Chapter 1
Nine months later
A llie stared gloomily at her lavish surroundings and came to the conclusion that despite all the swank, this was almost certainly her idea of hell – a literary event when no one had ever described her writing as literary. A crowded party when all she wanted to do was be alone. A celebration for authors when she wasn’t even sure she could describe herself as an author anymore. She did a quick mental calculation; it had been four months now since she had last written anything. And even the opening chapter she had started, four months and one day ago, was now confined to the trash folder on her laptop. How long could you go without writing and still call yourself an author? And if she was no longer an author, who was she and what was she doing here?
Allie gulped back the sense of doom she could feel rising inside her and tried to remember the breathing exercise that Jess had been boring on about during her previous, fevered love affair with yoga. Was it breathe in for two and out for two? Allie gave it a go, her breath speeding up as she did so, her eyes going wide as she realised that this technique definitely wasn’t helping. She hiccupped slightly and stopped, cursing herself for being so dismissive of Jess’s latest fad, wishing she had paid more attention, trying to elongate her breaths as she did so. She shouldn’t be here, she should have turned down this invitation, she should have stayed home and tried to write, or at least not shown up at her publisher’s party masquerading as a writer when she didn’t even have a half-written book at home. But she’d had some foolish idea that tonight might inspire her, that being at a party with lots of other writers might just unblock her creativity and allow something – at this stage, anything – to pass from her fingers down through her barely used keyboard and out onto the glaringly blank page on her laptop.
God, that blank laptop screen. Allie was having nightmares about it. Sometimes, they seemed so real, so oppressively mundane, that she honestly didn’t know if she was awake or asleep when they happened. More than once she had startled herself screaming, only to discover that she hadn’t been asleep, just spaced out in front of the blank screen of doom, praying to the gods of words to grant her some. So far, her prayers had gone unanswered, which did nothing to change her opinion on organised religion in all its forms.
She felt her phone buzz in her pocket and picked it out.
WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE?
Allie smiled – typical Jess.
Because you messaged me?
Stop checking it. Go back to the party. Mingle. TELL VERITY.
Allie’s smile turned to a frown. The previous night she had disintegrated into a puddle of wailing self-doubt at Jess, panicking that she would never write a book again, terrified of seeing Verity and Verity discovering that her writing mojo had left the building months before and that Allie had essentially been lying all those times when she had told Verity that the manuscript was almost ready, just being tweaked.
‘Why don’t you just tell her?’ Jess had asked in the kind of measured and reasonable tone that had Allie reaching for something to throw at her. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘Oh I don’t know Jess. Professional suicide? Financial ruin? My mum finds out?’ Allie’s eyes had gone wide in a comedic look of horror making Jess snort with laughter.
‘Better or worse than Martha finding out?’
‘Don’t,’ moaned Allie, ‘I can’t even bear to contemplate that.’ Martha was Allie’s younger sister but for the entirety of their relationship had consistently behaved like the more mature one. Right down to the fact that she was now married, which Allie definitely wasn’t, and she had a job which had required many years at university (chemist,) which Allie didn’t and, despite Martha’s fondness for the written word, she had been permanently surprised that Allie had managed to make a living out of producing them.
‘Seriously Allie, you do need to tell Verity. You can’t be the first author suffering from writer’s block?’
And, of course, Jess was right. It was a rite of passage for any author. Those sleepless nights trying to conjure up a new plot, googling past crushes to avoid working on edits, stress eating entire packets of Haribo and having to take a lie-down to sleep off the nausea. Although that last one, Allie would concede, was probably peculiar to her. And so what if she couldn’t write another book? Plenty of authors retired, took sabbaticals, sometimes even permanent ones, or they pivoted to other professions. Allie gnawed her knuckles anxiously; retiring at not quite thirty-five probably wasn’t viable, neither was taking a long-term sabbatical, so that left changing professions, which in turn left Allie … blank. Just as blank as her computer screen. She’d spent all her life writing, making up stories as a kid, making up copy for an advertising agency (which she hated) and finally, writing love stories for a living, which she had loved. But if she couldn’t write anymore, what was left for her? It was too late to go back to college and retrain, she’d be the weird old woman sitting at the front of the lecture hall, actually on time and listening. And what would she study anyway? What did she actually care about other than words? And she was pretty prescriptive about which type of words as well, they had to be romantic ones, love letters, grand sweeping gestures of passion. All of which had been missing from her life for months.
Her phone buzzed again,
Allie?
What?
STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE.
Well stop messaging me then.
