When You Were Mine by Lisa Swift

Author:Lisa Swift
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912973156
Publisher: Canelo Books
Published: 2019-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Maggie pulled out her mobile. No messages. Ibby had been due to meet her in Fuzzy Duck’s half an hour ago. Held up by his mum while dropping Amelia off, she guessed. Suze Ibbotson could chat for England.

She wished he’d get a shift on. She was bored of sitting on her own, and Other Max and Nicki weren’t arriving for an hour.

A red-haired girl slid onto the stool next to Maggie’s. She didn’t look much more than twenty and had obviously been out for some time, if the state of her drooping eyelids was anything to go by. She pulled out her purse and blinked at the contents, applying her tipsy maths to the handful of coins.

Maggie smiled to herself. The girl was a student, she’d bet anything. That’d been her fifteen years ago, coppering up for just one more.

‘Couldn’t lend us twenty pee, could you, hun?’ the student slurred. ‘I’m just short of a small pinot.’

‘I think I can spare that.’ Maggie rummaged in her jeans pocket and handed over a fistful of change. ‘There you go, all yours.’

The girl beamed as she examined the coins, calculating that she now had enough for an upgrade to a large pinot. ‘Cheers.’ She glanced over Maggie’s shoulder, noticing she was alone. ‘Oh sorry, were you saving this seat for someone?’

‘My friend, but he’s running late. Take it, please.’ Maggie shot the girl a friendly grin. ‘Maggie.’

‘Julia. Thanks for the drink, Maggie.’

‘No worries.’

Julia stared intently into Maggie’s face, or as intently as she could through the wine haze. ‘Hey,’ she said suddenly. ‘I know you from somewhere. Don’t I?’

Maggie stiffened. Her friendly grin disappeared.

‘Absolutely not. You’ve never seen me before in your life.’

‘I do, you’ve been on telly or something. Were you on Britain’s Got Talent?’

‘Sadly not. Apparently the ability to gargle Ed Sheeran hits with Heineken doesn’t cut it, or so my daughter tells me.’

‘Ooh! Are you that double rollover winner?’ Julia scanned the coins in her palm. ‘Should’ve held out for a fiver.’

‘I wish.’ Maggie let out a resigned sigh. ‘I suppose you’ll work it out eventually. I’m Jordan Nash’s ex-girlfriend, Maggie Nightingale. Old news round here now.’

‘Bloody hell! You’re Magdalena? The Magdalena? You jammy mare!’

‘Yeah. Jammy old me.’

Julia lowered her voice. ‘So what’s Jordan like in real life?’

‘He is – was – kind of sweet, I guess. When he wasn’t being a total arsehole, anyway. The answer to that depends on when you catch me, to be honest.’

‘How come you broke up? Did he cheat on you?’

Alarm bells started to ring in the back of Maggie’s brain. She looked up to meet Julia’s too-innocent green eyes.

‘No,’ Maggie said cautiously. ‘It’s what he started doing to himself that was the problem.’

‘The drugs, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But before that, what was he like? He obviously never got over you.’

Maggie flashed Julia a brilliant smile. If Ibby had been there, he’d have recognised that as the signal to drag his friend away before she got herself into trouble. But Ibby wasn’t there.

‘Well, he was fantastic in bed.

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