Read Love You Better for Free Online Page A

him, expecting to see the know-it-all smirk, but instead all she saw were his eyes searching hers. She sighed and leaned back against the wall.
    ‘This conversation is irrelevant. We were never a real couple – you were pretty clear about that. And you left. You made your decision, and I made mine.’
    ‘It wasn’t like I had a choice.’
    She pushed herself off the wall. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. You’re always surrounded by drama. You left, and you know what? It was the best thing you could’ve done, because I’m happy. I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted. Love, happiness – stability.’
    ‘Stability? You’re twenty-five, not forty-five. Is that why you got a ring on your finger? Did he promise you a house and two- point-fi ve kids? Yearly holidays to the Bahamas?’
    A house, kids and holidays. Yes, it was what she wanted. She wanted stability. She needed it, and Smith leaving had made her realise that he could never have been the one to give it to her. Like fate, she’d met Oliver a month later, and he’d offered to give her everything she’d ever wanted. At the time it had felt like pure romance, but now Smith was back, gazing at her with that look of his, the one that always made her feel like he was undressing her with his eyes, Oliver’s romancing suddenly felt like the dullest thing in the worl d.
    ‘I would have given you all that. You know I would. Screw the Bahamas, I’d have given you the world.’
    ‘I’d like to know how, exactly, when you couldn’t even bring yourself to call me your girlfriend?’
    ‘Don’t do that, Eff.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t make out that what we had didn’t mean anything. I know you, and I know you don’t belong in some rich boy’s la-la land. I know he can’t make you h appy.’
    ‘And why is that?’ she replied with her hands on her hips.
    ‘Because, Effie, he’s not me.’
    The way he said her name made her flinch. It had fallen from his mouth like molten gold, and she wished she hadn’t noticed, just like she wished she could pretend her skin wasn’t burning as he ran a thumb across her cheekbone and down to her lower lip. Why was she letting him do this? Her heart was beating so hard, it almost tripped itself up, but she jerked her head away. She was over him. She didn’t want him. And she was married – he was stepping way over the line.
    ‘Stop it, Smith. I mean it. You can’t just come back and derail my life.’
    ‘I’m not derailing anything; you’ve done that yourself. We might not have been conventional, but we worked, and you know it. ’
    ‘No, we didn’t. You’re right about one thing, though. Oliver isn’t you and that’s why we work better than you and I ever did.’ She barged past him and stopped by the door, looking at him with as much bravado as she could muster. ‘Stay away from me, Smith. I do n’t need your shit in my life anymore.’

5.
    A few days later, Effie swore as she untangled the set of fairy lights at her feet. Last year, she’d put up her artificial tree and hung pound shop ornaments on it. This year, things were different and altogether classier. At least, she hoped it would be. She’d spent an hour in John Lewis, trying to decide which decorations to buy, staying as far away as possible from anything with even a hint of gaudiness about it.
    After untangling the lights, she strung them up around the windows and looked outside, watching a plastic bag being pushed along the pavement by the wind. The sky was a depressing shade of grey, and their honeymoon in sunny Thailand felt like a million years ago. Oliver had worked late almost every night since, and she tried to shake the feeling of loneliness that had settled over her for the past few days.
    She hung the silver and blue baubles on the eight-foot Norwegian spruce standing in the corner of the living room, before looking at the small, wooden nutcracker princes next to the white candles on top of the fireplace. Would Oliver like it?