Always Mr. Wrong (7 page)

“You look fantastic, Coleman.”

In a weird way, I knew I did, wearing
Eleanor’s hipster jeans, a tight fitting sweater, and her cool
embroidered denim jacket. Since the break-up with Guy, I’d lost
some weight, two dress sizes to be accurate. I seriously needed a
new wardrobe of clothes.

“Not as good as you. Look at you all bronzed
and toned.” For the first time in three weeks I became conscious of
how much I was smiling and actually not only liking myself but what
I saw in front of me.
Boy, he’s hot. Even the old woman standing
behind him is checking out his tight, firm, jean clad butt. And
look at those pecks. Jeepers creepers, he’s sexy with a capital
S.

It was true. Timothy Knowles had gone from a
skinny not-bad-looking teenager to a hottie. I still saw a few of
my male school friends, but age was not on their side. Receding
hairlines, flabby love handles and all had that same grey look of
exhaustion that life had treated them badly.

“Whatever you have been up to certainly
agrees with you.”

“Freelance photographer actually. I’ve just
got back after six months travelling. Australia, Fiji, New
Zealand...”

“Stop, stop, you’re making me green with
jealousy. The furthest I’ve been in years was a weekend to Paris
last month with Guy, my...” My voice began to crack, and tears
began to well up in my eyes.
Would I ever again be able to
mention his name without crying?
“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Clare.” His hand reached out and
softly patted my arm. “I’m sorry. I totally understand. That was
the whole reason I went away. My ex and I broke up last year. It’s
hard.”

“Scuse me, I’m sorry that you’ve both been
dumped,” said the genuine voice of the cashier, “but I have a queue
here.”

I looked over Timothy’s shoulder through
blurred vision. Sure enough there was a queue weaving its way down
past the frozen veg.

“Sorry,” he shouted down the queue, “Not seen
this sexy, gorgeous woman in years.” His electrifying smile caused
the women to smile, no doubt craving themselves a handsome man from
their past to appear in their mundane lives from nowhere, bringing
a glimmer of excitement and the chance to once again feel sexy and
adored.

“Here, let me help you, Clare. I’ll unload,
and you pack.” He placed a large bunch of flowers, a bottle of
champagne and a box of chocolates in the child seat of my
trolley.

My mind wandered for a moment. I wondered if
Guy on that infamous Sunday had used the same checkout as me. If he
had chatted to the woman in front of him?

“Your new girlfriend?” I inquired, nodding to
the items in the baby seat that I knew would, from now on in
my
cart, be a place only for my handbag.
Stop, stop, it.
Stop thinking of Guy. It’s over.

“No, my Mum. Humble offerings for forgetting
to buy her a toy kangaroo and not sending postcards.”

“You could have gone to ten items or less,” I
said, pointing over to the next cashier twiddling her thumbs.

“Yes but then I would not have chatted to you
and be able to ask you out on Saturday night. Sorry, babe, you’re
still as hot as Vindaloo, but I can see what you really need is a
night out.”

“Put your damn items on my bill. We’ve held
these people up long enough.”
Was he serious about asking me
out?
I took a sneaky look at him as I packed the last of my
bags. He gave me the notorious Knowles wink, the wink that at
school had always sent me crazy. And I knew he was about to lead me
astray.
And quite possibly will do again.

* * * *

Timothy had been so right. A night in
London’s West End was just what I needed. Drinks in Leicester
Square, dinner in the Haymarket, finishing the night off dancing at
a Spanish bar in Crompton Street. Loving the buzz, meeting new
people, I completely forgot about Guy. On the cab ride home, I was
not sure if I was intoxicated from the amount of alcohol I’d
consumed or on an adrenaline rush from the whole night that led to
the kissing and light petting in the back seat and not protesting
when it pulled up outside Timothy’s apartment building.

When Timothy had told me earlier he liked
minimalistic living space, he was not joking. The large spacious
open plan apartment held the biggest bed I’d ever seen and a TV the
size of IMAX. It did occur to me, as I looked around, that maybe
his ex had taken the rest of the furniture.

As I looked around for somewhere to put my
coat and bag—the whole floor space was littered with open
suitcases, photography equipment, clothes strewed all over the
floor, pizza boxes and take away cartons—Timothy must have read my
mind. “Sorry about the mess,” he called from the bathroom. “I’m in
between cleaners,” he laughed.

