The Cherry Tree Cafe
Read The Cherry Tree Cafe Online
Authors: Heidi Swain
Cherry Tree Café
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Heidi-Jo Swain 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Heidi-Jo Swain to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47114-995-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset in Bembo by M Rules
To Paul, Oliver & Amelia
Chapter 1
When I was growing up I used to hate my birthday. What use was a birthday two weeks after Christmas? But now, bowling headlong towards my early thirties with Mr Right to
snuggle up to, it didn’t seem so bad. No, now it wasn’t too bad at all. I sighed and stretched out in the luxuriously large bed, then rolled over to snuggle up to his perfectly toned
torso for a few more minutes, only to discover that he wasn’t there.
No matter, I smiled to myself, as I imagined him sauntering back into the bedroom with a laden breakfast tray and wearing little more than his most seductive smile. Just what, I couldn’t
help wondering, had he got planned for my birthday, which coincidentally was the same day as our anniversary? Two blissful years since fate had blown him through the doors of the Mermaid pub and
into my waiting arms.
Bored with life in Wynbridge, the small East Anglian town where I’d grown up, I was looking for a distraction, anything to stave off the monotony of pulling pints and justifying still
living at home, when in breezed Giles Worthington. He introduced himself as a jilted groom, a broken soul in need of a little ‘r and r’, which I was only too willing to offer. I had him
back on his feet in no time and in return he swept me off mine and carried me away to his castle, well, penthouse flat actually.
It wasn’t until a few weeks down the line that I discovered that he had actually been the one largely responsible for the jilting, but his fiancée was long gone by then, already
seeing someone else (so he said) and I was living the life of a princess, not that any of that really mattered to me. All I cared about was love, head over heels, heart slamming against the ribcage
love. I was a firm believer in destiny, fate and all that malarkey and I just knew that Giles Worthington and I were meant to be together, forever.
‘Giles,’ I purred lustfully, ‘hurry up, the bed’s getting cold.’
No response. I sat up, shook my red curls away from my face, wrapped the sheet tightly around me and tiptoed to the door to call again. Still nothing, I shuffled back to bed and spotted an
envelope propped up against the phone.
My day ran exactly as Giles planned it to. No snuggling up on the sofa guzzling Prosecco and watching old movies for me this year. Instead I was polished and preened at a
lavish country house spa and trying my best to enjoy it, despite feeling out of place amongst the glossy, groomed goddesses who, unlike me, were clearly accustomed to such indulgent treatment.
Giles, always so generous, loved to shower me with surprises: lavish bouquets covering my desk at work, exquisite jewellery hidden in boxes of chocolates and last-minute mini-breaks, but what I
loved best was the time we spent together, just the two of us, snuggled under the duvet with our phones turned off and eyes only for each other. The whole birthday spa experience, although
indulgent, just wasn’t me. Mindful of appearing ungrateful, however, I plastered on my best smile and thanked my lucky stars that at least I had a man who actually remembered my birthday.
I spent the entire day wrapped in a soft fluffy robe, my every whim catered for before heading to the salon to have my locks straightened whilst a taxi waited on standby to drive me to my
favourite rooftop restaurant for dinner with my dream man.
In the run up to the big day I’d become increasingly convinced that Giles was poised to propose, and my hours of intense pampering only served to satisfy the fantasy that endless
clandestine conversations with my best mate, Jemma, had fed. I was so close to securing my happy-ever-after I could almost taste it.
‘Good evening, Miss Dixon.’ The restaurant manager bowed when I arrived.
‘Good evening, James,’ I blushed.
I still wasn’t used to the way people treated me now I was Giles’s girlfriend. Wherever we went, everyone knew my name. I knew my mother would have been in seventh heaven to have
people falling over themselves for her, but to me it felt weird. I guess deep down I still felt a bit of a fraud living the city high life.
Before Giles whisked me away I was just a barmaid from a small town with no idea of ‘how the other half lived’ but now I was treated like the Queen of Sheba simply because I happened
to grace the arm of Giles Worthington. Talking of whom, where was he?
‘Mr Worthington will be arriving shortly,’ James the manager said, as I glanced around apprehensively. ‘Would you care to follow me to your table?’