I will, just checking you were actually at the party and not hiding in the toilets…Wait, you’re not hiding in the toilets are you? Send me proof you’re not or I’m calling you in 5… 4… 3…
Allie took a discreet snap of her surroundings and sent it to Jess.
Satisfied?
Very. Now go…
Going…
Allie…
Allie could detect the note of warning in Jess’s text voice.
Putting it away now, mingling as I type…
She put her phone away, wondering if the ‘find my’ function had sufficient accuracy for Jess to be able to tell if she did indeed just go hide in the toilet. But all that would do would be to prolong the inevitable, she did need to see Verity, and she did need to tell her.
Warding off her panic at these thoughts, Allie swiped a glass of champagne from a passing member of waitstaff and with her other hand crammed a canapé into her mouth. If this was the last publishing event she would ever attend she was going to make sure she left it drunk and full. She turned, looking for the next tray…
‘These ones have prawns in them.’
Allie felt a shiver snake up her spine. The voice was deep and warm, with a gravitas about it that suggested it belonged to an adult, not to a teenager who might be working part-time at the party. She looked up straight into sparkly grey eyes that seemed to be expecting some kind of response from her. Which she couldn’t deliver. Her mouth went dry and her brain scrambled, giving her the helpful message that this is what happens when you have gone too long without romance. It wasn’t normal for a voice to have this effect, but then there were those eyes, and that hint of a smile, a dimpling to the side of a mouth, cheekbones that looked like they could slice through your heart. Allie gulped in what she knew to be a cartoonish manner, and tried to clear her throat. The eyes sparkled more, as if laughing at the effect they were having on her.
‘Just thought I ought to warn you,’ the ridiculously well defined shoulders shrugged, ‘in case you’re allergic.’
‘Thanks,’ she managed to croak, trying and failing to drag her eyes away. He either didn’t seem to notice her very real struggle or was far too charming to comment on it. Instead, he flashed her a smile, which immediately made her fixate on his teeth. She smiled back, hoping that she didn’t have any of the last canapé she had scoffed trapped between her own teeth.
‘So, can I interest you?’
Allie flushed. ‘Excuse me?’ she stammered.
‘In one of these?’ He held out a tray of vol au vents towards her and Allie had to stop herself from willfully misunderstanding him and insisting that yes he definitely could interest her, very much so. Not in the vol au vents though, which looked too large and complicated to negotiate. But definitely in those beautiful eyes, and that smile. So far him and his cheekbones were the best thing about this party.
‘So? Do you want one?’ he asked. ‘Because otherwise I should go and see if those lot want to try them.’ He nodded off towards the centre of the courtyard where a crowd of increasingly rowdy people were congregating around the cocktail bar.
‘The last time I went over there they took the whole tray off me so this is your last chance.’ Allie looked down, not at the tray, but at his tanned arms and at the tendrils of a tattoo she could see creeping up under the sleeve of his shirt, and at how the toned muscles made his white shirt sleeves strain. She swallowed and gave herself a stern shake, forcing herself to concentrate instead on the prawn vol au vents.
‘Erm, OK thanks,’ Allie said, taking one and wondering how the hell she was going to eat this thing without spilling half of it down her dress. Or having to do something as inelegant as trying to shove the whole thing in her mouth in one go. Why on earth did they serve these things at a party? If she ever got to organise a party again, she would make damn sure that only one-mouthful canapés were served. Nothing that needed two mouthfuls, or god forbid, two hands. Or even worse, cutlery.
‘Let me know what you think,’ he said as he stepped away from her. ‘They’re a new recipe.’ He shot her another smile as he made his way off into the crowd.
Allie watched him go, hoping that he would come back although she wasn’t sure what she could tell him about her thoughts that wouldn’t have him running away in alarm. She shook her head a little. What was wrong with her? This was not normal behaviour, she needed to get a grip… on him…
She exhaled heavily and looked down at the vol au vent she was still clutching, feeling a sense of relief that the hot waiter wouldn’t be there to bear witness to her attempt to eat it. Not that it would matter how she ate it. Yes he was hot, yes he was easily the best-looking guy at the party, but she shouldn’t notice, much less care. This was a work event, she was a professional, here to network, not to pick up men. And anyway, she had Dominic, she remembered, almost as an afterthought.
Still, Allie allowed herself to watch him disappear into the crowd of people, his tray immediately picked clean by the seemingly starved partygoers. Allie contemplated the vol au vent and decided it would be much better off in the huge terracotta potted fern she was stood next to than in her mouth. She quickly shoved the whole thing under a leaf and then turned to brush her hands clean and looked back into the courtyard, hoping no one had spotted her. But no one had. In fact no one had paid her any attention at all, all evening, except for the cute waiter.
