Read Married by Christmas for Free Online Page B

things at exactly the same time:
yes
, you can get a slutty Martha after all, and
yes
, it would be possible to turn that coat and its contents into roadkill with one judiciously applied shove under that oncoming bus.
    ‘So sorry I’m late, darling,’ Slutty Martha gushed, pulling a face, oblivious to her audience. ‘You know what it’s like getting a cab at this time of year and, darling, I
couldn’t
do the tube, not even for you.’
    ‘Martha,’ Tom said awkwardly. ‘Um, this is my friend Liv, and this is Anna … my fiancée.’ The redhead’s plucked brows soared into her hairline at the news, but nevertheless she smiled as pleasantly as someone who’s face had clearly been paralysed with Botox was able to, and held out a hand to Anna to shake, which Anna eyed as if she were considering biting it off.
    ‘Anna, this is Martha Tyburn,’ Tom said, his cheeks blazing with colour. ‘We were at uni together.’
    ‘Anna,’ Martha said, finally grabbing Anna’s hand from where it languished at her side, and shaking it hard. ‘I had no idea you knew! Well, I must say you are being awfully calm about it. Well done you, if it was me I’d have him strung up by the testicles by now.’
    ‘Know what?’ Anna said, snatching her hand away and thrusting it deep in her pocket, exchanging a wary glance with Liv.
    ‘She doesn’t know,’ Tom mumbled, looking in the opposite direction, as if he were contemplating his chances of making a run for it. ‘I haven’t told her yet.’
    ‘Know what?’ Anna all but shouted, causing one or two of the passing shoppers to glance her way. ‘What don’t I know, Tom? Please tell me, because I can’t take it any more!’
    ‘Oh dear,’ Martha said, with obvious relish. ‘I’m afraid our darling Tom here has gotten himself into rather a pickle.’
    ‘What the hell have you done, Tom?’ Liv asked him, with more than a little menace in her tone.
    ‘I got married!’ Tom blurted out, almost shouted in the street, as the Christmas lights twinkled above their heads and the Salvation Army band started playing ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’. And yet all of that noise and bustle receded in an instant and all Anna could hear were those three little words hanging in the air.
    ‘No,’ she said, so quietly it was scarcely more than a whisper. ‘No, you mean you are
getting
married. To me. In a week’s time.’
    ‘Anna.’ Tom said her name softly, taking her arm and leading her away from Martha and Liv, into the relative privacy of a shop door.
    ‘I mean I got married almost eight years ago now.’ Seeing the expression of shock that was spreading over Anna’s face, Tom could only keep talking. ‘In America, in Vegas actually. It was in a lap-dancing club. I never ever thought it was actually legal; it was more just a joke than anything. But there it was nagging away in the back of my mind, so a couple of weeks ago I thought I’d get Martha to check it out for me – she’s a solicitor, does family law. I brought her the scrappy old bit of paper I signed afterwards to take a look at. It’s difficult to read because I knocked a pina colada all over it, but anyway Martha took one look at it and, well, it was bad news. She told me it was legally binding, even if it was officiated by the club’s barman. As far as the law is concerned I am still married.’
    Anna stared blindly at Tom as he took her face between his freezing hands and delivered the final blow.
    ‘Anna, I’m so sorry but I already have a wife. She was a showgirl.’
    ‘But her name wasn’t Lola,’ Martha added helpfully. ‘No, Mrs Tom Collins is one Charisma Jones.’
    ‘Dough balls?’ the waiter asked. Anna looked at him blankly, her mind still reeling from the news that it simply could not compute. Ever since she was a little girl, Anna had always prepared herself for the worst. She had always lain awake every night, making list after list of every conceivable thing she could imagine that could go