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Praise for RITA® Award-winning author LIZ FIELDING
About The Bride, the Baby and the Best Man:
“A wonderful story with emotionally driven characters, cracking scenes and a fantastic plot twist.”
—Romantic Times
About And Mother Makes Three:
“Ms. Fielding continues to delight me with her storytelling and rich prose. She is now on my automatic-buy list.”
—Bookbug on the Web
About Dating Her Boss:
“Liz Fielding pens a brilliant tale…as she beautifully weaves together a strong emotional conflict, entertaining wit and two dynamic characters.”
—Romantic Times
Dear Reader,
We’re constantly striving to bring you the best romance fiction by the most exciting authors, and in Harlequin Romance® we’re especially keen to feature fresh, sparkling, emotionally exhilarating novels! Modern love stories to suit your every mood—poignant, deeply moving stories; lively, upbeat romances with sparks flying; or sophisticated, edgy novels with a cosmopolitan flavor.
All our authors are special, and we hope you continue to enjoy each month’s new selection of Harlequin Romance titles. This month we’re delighted to feature another book with extra fizz! In Liz Fielding’s fast-paced, witty novel, meet Philly and laugh along with her (and at her!) as she attempts to become a city girl in London….
We hope you enjoy this book by Liz Fielding—it’s fresh, flirty and feel-good!—and look out for future sparkling stories in Harlequin Romance. If you’d like to share your thoughts and comments with us, do please write to:
The Harlequin Romance Editors
Harlequin Mills & Boon Ltd.
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Richmond
Surrey TW9 1SR, U.K.
Or e-mail us at: tango@hmb.co.uk
Happy reading!
The Editors
www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
The house is on fire and you only have time to grab one item of clothing. Would you choose:
a. the kickin’ hot purple leather miniskirt that turns heads in the street?
b. your expensive go-anywhere black suit?
c. a pair of washed-thin jogging pants that you were wearing when you first met the man of your dreams?
d. the designer skirt you bought in a sale? You’ll never get a bargain like that again.
e. the sweater knitted for you by your grandmother?
‘ARE you sure you don’t want to take this sweater, Philly? Aunt Alice will expect to see you wearing it at Christmas…’ My mother looked up when I didn’t answer and caught me looking at the quiz in the magazine she’d bought me on her last-minute dash to the shops. ‘Save that for the journey, dear,’ she said, as if I were six years old, instead of nearly twenty-three, ‘or you won’t have anything to read on the train.’
I heroically resisted the urge to tell her that while I was the baby of the family, the one who didn’t get a starred first at university, I was quite capable of buying myself a magazine, and instead gave her my full attention. Her question, however, had been purely rhetorical. She’d already unzipped the corner of my case and tucked away the sweater.
It figured.
I’d been haunted by that sweater ever since my Great-Aunt Alice had knitted it for me. It was pale blue and fluffy and I loathed it. I’d planned on putting it in a carton of clothes to be stored in the attic, hoping that a moth would consider it a suitable home for her offspring.
‘You really should have bought a new case. I’m not at all happy about this zip.’
‘The zip is fine,’ I said. At least it had been fine until my mother had added that sweater. ‘I’m catching a train to London, not flying to the other side of the world.’ Unlike my parents who were abandoning me, throwing me upon the mercy of strangers while they went on a world tour visiting their far-flung offspring.
My father had taken early retirement and it was, my mother had told me, time for them to have a little fun visiting my three clever and adventurous brothers in New Zealand, California and South Africa, respectively. And my beautiful, and equally adventurous, clever married sister, and her new babies, in Australia.
Fun! They were parents. Parents weren’t supposed to have fun. They were supposed to stay home, do the crossword, play Scrabble and drink cocoa and I told them so.
They thought that was very funny.
I WASN’T JOKING!
But then, neither were they. They’d spent the last thirty-five years bringing up their family and now they were seriously intent on enjoying themselves. I was the only fly in the ointment. Twenty-two years old, still living at home. Still dating the boy next door. With no sign of a wedding any time soon.
Worse was to come.