The central courtyard of the V manmade fabrics and inauthentic social situations were not a good combination, and she was beginning to sweat.
‘So tell me how the new bestseller is coming along?’ demanded Verity. ‘I am DYING to read it. I know your NEW new delivery date isn’t that far off, but if you have a sneak peek I can see before then please send it.’
Verity’s emphasis on the first ‘new’ didn’t escape Allie. Allie knew exactly when her NEW new delivery date was – four weeks, three days and nineteen hours away. And if she could read the look correctly on Verity’s face, Verity knew this too, and her desire to have a preview might have had something to do with the fact that this was the first novel where Allie hadn’t yet shared anything with Verity, nothing at all. Not a brief outline, an elevator pitch, not even a mumbled, incoherent statement of intent. And this wasn’t out of an abundance of secrecy, it was because there really was nothing at all to share.
The last year had been hard. Riding off the success of The Wishlist , Allie at first thought she just needed some time away from her laptop. But a few days had stretched into several weeks, and now here she was, almost a year later and with nothing to show for her sabbatical. This would be the first year in seven years that Allie wouldn’t have a book to publish. And if things continued as they were, it was going to be a long time before she had anything she might comfortably be able to share with Verity. Allie had discovered that publishers didn’t like it when an author decided they need some time off, there was always a hot new author ready to swoop in and steal those sales, but Allie had managed to persuade Verity, who in turn had persuaded Brinkman’s, that she needed this time off, that she would recharge, stretch her synapses, think of other things. And she would emerge better than ever with her new book having come to her during this time off. So far, Allie was still sat waiting for it to arrive.
Allie smiled nervously at the stony-faced Monica, whose facial expression didn’t appear to be capable of adjustment, and wondered if making conversation with her would be more or less painful than with Verity at that moment in time.
‘Hi,’ Allie said, ‘I’m Allie, Allie Edwards.’ She held her hand out to shake. Monica left Allie’s hand hanging there just a beat too long, and then, just as Allie was wondering if she should withdraw it, Monica extended her own.
‘Monica Billings, data analyst.’ Monica gave Allie’s hand one swift shake and then dropped it.
Verity laughed the laugh of someone painfully aware that a social situation was one comment away from disaster. ‘Monica is an absolute whizz at telling us who is buying what, what’s the best price point for maximum sales. All those clever things that actually make a book sell.’
Allie looked at Verity and raised her eyebrows. Verity saw the look on Allie’s face and quickly clarified. ‘After all the hard work of actually writing it, of course!’ she followed up, laughing even more nervously.
Allie smiled. Monica did not.
‘Anyway, Monica, do you mind if Allie and I leave you here? There’s someone I have to introduce her to.’
Monica’s face did something strange; there was a spasm and a constriction of muscles and finally Allie realised that this was possibly as close to a smile as Monica Billings could manage.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Allie said over her shoulder as Verity ushered her away.
‘God,’ Verity muttered, ‘thank you so much for saving me from her. Honestly I don’t know why I always get cornered by her at these things.’
‘Erm, yeah, she seemed kind of hard work.’
‘So painful,’ Verity shook her head, ‘you should try being stuck with her at a book launch, it’s like all the joy is sucked out of the room.’
‘Like a dementor,’ Allie said.
‘A what?’
Allie looked at Verity for a moment before deciding that she really didn’t have the energy to introduce the wizarding world of Harry Potter to her editor at this advanced stage in their relationship.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Right, OK, well, here we are.’
Here appeared to be the furthest, darkest corner of the courtyard, one not yet touched by canapés and attractive waiters, Allie noticed sadly. She thought fondly of the prawn vol au vent she had cast carelessly into that poor unsuspecting pot plant. And then she thought of the waiter, his grey sparkly eyes. She cleared her throat, attempting to dislodge the strange stirrings of desire she felt within her. Odd that she hadn’t experienced those for Dominic in a while.
‘Hopefully, she won’t find us here.’
Allie looked up at her editor and friend. Even without heels, Verity towered over her, her willowy frame encased in a dramatic ensemble of lime green and shocking pink chiffon. On anyone else, it would look frightful, but on Verity, it looked like something from last season’s fashion shows. Actually, with her new rich boyfriend, Verity could probably afford this season’s catwalk offerings. She could probably model the damn things on the catwalk and sell them just as well as she could hand-sell books.
‘So.’ Verity turned her head sharply away from the party and looked down at Allie. ‘Tell me what’s going on? Why haven’t I read anything yet?’
