Читать книгу Make A Christmas Wish: A heartwarming, witty and magical festive treat - Julia Williams - Страница 24

I am in shock. My memories of the day I died have become mired in fog thanks to all that time spent in the car park. I knew I was texting Adam angrily about something, but – maybe I didn’t want to remember? – the exact words of my text had been banished to the back of my mind. Now I realize I must have known from the minute Emily was in the house that she was the Other Woman, but I didn’t want to admit that Adam could possibly have carried it on after I’d gone. I felt his anguish when I died. I know he still has feelings for me. I just know it. It makes me more determined than ever to win him back. Malachi’s right: we have unfinished business. I need to show Adam what he’s missing. I lost him to Emily once; I’m not going to let it happen again. Especially where my son is involved.

I hadn’t really had a plan when I went to the party. But hearing Marigold and her mates gossiping, it seemed a good idea to see if I could nudge them in the right direction. I remember vaguely that Marigold has always been keen on psychics, so she’s very susceptible, which meant it was quite easy for me to get into her thoughts. Sadly, Adam and Emily seem to be far too sceptical, which is making it much harder to get them to listen to me. But with Marigold it was easy. All I had to do was sit down beside her, and drop the idea that Emily and Adam hadn’t wasted much time and hear her repeat it to her neighbour.

‘You’d think he might have waited a bit longer, don’t you?’ said one of the girls from the sales team.

‘It’s indecent,’ snorted another.

‘If you ask me, it’s been going on longer than any of us think,’ was Marigold’s contribution to a collective gasp from the rest of the table, including one from me. It didn’t take long for the rumours to fly. Marigold can always be relied on to pass on a bit of gossip. I think she’s probably half in love with Adam. Maybe she thought he’d find comfort in her arms. Emily must have come as a hell of a shock. I could feel the hatred positively bristling off her. I wasn’t really expecting Emily to confess to a full-blown affair, though. How could Adam have done that to me? What had I done to deserve it? I am reeling from the shock. I am going to split them up, and she will keep her claws off Adam. He’s mine.

Not that I appear to have succeeded in that endeavour. Having thought that Adam would be angry with Emily, he seems to have got over it annoyingly quickly. If I had the tiniest drink at an office party, Adam was always tediously on my case about it. I remember one spectacular row when he accused me of showing him up because I’d danced on a table with the managing director.

‘I was only having a laugh,’ I’d protested. ‘You have no sense of fun any more.’

He’d looked at me in incomprehension, then said, ‘Maybe my idea of fun is different from yours.’

We’d gone to bed that night in separate rooms, and he never referred to it again. But now, look at him, forgiving Emily so easily, when she’d embarrassed him far more than I ever had. It doesn’t seem fair.

I follow them as far as an Italian restaurant and watch them go inside. They’re sitting at a table looking totally loved up, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach just to watch them. This won’t do at all.

‘And what did you think you were going to achieve with that stunt?’ Malachi appears on the street, looking very pissed off.

‘I had hoped that it would make Adam see the error of his ways and remember it’s me that he loves, not Emily.’

‘In case you’d forgotten, there’s a bit of a flaw in your plan.’

‘Yes, yes, I know I’m dead and I can’t have him back,’ I say impatiently. ‘But it’s as if Adam has forgotten all about me, as if I never even existed. I want him to remember it’s me that he loves. Not this – this Emily person. I want him to mourn me!’

‘Well, good luck with that,’ says Malachi, nodding at the couple in the window, ‘because quite frankly, this is not the reason you’re back. I keep telling you, you need to put things right.’

I am not in the mood to listen. This is my life – well it was – not Malachi’s.

‘Yeah yeah, I know,’ I say. ‘But as it goes I think you’re wrong. And I’m going to prove it.’

‘On your own head be it,’ says Malachi, with a shrug. And with that he vanishes, leaving me with my nose pressed up against the glass, looking in, like a child outside a sweet shop.