I had barely sat down when I saw Giles arrive. I smiled to myself as I watched every woman in the restaurant discreetly shifting in their seats to ensure they secured the best view of the thick
dark hair, mahogany eyes and impeccably cut suit that was heading towards my table.
‘Lizzie,’ he said, bending down and brushing my cheek with the briefest kiss. ‘You look gorgeous. How was your day?’
He took the seat opposite mine and dutifully acknowledged the female diners who were still panting for a word from him. I breathed in the lingering scent of his aftershave and tried to draw my
mind away from thoughts of getting him back to the flat, loosening his tie and recklessly tearing open the buttons on his designer shirt.
‘My day has been utterly sublime,’ I breathed, ‘but I think tonight is going to surpass it.’
Ordinarily when I made a comment like that Giles would wink or caress my leg under the table and I would know there was no way he was going to wait until we got back to the flat before he would
ravish me, but he simply threw me a fleeting smile and picked up his menu.
‘Is everything all right?’ I ventured.
It wasn’t like him not to play along.
‘Yes, sorry. It’s just been one of those days, you know?’
‘Actually I can’t say I do,’ I tried again, ‘because thanks to you I’ve had the best possible day ever.’
I knew I was pushing the truth a bit too far and that Jemma would shake her head at such gratuitous lying, but I wanted Giles to know how much I appreciated the day he had arranged for me.
However, he just nodded vaguely and clicked his fingers to catch the attention of the maître d’.
Two courses later and I was struggling to steady my nerves and keep my frustration in check.
‘Can’t you just leave it this time,’ I begged.
It was the third time Giles’s mobile phone had disturbed our meal and it seemed less and less likely with every passing mouthful that he was going to propose and even if he did, I
wasn’t sure I’d have the good grace to accept, given the filthy mood I’d fallen into as a result of the constant interruptions.
‘Surely whatever it is can wait until we’ve finished our afters.’ I whispered.
‘It isn’t “afters”,’ Giles snapped, standing up and noisily dropping his spoon, ‘this is sweet or pudding or dessert, but not “afters” and no, I
can’t just leave it.’
Sudden tears stung my eyes as I watched him march across the restaurant. I furiously tried to blink them away and ignore the pang of embarrassment I felt as a result of his harsh words.
He’d never corrected anything I’d said before. The Brothers Grimm, as Jemma had named them, Giles’s brothers Edward and Charlie, might have done, but not Giles. In the two years
I’d known him he’d never been cruel.
I thought back to all the times he’d sat around my parents’ dining table enjoying his ‘afters’. What the hell was wrong with him? I couldn’t believe that he would
have gone to all the trouble of arranging the spa and sumptuous meal for my birthday, our anniversary, only to have it all sabotaged with phone calls from work.
‘We need to talk,’ he said quietly when he finally came back to the table, his expression grave.
‘What is it?’ I asked, reaching for his hand and feeling determined to make everything better. ‘I know there’s something wrong, Giles. We’ve never argued like this
before and today of all days.’
I willed myself to forgive his waspish comment and smooth over the cracks in what was supposed to be the happiest moment of my life but there was something in his expression that suggested that
today was just another day to him, nothing special at all. Surely he hadn’t
really
forgotten?
‘I’m sorry, Lizzie,’ he stammered, ‘I’m just not feeling myself. It’s been a very long day.’
‘It’s OK,’ I soothed.
He looked at me for a second then withdrew his hand and took a deep breath.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s something I have to tell you.’
I sat back in my chair, ran a pristinely manicured hand over my sleek, straightened curls and tried to return his gaze. This was it. This was the moment he was finally going to ask me. He was
just nervous and annoyed that we’d been interrupted.
‘So, what is it?’ I smiled. ‘I’m sure whatever it is can’t be that bad.’
Just for a second I was panicked by his unfathomable expression and looked down at the table, then I realised he was fumbling in his pocket for what I presumed was a ring box. I took a deep
breath to steady my nerves and looked back up. He was pushing something across the table towards me. Tentatively I stretched out my hand to take it, but it wasn’t a ring box or a ring. It was
a key. It was Giles’s flat door key. I dropped it clumsily back onto the table as if its touch had seared my skin.
