I'm Not in Love (Once Upon a Winter Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

memory is still away with the fairies,’ Martine answered for him. ‘I’m sure a bit more time will sort things, though.’
    ‘Oh…’ Hannah replied. ‘Nothing has come back at all yet?’
    ‘Bits,’ Mitchell replied. ‘Annoyingly it’s little things that don’t seem important, like I’ll recognise a coat I own and remember where I last wore it, but I don’t recall important things…’ he glanced at Martine, ‘like my wife.’
    ‘I know, it’s a shocking state of affairs,’ Martine said. ‘A lesser woman could be very offended by that.’
    Surely every other woman was a lesser woman, Hannah thought. There it was again, that little worm of jealousy. ‘Um… would you like to come inside for a drink or something?’ she asked. She prayed they would say no, because Martine looked like the sort of woman who might break out in hives at the sight of an unwashed cup, and her house still looked like a bombsite from Gina and Jess’s visit.
    ‘That’s very kind but we really don’t have a lot of time today,’ Martine said. ‘We were actually on a drive out to see if we could jog Mitchell’s memory and then we’re going to visit a few old friends to see if that will help too. But as we were passing here Mitchell insisted that we pick up some flowers to bring over for you. There’s a petrol station not far from here and we got some rather decent ones from there.’ She added the final sentence gleefully, implying that she herself would never receive petrol station flowers thereby reinforcing Hannah’s transient and inferior status as a part of Mitchell’s life. Hannah was wondering where the flowers were, when Mitchell went to the boot of the car and produced a bouquet of white and yellow roses and carnations.
    ‘They’re lovely, but you needn’t have,’ Hannah said as he handed them over.
    ‘We wanted to thank you,’ Martine said. ‘Both of us wanted to thank you for your kindness on Christmas day. Goodness only knows what might have happened to Mitchell had you not found him.’
    ‘It was more a case of him finding me,’ Hannah smiled. ‘I really didn’t do anything at all.’
    ‘That’s not what I heard,’ Martine said. ‘You certainly did more than a lot of people would have done.’
    Hannah glanced at Mitchell. Why was Martine the only one talking? She didn’t like this new, miserable, henpecked version of Tom-who-was-now-Mitchell, standing before her as though he wished a giant bird would swoop from the sky and carry him off. Did he feel at sea in the company of his wife, a woman he should have been intimately acquainted with butcouldn’t remember at all? Or was he simply finding her as irritating as Hannah was? Martine was perfectly courteous – as perfect in her manners as in every other aspect of her being – but there was something about her that Hannah simply couldn’t warm to. Not that it mattered, of course, they were hardly going to be best friends; and she supposed it was nice of her to want to call and meet Hannah and thank her in person.
    ‘So… you live nearby?’ Hannah asked, grasping for some neutral conversation, anything that would stop her being a monumental bitch, which was what her thoughts were making her feel like right now.
    ‘Chapeldown,’ Martine replied, with obvious pride. There was a suitable pause to give Hannah time to be impressed. Chapeldown was the next village along Holly Way – more of a hamlet really – inhabited by stockbrokers and surgeons. It was way beyond Hannah’s (and most other people’s) budget.
    ‘Very nice,’ was all that Hannah could find to say.
    ‘Close enough for you to pop over and see us sometime,’ Martine added, which Hannah translated as
please never pop over to see us
. Hannah simply smiled.
    ‘We should probably let you get on,’ Mitchell cut in. Hannah could see that the meeting wasn’t getting any easier for him. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling as well as he looked after all. If he still hadn’t regained his