A Perfect Christmas Read Online Free Page B

dazed. ‘So . . . so why didn’t you put me right about my mistake?’
    Neil was feeling mortally uncomfortable with the way this was going but knew he owed it to himself not to get cold feet now. ‘You never gave me the chance to. Next thing I knew you’d got the waiter to fetch a bottle of sparkling wine and were arranging for us to visit jewellery shops to buy an engagement ring – and you wouldn’t allow me a word in edgeways. It was like a roller-coaster after that. Everyone knew and the wedding was being planned and I didn’t know how to stop it!’
    ‘Well, we were in love. I didn’t see any point in waiting.’
    He sighed heavily, hanging his head. He hadn’t the heart to hurt Cait further by telling her exactly how he felt about her. How claustrophobic it made him feel, the way she clung to him like a limpet whenever they were out together, as though afraid that if she let go of him he’d run off and leave her. He disliked the way she always thought she knew what he wanted better than he did; the way she strove constantly to please him, from the clothes she wore to the way she acted; how she hung on his every word. No matter how much affection he showed her, it never seemed to be enough for her and she constantly demanded more.
    When they had first met, he’d enjoyed having a girlfriend who didn’t hide the fact she thought him god-like; clung to him as if afraid to let him go; decided what they would do whenever they went out so as to save him the headache. Despite his friends ribbing him that he was under her thumb, Neil felt he’d died and gone to heaven. But then, after her misinterpretation of the scene in the Chinese restaurant, Cait had not given him a chance to put her straight. He’d been swiftly introduced to her parents and with horror saw his own future yawn before him, a pale shadow of a man with a suffocating wife.
    After being introduced to her parents, witnessing for himself how her mother doted on her father, pandered to his every whim, made decisions for him without consulting him as if he had no mind of his own, Neil could understand why Cait believed that was how marriage was conducted. And it had shocked him to witness the way her parents, her mother in particular, treated their daughter – with such indifference, coldness even. It was no wonder that she looked to him to supply all her emotional support as clearly she received none at home. But a marriage like that was not for him. He wanted one like his parents shared. Open and loving, each respecting the fact that the other had a mind of their own.
    He’d lost count of the number of times he’d tried to tell Cait how he felt and end their relationship, but each time he managed to find an opportunity his courage failed him. Neil was a thoughtful young man and knew how hurt she’d be. But if he did not come clean with her now he might never be able to summon the courage again, and then he’d be stuck for life in a marriage that would be miserable for him.
    Neil took a deep breath, lifted his head and looked her in the eye. His voice had a note of finality in it. ‘Please accept the fact that I don’t want to marry you, Cait. You’ll meet someone else who’ll love having the kind of wife you’ll make him, but what you’re offering is not for me.’ Having finally said his piece and well aware of the upset his announcement was causing, he felt a sudden desperate need to put some distance between them. He shouldered the door open and left her alone in the Vestry.
    Her face ashen, Cait stared after him in horror. Her mind was unable to accept what had just transpired. Neil hadn’t ended their relationship, he couldn’t have. This was some sort of macabre joke . . . she was having a nightmare and would soon wake up. Apart from the fact that she loved him so very much, it was imperative that she should be married before her eighteenth birthday only a few weeks away or the consequences would be unbearable. And with that