Unseen snippet from Unsticky

Hello!

Well, in my last blog I asked what you'd like to see more of and I wasn't surprised that so many of you asked to see the bits from my novels that ended up on the cutting room floor. Or in my overmatter folder, if I'm going to be pedantic about it.

So, I think this will be an irregular regular on my blog. I over-write and I have a heck of a lot of bits that never made the final edit and I'm happy for you to see the bits that didn't end up in the books because of lack of space. You will NEVER see the bits that didn't make it into the books because they were bad, bad, bad with added bits of badness!

Anyway, here is a snippet from Unsticky As far as I can remember, it's a couple of months into Vaughn and Grace's arrangement. Long enough that things aren't awkward between them anymore and long enough that the cracks are just starting to show. Hope you like it!

Sarra

"I ordered pudding," Vaughn added as Grace wriggled to get purchase on the leather seat in her slippy satin skirt.

Of course, Vaughn ate most of the Apple Crisp, Grace had to fight for every spoonful of vanilla gelato. Unusually, Vaughn didn't want to linger over coffee and brandy either but asked for the bill and signed it, without even checking the final amount.

"Let's get out of here," Vaughn said, already helping Grace out of her chair.

"I just need to freshen up," she said, as they came face to face with one of the couples from the back table, the man already hailing Vaughn like a long lost brother and not someone who'd stung him for marked-up graffiti art.

"This is Marisa," Baldie said proudly, presenting his companion with a flourish.

Marisa was so stunning that all Grace could do was stare as Vaughn introduced her to Baldie with absolutely no flourish. Marisa had shiny, flicky straight hair, skin so flawless it looked airbrushed and was wearing a plunging Viktor & Rolf dress that showed a good two thirds of her breasts, which owed their awesome aerodynamics either to her barely pubescent years or a really good surgeon.

"I'll get your coat," Vaughn murmured, leaving Grace with Marisa, who must have needed to pee too though Grace couldn't believe she possessed something as prosaic as a full bladder. Marisa hadn't acknowledged Grace's presence in any way and now she propped herself against the wall, as they waited in the narrow alcove, like her beauty weighed so heavily that she couldn't stand up straight. It was hard not to look at her in the same way that it was hard not to look at a beautiful pair of shoes or a Narciso Rodriguez dress.

And OK, her upper lip was the tiniest bit too short but that was just clutching at ugly straws and staring at that perfect arch where her sooty eyelashes swept down or the elegant curve of her cheekbones made Grace feel like a blowsy, thrown together girl that didn't deserve the good fortune that was currently getting her coat.

Even Marisa dropping the hauteur long enough to ask Grace if she thought that they should bang on the bathroom door and ask the current occupant what the hell they were doing, couldn't pierce the pity bubble that Grace found herself in. Especially as Marisa decided that they should bond, which meant showing Grace pictures of the adorable spaniel puppy that "me and Archie just got from the pound."

Vaughn had been right. Marisa expected guys to fall in love with her. Rich guys. Even if she was selling her beauty to the highest bidder, she got flourishes and puppies out of it and Grace? Well, she had a credit card, the best table at The Waverly Inn and an expiration date stamped on her forehead that was only visible to Vaughn. Because Grace wasn't beautiful or smart or whole enough to be anyone's long haul girl.

And when she got back to the car to find Vaughn waiting impatiently for her, he said, "For God's sake, Grace, stop pouting. You look like you've had filler injected into your bottom lip." Grace knew for a fact that Archie would never, ever say anything like that to Marisa.

It turned out that Vaughn had wanted to get back to the apartment for a midnight conference call to Beijing. He took it in the study, which left Grace free to make her own fun. Grace wasn't sure when making her own fun, which mostly involved mentally planning her Sunday shopping expedition to Soho, became snooping.

She'd never snooped before. Not even when she'd been left on her own for days in the Hampstead house – she'd been brought up to respect other people's privacy. But then she'd also been brought up to save herself for the man she married, never drink to excess and strive to be all that she could be; all things that she'd failed to deliver on, so having a quick rummage in Vaughn's drawers wasn't so terrible.

Apart from a half-eaten bar of Green & Blacks, which she bet Gustav knew nothing about, her search proved futile. There wasn't anything incriminating in the bureau either, no porn stash under the mattress and absolutely no photos of the ex-wife or the women he'd had arrangements with before Grace. She could hear Vaughn's tread coming down the hall and quickly arranged herself decoratively on the bed, her heart pounding, her cheeks stained with red. Vaughn didn't notice that anything was wrong but maybe that was because Grace was on her knees, unbuckling his belt, before he had a chance to ask why she had such a guilty expression on her face.