Allie fidgeted with her now empty champagne flute and wondered whether to come clean to Verity right now. As Jess said, what was the worst that could happen? Images of financial destitution and professional shame flashed across Allie’s vision. The bailiffs at her flat, wrestling the keys away from her. Her arrival at her sister Martha’s with nothing but a frayed rucksack on her shoulder. Strangely, the idea of turning up on Dominic’s doorstep didn’t seem to figure in her disaster planning. Allie mulled over her doomsday images briefly and then decided that Jess was wrong and that Brinkman’s annual summer party was probably not the time or place to confess to Verity that her writer’s block now seemed to be a permanent fixture in her life. She would email her first thing tomorrow instead…
‘I’m just having a hard time pulling all the strands of the story together,’ Allie mumbled.
‘But you’ve got the outline? You’ve got some strands to pull together?’ Without waiting for Allie to confirm this, Verity exhaled. ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ She smiled at Allie. ‘For a moment there I thought you were going to tell me you hadn’t written anything yet or, even worse, that you hadn’t even got an outline for the book.’
‘Ha ha,’ Allie laughed weakly, ‘that would be awful.’ She steadied herself on a marble statue briefly before quickly removing her hand. Setting the alarms off at the V this was the pose in the author photo that had been gracing the back cover of her books for the last four years. She tried recreating the smile but it fell flat and she dropped her ponytail in frustration. She’d lost that sparkle in her eyes – even if no one else had noticed, Allie had. She rolled her shoulders, easing out the burden of expectation: Verity’s, her mother’s, her fans, and weighing most heavily of all, her own. She thought about her dad. How proud she knew he would have been of her success. And what advice he might give her in her current predicament. She gnawed the inside of her mouth as she tried to recall his calm presence, his all-encompassing love for her, for Martha and for their mum. She blinked back the tears. With every year that went by it was harder and harder to recall his voice, harder to remember his words of wisdom. And yet, the one conversation she could conjure at the drop of a hat was the last one they had, of him telling Allie about when he met her mum, about the fireworks he felt and still felt, even right at the end when he was too weak to do much beyond lie in bed. And how he had wished that for Allie and for Martha, that they too would know a great love like their parents had. Martha had got it, she’d found it with Ruth, Allie could tell. Even their mum seemed happy in Spain with her new partner Nigel. But had Allie found it with Dominic? She contemplated this morosely and then turned her thoughts to the wild promises she had just made to Verity and Jake about her next book.
It wasn’t that Allie couldn’t write, of course she could. She’d written seven novels so far, all of them Sunday Times bestsellers, all of them the perfect formula of romance and laughter and happy-ever-afters. But what she hadn’t admitted to anyone until right this moment, and even now it was only to her own reflection, was that she didn’t want to write them anymore. She didn’t want to write sparkly love stories, she didn’t want to hint at passion and seduction, she didn’t want to capture that moment when your breath caught, desire caused your mouth to go dry and the words to stop as the hero kissed your lips. Because she no longer believed a word of what she had written. What was the point in pretending when life wasn’t full of romance and laughter and you had stopped believing in the happy-ever-afters? How could she create these stories when her own world felt dull and colourless? This realisation hit Allie like a freight train running at a hundred miles an hour; she was floored by her own cynicism, her words silenced by her loss of faith in the religion of romance.
Allie poked her tongue out at the mirror, frustrated by herself. She turned to go into one of the stalls. Even if she didn’t actually need the bathroom she needed a moment of solitude, and she definitely needed to adjust the lining of her irritating dress, which was rucked up and uncomfortable. She made a note never to wear the dress again and to donate it to charity as soon as possible. She had just closed the door and turned the lock when she heard the door of the bathrooms opening and the sound of a giggling voice echo around the space. Quietly she set about readjusting herself and she was just about to flush and open the door, because how was the person out there to know that she hadn’t actually used the toilet, and she didn’t want them thinking her a monster, when she heard another voice, a male voice and she froze. Great, she thought to herself, that’s all I need, stuck in a bathroom while a romantic tryst happens right outside my cubicle.
Allie stood for a moment listening, but whatever was happening outside the cubicle didn’t sound like a hookup. There was the sound of rustling and whispering before the distinct sound of someone, the owner of the female voice, inhaling something and gasping with pleasure.
‘Your turn,’ she said, her voice sounding more nasal and congested than it had before. ‘I brought extra, like you told me to.’
There was a long pause before Allie heard a voice she thought she recognised, saying in clipped tones, ‘Not out here.’
The door of one of the cubicles along from her opened, then closed and was locked. Allie took the opportunity to fling her door open, and run, before she could find out who the voices belonged to and exactly how illegal the substances being inhaled were.
