Playing by the Rules by Imelda Evans

don’t really think you’re a drunk, I just thought you could use a laugh.’ He stooped slightly, to look her in the face. ‘Was I wrong?’
    Kate smiled back into his gorgeous, big brown eyes and shook her head.
    No, he wasn’t wrong. That laugh had cleared out weeks’ worth of stress, with the therapeutic power of silliness. Pure silliness, something Josh seemed to have a talent for. Alain was never silly. He was much too sensible. She had thought she liked that about him, but tonight, in the shape of Josh, she was beginning to see that silly could be very attractive too.
    So attractive, in fact, that it was very hard to withdraw her gaze from his. But even in an eye-lock, she could see that the people around them were moving. She pulled herself together and formulated some words.
    ‘I think you’re right. We should go and sit down. It looks as though dinner is starting.’
    He straightened up and beamed at her.
    ‘Excellent! I’m starving. What about you?’
    ‘Ravenous,’ Kate replied, truthfully. Wonder of wonders, her appetite, which had been conspicuously absent since Paris, had actually come back.
    She considered this an excellent sign and she took the arm he offered with a lightness of heart that, not long ago, she would not have thought possible. It seemed her plan of having a flingy good time was coming together beautifully. It could only get better from here.
    Famous last words.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Not that Kate realised that, at first.
    Indeed, as she slipped into her seat, Kate thought that the organisers must have gone out of their way to help her have a good time. Jo and Matt had been placed on Josh’s left and on her right she was delighted to find Clare and her husband. True, she didn’t know the man opposite her, but otherwise, as far as company went, she seemed well set up for a pleasant evening.
    But as she was exchanging greetings with Clare and her husband, the female half of the fourth couple arrived and Kate’s appetite disappeared as fast as it had come. It was Crystal.
    ‘So, Kate,’ Crystal said, into the silence that her arrival had cast over the table. ‘Are you having a good time?’
    Kate choked slightly on her wine.
    ‘Yes, lovely thank you,’ she replied, when the coughing stopped. The ‘until you got here’ went unsaid, but was understood by at least three other people at the table.
    ‘That’s good, Kate,’ Jo chimed in. ‘How’s the
plan
going?’
    Kate shot her a look, but didn’t dare to be too obvious in front of Crystal.
    ‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, with a tight smile.
    ‘What plan is that, Kate?’ Crystal asked, her spider senses obviously forever attuned to a chance for blood.
    Kate thought as fast as her champagne-sodden brain would allow and found the answer in the champagne itself.
    ‘The one about my feet.’
    ‘Your feet?’
    ‘Yes, I’m wearing these terribly high heels and I was afraid my feet might get sore. But so far, they seem fine.’
    Jo snorted into her wine and Kate resolved to make her pay later.
    Clare lifted the tablecloth to look at Kate’s shoes.
    ‘Oh, they’re lovely. Good on you for being brave enough to wear them. I haven’t been able to wear anything like that for ages,’ she said, putting her hand on her very pregnant front.
    Kate leapt on the change of subject.
    ‘Congratulations, by the way. When are you due?’
    ‘Soon! Can’t be soon enough for me. I’m well over it.’
    ‘Is it your first?’ Josh asked, showing a willingness to be friendly that only made Kate like him more.
    ‘No, my third,’ Clare replied, smiling at him. ‘I know, I’ve been busy! But I always said I wanted to have my family early.’
    ‘Ah, another woman with a plan. This school seems to make a habit of turning them out.’ Josh squeezed Kate’s hand, which took any sting out of his comment, not least because it sent a very pleasant quiver all the way up her arm to her shoulder.
    Clare laughed. ‘Well, they did encourage us to go