Under New Management Read Online Free

Mollie had been left aghast and quite simply speechless. She could only assume that he was truly delusional.
    She had left the neutral ground of a random pub (chosen in order for them to be anonymous) and driven back to her parents’, where she had ranted and raved for the rest of the evening until she’d eventually exhausted herself.
    David’s ludicrous defence, as it turned out, was one of the many reasons why her dad had punched him. No one got away with treating Jim Brown’s beautiful daughter like crap.  No one!
    To be fair to them, Mollie’s family and friends had been fantastic. They had closed ranks around her. The locals kept their gossiping behind closed doors: no one wanted to take on Jim Brown or his son Dan, as they had something of a reputation for scrapping. Regardless of Jim or Dan, the locals did like Mollie. They saved their ridicule for David and Kevin. People felt sorry for Mollie. How awful for her and such a lovely girl, so beautiful, kind and friendly. The locals were on Mollie’s side. This had made her life somewhat easier over the last few weeks. Gossip in this small village could ruin a person’s life and she was grateful for small mercies.
    As yet she had avoided David’s parents. She knew that they would be horrified when David eventually plucked up the courage to take Kevin back home to Oxford, if he ever did. Mollie wished she could be a fly on the wall for that little family gathering. According to David, he had no intention of telling them in the near future.
    When Mollie had let the cat out of the bag at home she had found herself physically dragging her dad away from the phone, so keen was Jim to fill them in on David’s behalf. Jim could not understand why the Pratt’s should remain blissfully ignorant, whilst Mollie was going through hell. Mollie consoled him with the fact that they would go mental when they found out, so why spoil it for David? This calmed down Jim somewhat, although he still itched to fill them in, all of them, in more ways than one.
    Mollie was far from close to her in-laws. David’s family were hardly modeled on the Walton’s and hadn’t exactly taken Mollie to their bosom. It had been made abundantly clear that she was not quite good enough for their son. They were cold, snobby and often rude at best and unbelievably bigoted at worst. Given that fact, Mollie was in no hurry to see either of them ever again. She would pay good money, however, to see the look on their faces when they found out; not only that their son was getting a divorce, but was gay into the bargain. Brilliant!
    She would love to know how they liked Kevin as a substitute. She bet that suddenly she would be the model daughter-in-law. She couldn’t stomach their false sympathy; that’s if they even bothered to contact her at all. She only saw them once a year for approximately three hours on Christmas Day, anyway. His mother phoned David at the office if she needed to speak to him: she never phoned the house or Mollie’s mobile. There was no love lost and Mollie couldn’t care less whether they knew or not.
    In general (much like his parents) David was a pompous prick who liked to keep up with the Joneses. He was very much an, ‘I’ve got a blacker cat’ type of person. However, pompous prick or not he had been her pompous prick and she had loved him to bits. She doesn’t believe that she loves him now. There has been a little too much water flowing under that particular bridge lately.
    Mollie doesn’t want him back but she does miss the partnership; someone to share her life with; go to sleep and wake up with; the feeling of belonging to something. Her confidence in her intuition has been dented. She is hurt and feels betrayed. How could she live with someone for so long and not have the faintest inkling that he was gay?
    She constantly goes over and over memories in her head. Mollie just wants to find some clue which would substantiate this outcome.
    He always looked after