You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me Read Online Free

platforms.
    ‘It’s so crowded,’ Neve complained as they stepped on to the packed platform. ‘It’s as bad as rush hour.’
    Max cupped her elbow. ‘Let’s walk down to the end – more chance of getting a seat.’
    As they reached the end of the platform, the train screeched into the station. Max had been right; there were plenty of empty seats. Neve plopped down and pulled off her woolly hat. ‘You should never get in the first or last carriage,’ she said. ‘If we had a collision with another train, we’d bear the full force of the impact.’
    ‘Well, I’m willing to risk it if it means I can get a seat,’ Max said, sitting down next to her and stretching out his long legs. He gave Neve a sideways look from eyes framed with those outrageously long lashes. ‘So, here we are.’
    ‘You didn’t want to go to Soho House with the others?’
    ‘Fancied an early night for a change,’ Max said with a smile that definitely verged on lecherous this time. ‘Normally I’m the last to leave but I have a breakfast meeting at the Wolseley with my agent. The man’s a sadist, always forcing me out of bed at some ungodly hour.’
    ‘I know what you mean,’ Neve said feelingly. Not about breakfast meetings with agents at very fancy London restaurants, but five days a week her alarm chirped insistently at six. She looked at her watch in dismay. ‘I’ve got to be up in five and a half hours.’
    ‘Not really much point in going to bed, is there?’ Max shifted in his seat so his arm and leg were pressed against Neve’s. ‘I’m sure we could find something else to do to pass the time.’
    He said it lightly and with that cheeky little smirk so Neve decided not to take offence. She smiled instead, secure in the knowledge that there was every point in going to bed, alone, to sleep for a solid five hours. ‘So, why do you have an agent?’ she asked, mostly to change the subject. ‘Do all Editors-at-Large have one?’
    ‘Only those who write best-selling novels,’ Max revealed with just the slightest edge, like he couldn’t believe that Neve needed any clarification. ‘Well, technically I ghost-write them, but between you and me, Mandy isn’t going to give Iris Murdoch any sleepless nights.’
    ‘Well, Iris Murdoch has been dead for quite a few years,’ Neve murmured. However, Max was still looking at her expectantly, as if his bestselling novels merited more of a reaction. ‘I’m sorry. Who’s Mandy?’
    Max stopped lolling in his seat and sat up straight. ‘ Mandy ,’ he repeated impatiently.
    ‘I can’t quite place the name,’ Neve said. ‘Is she one of those very famous people who don’t need to have a surname?’
    He made a tiny scoffing noise. ‘Yeah, right. Mandy McIntyre. She’s only the most famous WAG in Britain.’
    ‘Hmmm – what does WAG stand for again?’ Neve asked. ‘I always forget but I know it’s something that doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘You don’t know what a WAG is? For real?’ Max asked incredulously. ‘Wives and girlfriends. Footballers ’ wives and girlfriends.’
    ‘Oh! See, that’s the bit that I don’t understand. If they’re footballers’ wives and girlfriends, then really they should be called FWAGs. Though it doesn’t really roll off the tongue that easily.’ Neve mouthed the unwieldy acronym to herself a couple more times as Max stared at her. ‘No, it really doesn’t work. Anyway, I’ve never heard of her but I don’t watch much TV. So she writes novels, does she? Or you write them for her?’
    Neve was trying not to sound too disapproving that some girlfriend of a footballer could get a book deal, when she knew of at least three would-be novelists with good degrees from good universities who were working for minimum wage and couldn’t even get a short story published. She guessed that she’d managed to keep her outrage to herself because a faint smile was tugging at the corners of Max’s mouth.
    ‘Well, Mandy and I go way back,’ he said.