He's the One Read Free

occasionallytreat themselves to when it was on special offer.
    ‘I wasn’t sure I would come either.’
    He was gazing at her with his blue eyes, and that combined with the champagne made Liberty feel reckless. Her flirting mojo had definitely reawakened …
    ‘But then I thought, what the hell?’
    A stunning girl in a gold dress appeared in the doorway. ‘Cory, come in and shut the door, for God’s sake! It’s fucking freezing and I don’t want to piss the neighbours off with the noise. Daddy will go ape if I do.’ She was slurring her words, which made her posh voice into even more of a drawl. Liberty had to swallow back a grin. The drunk girl looked her up and down. ‘And you are?’
    At least that was what Liberty thought she asked – her words all ran into one another.
    ‘This is Liberty, the friend I told you about. Liberty, this is Olivia.’
    ‘Hiya,’ Liberty said politely. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
    ‘Hi. Is that a Gucci dress?’
    Not unless Gucci dresses retailed for £15.99 … ‘No, it’s House of River Island.’
    Olivia wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t know it.’
    ‘Oh, it’s very exclusive.’ Liberty couldn’t resist coming out with that.
    One of the guests called for Olivia then and she swept away.
    Cory grinned. ‘Come on, we’d better go inside, we don’t want Daddy to go ape.’
    He took Liberty’s hand and led her in. She felt overwhelmed by the size of the house and its luxurious interior. The vast hallway that was large enough to have a sofa in it where several guests lounged; the glittering chandeliers; the abstract art on the walls; the designer clothes everyone else was wearing; theupper-class accents cutting through the music; the air that was heady with expensive perfume and scented candles. There was a bar in one of the huge living rooms, a DJ set up in the other. Chill-out music was playing, which gave the party a dreamy, late-night club feel, and revolving lights turned the rooms alternating shades of midnight blue and mauve. How the other half lived …
    They sat down on one of the black velvet sofas. It was after one a.m. now but Liberty felt wide awake.
    ‘Do you always go to parties like this?’ she asked, sipping her champagne – it was going down very quickly, probably too quickly, she would slow down in a minute.
    Cory smiled. ‘No, but Olivia is going out with one of my best friends so that’s why I’m here. She’s nicer than she sounds, by the way. She can’t help being so incredibly filthy rich that she doesn’t actually bother to speak properly.’
    ‘Poor her, what a tragedy.’
    ‘I really don’t care about her. It’s you, with your mesmerising green eyes, I want to know about,’ he said, moving closer.
    She was aware of his arm behind her on the sofa, his thigh inches away from hers.
    Liberty shrugged. ‘There’s not much to tell that you don’t already know – I live in Brighton, I want to be an actress, I work as a waitress.’ She didn’t want to talk about Brooke – not because she was in any way ashamed of being a single mum, but because she wanted to be an irresponsible twenty-one-year-old just for tonight, and if she mentioned her daughter that would change everything.
    ‘See, not very exciting. What about you? You’re American, right?’
    ‘Yep, I’m from San Francisco originally. I’m taking time out from college to travel.’
    ‘And what do you want to do eventually?’
    ‘It might sound pretentious but I want to be a painter.’ He reached out and lightly ran a finger along her jawline. ‘In fact, I’d love to paint you.’
    There was a beat while they gazed at each other in silence.
    ‘So are you at art school?’ she asked.
    A shadow seemed to fall across Cory’s face as he replied, ‘No, I’m studying law. My parents weren’t keen on me going to art school … not academic enough for them. Too risky a future. But I just passed the first year at law school and the deal was that I could have a year out before