was transported back fifteen years, watching him strut down the school corridor with a trio of giggling girls. Gavin would always pause to make them laugh by insulting his brother. Sam would stand and tak
e it, frowning at the tiled floor like he could make himself disappear with the power of thought. It was Ally who told Gavin to piss off to the STI clinic where he belonged, or something equally mature. It was always her who fought with him until he gave up. Or sometimes Rachel, all five-foot-two of her blazing at the bully.

  Even in appearance, Gavin hadn’t changed. A tailored suit made his skinny legs look even feebler, and he seemed to have slicked back his hair with lard.

  Ally tried her best to look besotted as she pressed herself against Sam.

  ‘Well, hello,’ Gavin said, looking Ally up and down. His gaze lingered for a moment on her cleavage. ‘Barbie’s finally come to meet the parents.’

  She stopped herself rolling her eyes. The nickname hadn’t been funny in school either, though Gavin found it ingenious. Instead, she beamed at him, full-on Stepford. ‘Gary! How simply wonderful to see you again.’

  The smirk slipped. ‘Gavin.’

  ‘Oh. Silly me. Of course. I’m always forgetting names. Hey, d’you remember Sara French from school? I saw her the other day in Waitrose, and I called her Sandra. Embarrassing. You know how you two dated for a while? Well, she came out as a lesbian soon after. Happily married to a woman called Jess now. Funny that, isn’t it?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Gavin stepped aside to let them in. His expression had soured.

  Sam leaned over to whisper in Ally’s ear as they walked. ‘I wish you’d bring mean Ally out more often. She’s sexy.’

  Ally tried to look offended. ‘I’m always sexy.’

  Gavin led them to the kitchen and introduced them to his fiancée, Kaitlyn. She was very pretty but spoiled her features by making a cat’s-bum face when she appraised Ally’s dress. Kaitlyn’s was a similar blue, and probably cost six times more than Ally’s, but it washed out her auburn hair and pale skin. She’d be a knockout in olive green.

  ‘We were so sad not to see you at Julie’s birthday party,’ said Kaitlyn. Ally sat next to her at the breakfast bar and held Sam’s clammy hand on her knee. ‘It was absolutely gorgeous. Gavin got a cake specially made, in the shape of her church. He’s so thoughtful.’ Kaitlyn simpered at him.

  ‘Ally was at work,’ Sam blurted out.

  Ally stroked his hand with her thumb. ‘Yeah, you know nurses. Always short-staffed. It’s hard to swap shifts. Being a lawyer must keep you busy.’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ Kaitlyn agreed. ‘Some days I don’t leave the office until nine p.m., do I, darling?’

  Gavin shook his head and winked at her as he lifted a cooler box on to the breakfast bar. ‘Don’t know when we’re going to find time to make a little Kinsell. When are you two getting hitched?’

  Sam was going to dehydrate if the rest of his body was sweating as much as his palm. Ally gripped it harder. ‘We’re in no hurry. We don’t need to prove anything with a bit of paper.’

  ‘Or a ring.’ Kaitlyn lifted up Ally’s free hand.

  Gavin’s eyes lit up. ‘Sam, you didn’t even get her a ring?’

  Ally tugged at the gold chain around her neck, dragging her nana’s antique sapphire ring from her cleavage. She put her best simpering smile on. ‘I keep it next to my heart.’

  Kaitlyn’s smirk vanished as she examined her own ring finger. The stone was significantly smaller than the sapphire. ‘How lovely.’

  Gavin’s eyes stayed on Ally’s cleavage as she tucked the ring back into her dress. It nestled beside the crystal pendant Mum had given her, which was supposed to protect her from energy vampires and . . . materialistic zombies, or something. Mum had explained, but Ally had been too distracted by the way the crystal caught the light and cast rainbows on the wall.

  They began unpacking food and drink from coolers. Ally stood between Sam and Gavin and kept up a flow of questions about the upcoming wedding. With Kaitlyn giving loud and detailed answers, there was no opportunity for Gavin to goad Sam.

  She was running out of questions when her clutch vibrated half an hour later. An unknown number. Probably someone replying to the advert Sam had helped her create.

  When she glanced at him, Sam pointed at a set of French doors. ‘Garden’s through there.’

  Ally kissed him on the cheek and squeezed his shoulder on her way out. Gavin couldn’t do much damage if she was quick.

  ‘Ally Rivers,’ she answered in her best phone voice.

  The woman on the line had seen Ally’s ad – result! – and wanted a portrait of her baby – sigh. Ally shut the kitchen doors behind her and followed a set of stepping stones to the sunny side of the house.

  ‘Wow,’ she mouthed. The sun beat down on a trimmed lawn, bordered by curved flowerbeds full of beautiful shrubbery. The only flowers were wild daisies, buttercups and dandelions. The rest was greenery in shades from chromium oxide to ultramarine.