And decorators, too,
I thought,
folding up my D&G jacket and putting it carefully onto a stack
of magazines.

“Still got your kit on? Come on, babe, I’m
like a ram rod here.”

Turning swiftly I gasped. Timothy in nothing
but his shirt and poking out beneath a stonking aluminous green
erection. It took all my efforts not to laugh out, the green condom
making his penis look like a light-saber. Well, the shear sight of
it was certainly not what I expected a
Princess Liar
fantasy
to be like.

Before I could catch my breath, I found
myself being propelled onto the bed. My head fell into a mound of
duvet which smelt like sweaty feet and pizza. One of his hands
fumbled with my skirt, the other seemed to be rummaging around in
the duvet above my head. His technique had not changed since
college as he groped around the crouch of my panties. Not that I’d
ever been all the way with Timothy, but some heavy petting had
taken place.

“Got it.” He shouted jubilantly. The room
filled with the sound of heavy moaning coming from the television.
As he lifted himself slightly to pull down my panties I could just
see over his shoulder. Two women and a man in what looked like a
very uncomfortable position.

“Bloody hell, is that porn?”

“I love it. Don’t you, babe? This will get
the old juices flowing.”

“No, it sodding well won’t,” I denied,
squirming under him to get up.

“Baby, what’s the problem? All I need is two
thrusts.”

“I bet you do.” Kneeing him in the groin, he
rolled over, moaning in agony. “Sorry, Timothy, this was a big
mistake.” I readjusted my underwear and grabbed my coat and
bag.

“You always were a frigid bitch,” he yelled
as I slammed the door.

* * * *

“Where to, love?” asked the kind looking cab
driver.

I hadn’t a bleeding clue. Where was I going?
All my adult life I thought I was heading for the right place, but
when I finally got there, it was never what I’d expected.

Before my ex-husband Phil, I had thought that
Garry Vincent was
the
man.
A finical wizard in the
city I had met at a friend of a friend’s party. He was tall, dark,
and handsome. Body beautiful, not a flaw could you find and the
stamina of an Olympic athlete when it came to sex. However, Garry
was the kind of guy that would ring me up on a Wednesday, promising
to take me to a great romantic restaurant on Friday night. Saturday
morning as I still sat dressed and waiting in floods of tears on my
sofa, he would call and say, ‘Sorry, the guys thought it would be
fun to spend a boozy weekend camping and fishing in Scotland. I’ll
call you Monday, babe. We’ll do something really special.’

For a year, every Saturday morning I would
sit on my sofa crying, waiting for that something special to
happen. Monday night, full of life, he would arrive at my place.
After great sex, he would hold me in his arms and apologize. “It
will never happen again,” he would say. But the following Saturday
he would call and say, “But what can I do? It’s the guys. They’d
think me a prat if I said no because I had to take my girlfriend
out.”

I would say it was fine, hoping and praying
that Garry would change. Finally, after another six months of Jess
and my other friends telling me he never would change, his
so-called
Guys
were more important than me, I finally began
to see the light. However, on the Saturday morning I planned to
tell Garry it was over, I waited and waited for him to call. From
that day on, I never heard from him again.

Then Phil my husband...well, you know about
him! And then tonight the whole Timothy fiasco. What had I been
thinking? He was a thirty-something man still trapped in a
seventeen-year-old mind. He hadn’t moved on. Let’s face it, his
bloody moves hadn’t even moved on. What was wrong with me? Why was
every man I met
always Mr. Wrong?
Or maybe, this time it was
me that had it so wrong?

* * * *

“Are you out of your frigging mind, Clare?
It’s silly o’clock in the morning, for heaven’s sake. Have you even
considered Guy may not be home, or that
he
may have
someone
there?” Her screech through the cell rattled in my
ear.

Eleanor might as well have kicked me in the
stomach while I was already down.
I’d never even thought about
Guy having another woman.

“Clare, you are the sensible one. You’re
freaking me out here. Just tell the driver to turn the cab around
and go home. Call Guy when you have a clear head.”