She stalked quickly down the corridor, glancing over her shoulder as she did so, hoping to put as much distance between herself and the bathroom as possible before either of the other party could work out that they hadn’t been alone in the bathroom. In her rush, she took a left instead of a right turn and before she realised it, she was lost and probably about half a mile from the party, somewhere down a labyrinth of corridors. She stopped and looked around her, wondering if she could retrace her steps. Actually she didn’t really want to get back to the party, but she did want to find the exit. And she really did want her coat back from the coat check, because this was London, and despite it being summer, it was coat weather by 10pm.
She pushed against a door she thought looked promising and tumbled outside onto the street. Before she could turn back, the door slammed behind her. She quickly scanned the side of the door where she was now standing and immediately noticed two things; firstly there was no handle on her side, and secondly the door looked amazingly solid for such an old building. Not such a promising door after all then.
‘Dammit!’ she shouted and kicked the door, then really wished she hadn’t when the pain jarred through her leg. The strappy silver sandals she had chosen to wear for the party were not designed for kicking in heavy Victorian doors.
‘It’s locked,’ came a morose voice from her left.
Allie swung round to see who was there and saw a man leaning against the wall smoking.
‘So I gathered,’ Allie said acerbically. ‘Any idea how to get back in?’
The man shrugged. ‘I believe this is the door they’re using for catering, so if you wait around long enough I’m sure someone will come through.’
Allie blew her cheeks out in frustration and leaned back against the wall, keeping a good distance from this strange man. Because after all, this might be a swanky publishing party but it was also a back alley in London. She contemplated asking him how long he had been waiting to be let back in and then decided against engaging a stranger in conversation for the exact same reasons – a back alley. London. Late at night.
He, it seemed, had no such qualms – the privilege of being male, Allie thought to herself, quickly sizing him up and wondering if she could take him on in a fight. If she used one of her sandals as a weapon then she might just have the edge.
‘You were at the party?’ he asked. His voice was deep with a hint of gravel in it, probably caused by the smoking Allie thought, looking again at the lit cigarette dangling from his fingers. As she looked more closely, she realised he was older than she had initially thought, definitely in his sixties – more plausible then, that she could beat him in a fight. And he seemed familiar, Allie felt sure she had seen him somewhere before.
‘I was,’ she confirmed. ‘I was trying to find the coat check but it looks like I took a wrong turn,’ she said, indicating their surroundings.
She was rewarded by a bark of laughter. ‘Looks like you did. Personally, I never bother with them.’
‘Parties or coat checks?’
He turned to face her and raised his eyebrow. ‘It’s a fair question, isn’t it, seeing as we’re both avoiding the party.’
‘I wasn’t avoiding it,’ Allie smarted. And now, looking at him face on, Allie was sure she recognised him.
‘I meant coat checks. Although I find nowadays parties are something I can take or leave as well.’
‘Yes, well that’s because you’re a man. Try walking home in a dress and high heels and then see if you need a coat check.’ Allie didn’t mean to sound so caustic, she just really wanted to know how long she was going to be stuck outside, making small talk with a stranger.
The man shrugged and pushed himself up from his slouching position allowing the streetlamp to cast its light across his face.
‘I know who you are!’ Allie said, suddenly, and then was immediately embarrassed to have made it so obvious that she had been studying him. But he didn’t seem the least bothered, as if he was used to this happening. He put his hand out towards her. ‘Martin Clark,’ he said, ‘and you are?’
‘Erm, Allie Edwards.’ Allie wondered if he would notice how sweaty her palm had become during her race down the corridors and if she could get away with wiping it on her dress. She did a surreptitious wipe down, hoping that the darkness of the alleyway would hide the movement. He took her hand without seeming to notice anything amiss.
‘I didn’t realise Brinkman’s published you.’
Martin Clark had been a huge crime writer in the 1990s. Every one of his books had topped the charts and Allie was sure that at least one of them had been made into a Hollywood movie. Something her dad had made her watch one long Sunday afternoon in her youth. And then, like so many writers, he had disappeared without a trace, and she couldn’t recall him publishing anything recently. Allie shuddered at this fate. Martin made a noise that sounded halfway between a groan and a laugh. ‘I’m not sure I can claim to be published by anyone anymore.’
Allie looked at him curiously, wondering just what the great Martin Clark was doing hiding out in the back alley behind a publishing party.
‘You’re not under contract with them?’ she asked. ‘I thought they were really picky about only inviting authors who are actually being published that year? I only just scraped in, by the way, in case you were wondering.’
Martin Clark didn’t look like he was wondering anything of the sort. He looked down at the cigarette still smouldering in his hand and then lifted it to his lips, taking a long drag.