Hate to Love You(5)

“Have you found a job yet, Paisley or are you going back to college?”

Spiteful cow. I dragged a smile onto my face and turned around. “I’m between miseries at the moment, and rehab was a bitch with a whip.”

From the expression on Caroline’s face she’d told James I was a tramp but hadn’t filled him in on my drug addiction. Good. If he wanted to think badly of me he might as well base his opinion on reality, not on Caroline’s fabrications.

My mother barely managed to contain her glare. “Paisley’s going back to school next term. She’s got an interview tomorrow morning at Brighton Technical College. Secretarial studies.”

I squeezed onto the sofa next to James while my parents outlined my lack of academic ambition and my utter disinterest in joining salaried drudgery. The spicy smell of James’s expensive aftershave stuck in my nostrils, doing nothing to dispel my underlying awareness of him.

He shifted around to look at me. “You were planning to live on social benefits?”

Underneath his politeness lurked a censorious tone that set my teeth on edge. “It’s the underclass way, isn’t it?”

Caroline sighed to show how much she cared. “Paisley struggled in school but we’re hoping she’ll find a course to match her abilities.”

Great, now I was stupid as well as lazy.

I sat up and pitched my voice to infomercial perfect. “Secretaries are employed in an extensive spectrum of industry and commerce, from international business to the creative arts, using a broad variety of eclectic skills.”

The corners of James’s mouth curled up and I shrugged. I’d read the college brochure with my friend Tarzan. Well, he wasn’t really a friend, more like a guy I’d met at rehab who I hung out with to heckle bad porn and moan about life. His parents had told him to get a job, study something or get out, just as mine had.

We’d gone for the easy option. Closing his eyes, he’d grabbed a Brighton College brochure and picked a course for me at random and then I returned the favour. I nearly shit myself laughing when my finger landed on Religious Studies. He said he’d give it a whirl.

Caroline gave me a condescending look. “I suppose everybody needs a secretary, especially lawyers. What would we do without someone to answer the phone and bring in the lunch orders?”

I rolled my eyes. “Duh, not have any work and go hungry.”

James laughed and an elegant tinkle came out of Caroline’s mouth. Sitting next to James was making me feel feverish so I got up to lean against the front window. My mother shifted uncomfortably and nudged my father.

“Caroline says you’re a Catholic, James,” he said gruffly.

If James was startled at my father’s abruptness it didn’t show. “My mother’s from Italy and brought me up a Catholic, yes.”

“And your father?”

His smile was charm itself. “He died when I was two but I understand he was a sinful atheist. That’s where I got my devilish traits, if my mother is to be believed. I was a difficult child.”

He shook his head in mock self-admonishment and grinned, making my pulse jump. I could totally see him as a young boy getting into lots of trouble, bright green eyes professing innocence while he hid the evidence behind his back.#p#分页标题#e#

I wagged a finger at him. “But you made up for it by being the Sunday school star, right? So you could get away with pure evil the rest of the week.”

James laughed and nodded. “You too?”

My cheeks warmed at his look, the zing of it reaching all the way to my toes. “No, I was pure evil, Sunday to Sunday. The highest I ever rose was stacking the Bibles after mass.”

“Altar boy. Once. My mother refers to it as The Black Moment.”

I laughed at his mischievous expression and we shared a look, an instant communion   that made me want to launch myself across the room and into his arms. What the hell was going on? I gulped and dragged my eyes away from his.

Caroline smiled serenely. “James is ready to make a full Catholic commitment, right darling?”

“Darling” looked a bit stoned, to tell the truth, and I wondered if I looked the same.

“I appreciate that Father Martin is coming to meet me tonight,” James said, recovering.

My mother beamed proudly. “It’s a favour to Caroline. She holds a special place in his heart.”

I turned my back and made a face. Father Martin probably wanted to make sure James really was a Catholic and didn’t need to fork out for the special pre-wedding course. I surveyed the darkening street on the lookout for his old Ford Fiesta. The Lamborghini was parked behind my father’s battered van, and when Father Martin arrived the sports car would be boxed in by ugliness and corrosion.