“But we are almost there, and what if I
change my mind?” This was not the time for my sister to be acting
like bloody Mother Superior despite the fact her whole life had
been built on irrational decisions.

“Go home, Clare.” The line went dead.

* * * *

For the umpteenth time I looked at the clock
on my kitchen wall. Five-thirty. Five minutes since I’d last looked
at it. I walked back into the kitchen and felt the kettle. It was
still boiling hot from the coffee I’d had five minutes ago. Any
more caffeine and I’d be walking the walls. Suddenly the kitchen
door opened.

My bottom lip began to quiver. “Sorry it’s so
early, but I needed to talk. Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for calling. You sounded like you
needed a friend.”

Moments seemed to pass where neither of us
knew what to say next. While I’d been waiting I’d told myself to be
cool, calm and collected. This was no time to get emotional. It
started with the lump in my throat, a tight constriction that made
it impossible to swallow. Then came the shaking inside from the
tips of my toes to the top of my head.

“Oh, Guy.” I felt a pathetic mess as I stood
there, tears welling in my eyes, now physically shaking.

He lunged forward, taking me in his arms.
“It’s okay. I’m here. Whatever is upsetting you, we can sort it out
together.”

“You don’t understand,” I sobbed into his
chest. “I thought you were like all the others. Garry who never
took me to that special place, a philandering husband, and a
very
bad Star wars fantasy that involved porn and a luminous
condom.”

Very softly, Guy pulled away from me. I
looked up and knew by the bewilderment in his eyes that right now I
sounded like a crazy woman.

“I understand the husband part and maybe the
Garry part, but I’m not sure I want to know about the Star Wars
thing, do I?”

Shit, shit and double shit. Perhaps too much
information. How could I explain that the last scenario of my
relationships had happened only a few hours ago? That was beyond
forgiveness. If I was shaking now it was out of fear I had given
out a little too much information.

“Perhaps not.” My composure had suddenly
returned. “What I was trying to say is, I thought every man was Mr.
Wrong, but Guy,
you
are my Mr. Right.” Lifting up on my toes
to reach his face, I cupped my hands around his cheeks. “I made a
big mistake. Can you find it in your heart to take me back and
start again?”

Even though his eyes watered over as I spoke,
there was not a hint of emotion on his face. “No, Clare,”

I could feel my heart literally breaking
inside my chest. As each piece fell away my insides became emptier
and emptier.

“We can’t go back, but we can move on from
where we left off, the part when I ask you to marry me. But this
time only marriage. No houses, no au pairs, and no babies.”

Flinging my arms around his neck, I smothered
him in kisses. Taking a breath, I tilted my head back to look at
him. “Guy Foreman, I would love to marry you.”

His mouth came down on mine, and his hot
tongue plunged into my mouth, rolling it around mine. His hands
tugged at my shirt, pulling it out of my skirt. This was no
schoolboy fumble as his fingers unzipped my skirt with expertise,
cupping his large hands around my bottom, pulling me into his
firmness.

Kissing down my neck, nuzzling at my ear, his
hot breath filled my body with a blazing desire of passion.
Yes,
this was an experienced man, but I was right. This was the man I
wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

“Clare,” he whispered seductively. “I love
you so much I want you right here, right now.”

Not sure of what happened next, I recall
sweeping the kitchen table clear of the fruit bowl and magazines.
It all seemed to happen in a sexual frenzy of passion, lust, and
confirming our love to each other. However, the next thing I
recalled was Guy and me naked on the kitchen table, Guy on top of
me, a bottle of chocolate sauce, and a trifle Sponge Finger in his
hands. I lay with my head hanging off the edge of the table,
squealing in pleasure as Eleanor walked through the doorway.

As casual as if Guy and I were playing
scrabble she asked, “Do you two ever lock a door?”

About the Author

Joanne Rawson was born and brought up in Derbyshire England.
After leaving college in 1984, she headed off to be an au pair in
the Loire Valley, France for one year. Returning to England, Joanne
worked for Derbyshire Education Authority in special education and
then for Derbyshire Social Services, working with adults with
learning and physical difficulties. In 2005, Joanne and her husband
gave up their hectic lifestyle, after ten years of managing branded
restaurants around London’s M25, and now spends her time in
England, Goa and Malaysia, writing romantic novels and short
stories.