Hand On Heart: Sequel to Head Over Heels Read Online Free Page A

thrilled at finally getting to be a bridesmaid.
    ‘Just don’t make me wear peach, OK?  And no nasty satin, either.’
     

November 2009
     
    After Grace and Mark split up, they were lucky enough to secure a quick sale on their house.  Grace just wanted to see the back of it and move on as soon as she could, but there was still the trauma to get through of clearing out all their things.  She kept putting it off, but the new owners were taking possession in a fortnight, and so today was the day.
    ‘I don’t want it, really I don’t, Mark,’ Grace pleaded with him.  ‘You keep it.’   Mark kept offering her stuff: objects, ornaments, books, but none of it held any sentimental value to her now.
    It was very strange being back at the house, and sharing the same personal space with him again, Grace thought.  So many memories had been made here, so many plans forged, but it had also been the house where everything had unravelled so quickly, and she had been so desperately unhappy.  Mark had offered to let her have the house in its entirety, but it wouldn’t have felt right, moving Tom in to take Mark’s place, surrounded by all their old furniture and possessions.  No, the two of them needed a fresh start elsewhere, and besides which, she was very conscious of making sure Mark received his share of the capital from the sale.  If it was all done as it should be now, then no one was beholden to anyone else, and there was nothing to come back and bite her at a later date.  She wanted to draw lines under her time with Mark with a big fat felt pen, not a wishy-washy pencil which could be rubbed out.
    I feel nothing for him now, nothing at all, Grace mused to herself, glancing across at him as she sorted through a box of photos.  It’s almost as if all those years we spent here together never happened.  Which is sad in a way, as he was a huge part of my life for such a long time. 
    For most of the time they had lived there, Mark had been the love of Grace’s life.  Theirs was true love, or so they’d thought, they were soul mates, together forever.  But how quickly that had turned out not to be the case, and it had made Grace question the type of person she was.  Was she the sort of woman who couldn’t stay in a relationship for more than a few years before her eyes started to wander?  She hoped to goodness that what had happened with Mark was because of who they were, both independently and together, and the fact that their relationship was flawed.  Before she met Tom, she would never have put herself down as someone who would cheat – she’d always believed that was morally wrong.   But why had it come so easily to her at the time?  She hoped it was just because Mark never really had been ‘the one’.  It bothered her, nonetheless.
    Life couldn’t be better for Grace, she was ecstatically happy with Tom, and although the circumstances in which they had come together were something of which she wasn’t proud, what they had now was far stronger, far deeper than anything she had shared with Mark.  But would she end up hurting Tom as well, at some future point in time? 
    No, that’s not who I am, she thought to herself.  Definitely not.  What happened with Mark happened for a reason; it’s all so different with Tom.
    ‘So, how are you feeling, Grace?’ Mark asked.  She didn’t want to engage in stilted but polite conversation as they divided up the possessions, but nor could the two of them sit in silence for the day.  Grace knelt down on the floor, the weight of the baby bump too heavy for her to stand for too long.  Her tummy was so huge, she was surprised there wasn’t a total eclipse of the sun every time she stood up.  And she still had a few months to go.  At this rate, she would be housebound by the time she reached her due date, unable to go out of the front door, because she was simply too large to pass through it.
    ‘Like the side of a house,’ Grace replied, determined