  She was too enraptured to notice the gardener until she’d taken in all the plants. He knelt at a flowerbed with his back to her, dark hair shining in the sun. Beneath a forest green T-shirt she noted a broad back and thick, tanned forearms.

  Oh man, those arms. He ripped weeds out of the rich soil with a power that made her toes curl. Solid muscle flexed and relaxed in rhythm with his gloved hands. Judging by the rugged skin he was older than she usually went for, perhaps early forties, but he’d aged like a fine wine. Mature guys might be better in bed – less wham, bam, thank you, ma’am than the twenty-somethings. Trying an older guy would be a novel experience anyway, and she was running out of those.

  ‘Excuse me? Are you listening?’ snapped the woman on the phone.

  Ally blinked, and strained to recall what she’d been saying. ‘Yes, sorry. You want a picture of your . . . baby?’

  The gardener looked round at the noise and smiled at Ally. Oh man. He was definitely her type, and definitely not too old. A younger man’s smile wouldn’t make his eyes crinkle at the corners in that rugged, George Clooney kind of way.

  ‘Right,’ said the customer. ‘Can you do the seventh of August?’

  ‘Let me check my calendar,’ Ally replied. She didn’t even own a calendar. Gardener Clooney watched her with an amused grin as she counted up to ten with her fingers. His strong jaw was dark with stubble and his eyes were a deep brown. Like a Jersey cow. Jerseys were the best.

  ‘August the seventh will be gorgeous.’ She frowned. Something hadn’t come out right there. She forced her eyes away from Gardener Clooney’s. ‘I mean, August will have gorgeous weather, so if you’re planning to do it outside we’ll need some cover.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ snapped the woman on the phone. ‘I have kept her alive for nearly a year and I don’t need parenting advice. Are you sure you’re a qualified artist?’

  ‘Positive.’ Well, she was, since being an artist didn’t require any qualifications. ‘I just wondered if you wanted me to bring a parasol.’

  Mother-of-the-year was placated. Ally let her eyes drift back to Gardener Clooney as they finalised the details. He stared at her with crinkled eyes, his muscular arms propped on one knee.

  Ally hung up and dropped the phone back in her clutch.

  ‘You’re an artist,’ George observed in a voice like molten chocolate.

  ‘You must be a detective.’ Ally searched his left hand for a ring, but it was hidden in a gardening glove. A large gardening glove.

  ‘Do you only paint babies?’ he asked.

  ‘Nope. I try to avoid it actually. Squirmy little beasts, and you never make them quite beautiful enough for the parents. Even when you don’t paint the drool or flecks of vomit.’

  His laugh was deep and sexy. This could last a few months – until they inevitably got bored of the sex and realised they had nothing in common – if those hands lived up to expectations.

  And if there wasn’t a ring on one of them.

  ‘What about pets?’ he asked.

  ‘I love painting pets. They’re much easier than kicky little babies. Clients just give me a couple of photos and tell me what they want the picture to look like.’

>   ‘You don’t paint them live?’

  ‘Nah. Hard to get them to sit still for that long. Hard for babies, too, but the parents always think they’re angels.’

  He stood and took a glove off to wipe his brow. The right glove, damn it, keeping his left ring-finger covered. ‘Could you paint a dog who only moves if her life’s in danger, or there’s peanut butter on offer?’

  ‘Any time! I love dogs.’

  ‘Good. I’ve got a cocker spaniel on her last legs, and I’ve been thinking about getting a picture to remember her by.’

  ‘Aw, I love cocker spaniels. You get a discount. I’ll charge the baby lady extra to make up for it.’

  He laughed. ‘Why did you agree to it, if you hate painting babies so much?’

  ‘I need the cash.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Saving up for something?’

  ‘Yup. Holiday. Sun, sea, sand and . . . sun.’

  He showed more of those white teeth. Strong teeth. Was he a biter? ‘You said sun twice.’

  ‘I really, really like . . . sun.’

  He blinked at her, then laughed. ‘Well, nothing wrong with that. Will you paint Debbie?’

  Ally reached into her bag and suppressed a smile. ‘You’d better give me your number.’ She unlocked her phone. ‘I’ll call and arrange a date.’

  Damn. Date. She was here as Sam’s date. No, his fiancée. She shouldn’t be flirting with his mum’s gardener. When she called she’d have to feel out how well he knew Mrs Kinsell and how likely he was to mention Ally. It’d be a shame not to try out those hands, but she wouldn’t risk Sam’s secret.

  Once she’d programmed his number she straightened her dress. ‘I’d better get back before they miss me.’

  ‘You’re here for the party?’

  Damn. If he knew about the party, he was at least on chatting terms with Mrs Kinsell.

  Ally nodded. ‘Happy weeding.’

  ‘Happy partying.’

  She wondered if he was looking at her butt or her bare legs as she took the stepping stones back to the kitchen door. Just before she rounded the corner she glanced back, but he wasn’t looking at her at all. He knelt on the grass, wrapping one gloved hand around a weed.