Thank you to those of you who are reading. Here's the next instalment….

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Gold only vaguely recognised her when she interrupted his coffee break. He always went to same coffee shop, it was located conveniently close to work. It was a basement set-up, with low-lighting and reading lamps. One wall was made up entirely of bookcases, stocking only the most unusual and unfamiliar of literary gems. He loved to lose himself in in the softness of the cushions, the words on the pages and the delicious aromas of freshly brewed coffee. It was his favourite place in the world; quiet and secluded, perfect for a recluse like himself to while away the hours.

Today was unusually busy. There was some author coming in to read a section of her book. He'd read the book. It was shallow drivel about a long-suffering waitress, who wanted to be a hard-hitting journalist. Of course – as with every clichéd piece of chick-lit ever produced – the heroine was beautiful and kind, while the boyfriend was cruel and unappreciative. Until, in a predictable turn of events the beauty met a handsome man. Oh, and didn't it just turn out that he had the influence to help her fulfil her dreams? And weren't they just so perfect for one another? And didn't they share a (supposedly) romantic kiss in the rain.

Kissing in the rain didn't seem romantic. It seemed nonsensical. Skin, slippery under perfumed skin and freezing at the touch, was not appealing. Gold was not one for romance at the best of times, but catching pneumonia for the sake of a snog was the kind of sensationalist writing that ruined love for normal people.

The book was complete fantasy, but it's an author's prerogative to detail a love that couldn't exist. Gold doubted that love existed at all. Marriage was simply the by-product of falling into a co-habitual routine with someone who didn't make you want to suffocate them.

'I'm sorry,' the woman said, looming in his peripheral vision. 'Mr Gold, isn't it?'

'Yes, and you are …'

'Belle,' she answered, with an uncertain smile. 'Gaston's fiancée.'

'Of course,' he nodded, recalling a brief meeting at the company Christmas party a few weeks ago. 'My memory isn't what it used to be.'

'I'm sure your memory is fine for the important things,' Belle suggested. 'But the name of a woman you only met fleetingly….' She trailed off, and he got the distinct feeling she didn't think she was worth a lot. It wasn't his place to tell her otherwise. Perhaps she was a waste of a pretty face, he didn't know. He didn't care to know.

'Would you mind if I joined you?' she asked, suddenly bolder. 'All the tables are….' She gestured vaguely around the café. The tables were full. She could have said "full", but instead she'd chosen to leave her sentence irritatingly incomplete.

'Not too good at finishing sentences, are you dearie?' he mocked.

'Oh, well I don't wish to impose.'

Everything about her screamed self-deprecation. Gold recognised it from looking in the mirror.

'I suppose I could just stand. But I just thought that….'

Again, the sentence was left unfinished and, again, it was annoying. It didn't matter that her vague gesturing was enough for him to realise that she was there to hear the author reading a passage from her book, he couldn't stand the mystery she presented with every simple sentence.

Gold felt irritated by her, but he found her self-doubt picking a reflective chord in his own chest. It was clear the poor dear was in desperate need of a break.

'Sit down,' he snapped at her. 'But this trailing off,' he gave a flutter of his fingers to help illustrate his point, 'has to stop.'

She flashed him a smile that reached right up to eyes. If the visiting author had described them, she might have used clichéd metaphors to describe the colour of them; pools of azures or, liquid sapphires perhaps. She could have compared them to the sky on a summer's day, or a calm Caribbean sea. Gold did not believe in such fanciful descriptions. Her eyes were blue and he refused to notice that they were crinkled at the corners from her smile.

He also refused to notice that she smelt like summer fruits when she slid into the booth, or that her chestnut hair bounced around her shoulders. He did allow himself to notice that the overpowering stench of her shampoo clashed with the smell of coffee beans. It must have been giving her a headache, it was certainly giving him one.

Belle sat quietly and read for a while. She was reading the author's book and was only about half way through, but she seemed animated by the poorly-written, sorry-excuse for a novel. She was drinking in every word, turning the pages slowly, savouring the touch of the paper on her fingertips and breathing in the scent of a new novel.

'You'll have to read quicker than that, dearie, if you hope to be finished before the author reads her passage.'