I’d assumed they’d go on their extended holiday happy in the knowledge that I’d be there to take care of things while they were away. And the up side was that, with the house to myself, I’d have a real opportunity to move things along with Don. Get his mind out from under the bonnet of his car, away from his mother, and inject some physicality into our relationship.
I was getting desperate for some action while I was still young enough to enjoy it.
But my father’s successor had been looking for somewhere to rent while he and his family found a house in the district. The deal had been done before I’d even heard about it. I’d appealed to my mother, but she’d said it was nothing to do with her. And then—and here was an extraordinary coincidence—my boss (the one who played golf with my dad every Sunday morning) asked me if I’d consider a six-month secondment to the City. Working in a merchant bank. Honing my skills for the next step up the ladder. Promotion. Something I’d been avoiding for the last two years. Promotion meant moving.
But Maybridge was alive with the twanging of strings being pulled and, before I’d known it, my mother had been on the old girls’ network, finding me somewhere to live.
‘It’ll do you good to have a change of scene,’ she said, over my protests. ‘You’re stuck in a rut in Maybridge. Gone as far as you can at the local branch of the bank…’ Everything came in threes, and apparently ruts were no exception. ‘And Don takes you for granted. It will do you both good to stand back and look at where you’re going.’
I knew where I was going—I’d known since I was ten years old—but my mother had a look about her that warned me that any argument would be a waste of breath. An I-know-what’s-best-for-you look. An unexpectedly knowing look that suggested a little enforced separation might shake Don into action.
Nearly twenty-three years old and still a virgin, I was getting desperate for some action.
All this talk of ruts was, however, a bit hard to take from a woman who’d lived with the same man, in the same house, for nearly forty years.
Not that I was criticising her for that. It was what I wanted, too. A lifetime with one man, in one house, raising a family. Just like my mother.
And Don wanted the same thing. Well, obviously he didn’t want a man, he wanted me, he’d said so. He just wasn’t doing anything about making it happen. Perhaps my imminent departure would jolt him out of his complacency.
I’d found him in his garage working on the small vintage car he’d been restoring for what seemed like for ever, told him my news and held my breath.
‘London?’ he said, with that sweet, puzzled expression that made him look as innocent as a baby. Okay, he was innocent. And sweet. If he’d been anything else, I’d have been beating off other girls since he was old enough to shave. But he’d only ever had eyes for me. He pushed back his floppy blond fringe, leaving a smear of grease on his forehead, to look at me with concern. ‘What on earth will you do in London?’
No, no, no!
He was supposed to leap to his feet, wrap me in his arms and tell me that I wasn’t going anywhere without him.
‘Going for the promotion that’s due to me,’ I said, irrationally irritable. ‘Seeing the sights. Having some fun,’ I added, hoping to provoke a little possessiveness.
Why would he be possessive when I’d only ever had eyes for him?
Don frowned but not, apparently, at the thought of me having fun. ‘You mean you’re going for good?’ For one heart-stopping moment I thought I’d got through to him. That he’d finally realised that, unless he did something about it, I wouldn’t be around to read his mind and put the right spanner in his hand whenever he needed it.
My imagination ran momentarily wild with anticipation that he’d leap to his feet, wrap me…etc., etc.
‘Yes,’ I said. That wasn’t quite true, but if I were promoted I would have to move to a larger branch somewhere else. I should have done it a long time ago, but I was comfortable in my rut. Unlike my siblings, I didn’t have an adventurous bone in my body. I’d flown once and I’d been so frightened I’d been sick. Nothing would induce me to repeat the experience. Besides, I liked living at home. Next door to the boy next door.
‘But you’ve been working there since you left college,’ Don said.
His concern about me moving on from my present job was wearing a bit thin. He was supposed to be shocked that I was leaving him.
‘Maybe it’s time to move on,’ I said. And waited for him to do something to change my mind. Exclamations of heartbreak would be a start. Followed by a suggestion that we catch the next plane to Bali and get married right away. On a beach. In the moonlight.
Bali? What was I thinking of? I didn’t want to go to Bali. That would mean getting on a plane. Two planes if I wanted to come home.
All this talk of travelling must have gone to my head.