'Oh, this is the third time I've read it,' Belle blushed, placing a tatty old bus ticket in the pages to hold her place. 'I love it. The tall, dark and handsome man rescues the damsel in distress from her beastly boyfriend and they live happily ever after. It's a dream … It's my dream.'

'To be able escape into a fantasy world at any time,' Gold said steadily, 'that's a powerful kind of magic.'

'Yes,' she was more animated than she had been before. 'I am constantly lost in a book. The characters, the places, the fantasy. I can be anyone I want to be, just at the turn of a page.'

'Is that what you see in this drivel?' Gold gestured to the book. 'You see yourself in the distressed damsel? You see Gaston in the handsome stranger.'

At the mention of her fiancé, the light seemed to drain from her.

'Something like that,' she agreed, fingering the embossed title on the glossy cover.

'Then I suppose the question is … who is the beastly boyfriend you're fleeing from?'

She said nothing, just continuing to brush over the words like she was reading brail. She was stroking it like it was her talisman, her protection from the real world. Gold realised in an instant, that heroines didn't need talismans and protection if they had their happy endings. Belle's attraction to the book was not that she was living a similar happy ending to the protagonist, it was that she was caged by the same hellish beginning.

And as quickly as he realised that, he realised that he didn't care.

Sensing an awkwardness in the air, Belle changed the subject:

'I've never been here before, it's wonderful.'

Dark mahogany wood, deep red décor and all the leather-covered books she could wish for. It was the kind of place she dreamed of, a small homely nook of the city that only a select few people knew about.

'Yes it is.' This was something they could certainly agree on. 'I think it might be the greatest place in the whole world.'

'You come here a lot then?'

'Every day, dearie.' Before bragging: 'The baristas know my coffee order.'

Belle glanced to the baristas. They were busying themselves with the small makeshift stage. It would only be a few minutes before Jenni Jotting appeared. Belle was so excited to see the woman she'd idolised for months. Ms Jottings was an attractive, plump lady with sensible summer dresses and smart shoes. She was a classic, bookish, mumsie type and Belle wanted to be like her more than anything.

Belle could imagine herself sitting on that stage reading a passage from one of her own novels. It was her ultimate fantasy, to be loved and respected novelist … but she was no writer. Gaston had laughed when she'd allowed him to read her feeble efforts and her father had never understood her hobby as anything more than a loner's pursuit and a gateway to a spinster's life.

Whilst Belle's mother had always believed in her, she'd been snatched away, when Belle was just eleven. That was when everyone had stopped telling Belle she could be anything she wanted to be. It was when her father had first started looking out for a good man to marry her off to. When she was eighteen, there had been Gaston, and her father had finally allowed her out of his tyrannical control and into a new fiancé's.

'Jenni Jotting will be here in just two minutes,' a barista said.

He was one of those creative types that Gaston found so offensive. He had a bit of a topknot and an ironic beard, which was also the pattern of his shirt. His trousers showed off his bony ankles, but it was his dark, powerful eyes that had her distracted. And he seemed to be smiling at her too.

Belle's stomach fluttered just a little, but she'd always been a fantasist. She had a nasty habit of believe that every man who showed her just the smallest amount of affection was her handsome prince.

'Well,' Gold distracted her daydreaming, 'that is most definitely my cue to leave.'

'You're not going to hear the reading?' Belle asked, tearing her gaze from the barista, and back to her fiancé's estranged boss.

'I would rather ram this cane in my eye,' he answered so matter-of-factly that it actually made her smile. He returned in-kind and nodded his head in farewell: 'Enjoy the reading, dearie.'

And with that, he disappeared.

Belle did enjoy the reading. Jenni Jotting was an inspiration to her, and she told her as such in the Q&A.

'That's very kind of you, be sure to have that book of yours signed at the end.'

Getting to meet Ms Jotting and having just a few moments with her to talk about their favourite books and the enjoyment they received from writing was dream come true. Ms Jottings even wrote a wonderful personalised the message on the inside cover of her book.

It had been the highlight of Belle's year, but receiving a free coffee and a scribbled phone number on a napkin from the bearded man was a nice little bonus too.