I needn’t have worried, however, because he did none of the above. Just did that thing with his fringe again, looking adorably helpless, so that I wanted to kiss him and tell him that I didn’t mean it. That I wasn’t going anywhere. I just about managed to restrain myself. ‘Oh, well, I suppose I should say congratulations.’ Then, ‘I’ll really miss you.’ That was marginally better, but my smile was a fraction too fast. ‘I’ll have more time to work on the car, though.’
Er, when? He already spent every spare moment cherishing tender loving care on its engine, bodywork, upholstery, when it was my bodywork that was crying out for a little of that TLC.
‘Great,’ I said. But through gritted teeth.
‘London?’ He repeated the word as if it were a strange and mythical place instead of a sprawling city a scant hour from Maybridge by train. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a terrific time.’
BUT I DON’T WANT TO GO!
My scream of frustration was silent, however. A girl had her pride.
But why couldn’t he see that I wasn’t looking for a terrific time? That what I wanted was for him to tell me to forget all about London, suggest I move in with him and his widowed mother while we looked for a flat we could share…
I didn’t bother to ask any of these questions out loud. I already knew the answer.
Mrs Cooper, a vapid hypochondriac who’d never recovered from the fact that her husband had decamped with his secretary, was always very sweet to my face. I had a strong suspicion, however, that beneath the saccharine exterior she hated me playing with Don just as much now as when he’d been a clever twelve-year-old and I’d distracted him from his homework. There was no way she’d want me so dangerously close to her precious son.
I was seriously tempted to strip off and seduce him, right there and then in the garage, just to spite her. But the floor was bare concrete, the temperature freezing and Don’s hands were covered with motor oil. Only an idiot—or a desperate woman—would remove her thermals under such unpromising circumstances. Okay, so I was desperate, but, short of experience as I was, I suspected that, shivering and blue with cold, I wasn’t going to light anyone’s fire.
‘I do rather envy you, to be honest,’ Don said, distracting me with an odd hint of longing in his voice. ‘All those museums…’
Museums? That was his idea of a terrific time? Sweet, trusting soul that he was, I could have hugged him. But his overalls were covered in oil, too. Of course if I’d been wearing that fluffy sweater I’d have made the sacrifice.
‘Actually,’ he said, with more animation than he’d shown all evening, ‘when you go to the Science Museum you might take a look at…’
The Science Museum? He thought my idea of a fantastic time was an afternoon at the Science Museum? I might take a turn around the V&A to look at the jewellery and fashions but…
‘Promise?’ he said.
Promise? Promise what? Oh, heck, I should have been listening. ‘Why don’t you come up and spend the weekend with me?’ I suggested, suddenly seeing the possibilities… ‘We could go together.’
He looked slightly uncomfortable and, concentrating on wiping his hands on a rag, he said, ‘I don’t think I could leave Mother on her own overnight. She suffers so with her nerves.’
So she did.
She managed to get through the day well enough, while he was at work. She saved up her attacks to coincide with any plans I had for Don. Which was why, on Friday, having waved my parents off on their great adventure, I had to haul my own case aboard the London train. He’d taken the afternoon off to drive me to the station, but his mother had had one of her ‘little turns’ just before we’d been due to leave.
I’d considered having a turn of my own. Flinging myself on the floor and drumming my heels on the hall carpet. But Don had looked so miserable that I’d told him to go back to his mother and wait for the doctor, while I called a taxi and put myself on the train.
As Maybridge disappeared into the icy rain of a November afternoon I settled down with a cheese and pickle sandwich and a comfortingly large hot chocolate drink and, since I had an hour to fill, I took out the magazine.
‘Are You a Tiger or a Kitten?’ screamed at me from a cover flash. I didn’t need a quiz to answer that one. I was nearly twenty-three years old, I had a mother who was still treating me like a child and a boyfriend who’d apparently mislaid his libido.
I was a kitten, right?
Wrong.
Having worked my way through the multiple-choice questions, I discovered that I’d been wildly optimistic.
I was a mouse. Or maybe an ostrich.
That, according to the quiz, was why I was sitting on a train for London when I wanted to stay in Maybridge.
That was why my boyfriend put his mother first. (And because he was sweet and kind and she was a manipulative old witch.) Why I was going to spend Christmas pulling crackers with Great-Aunt Alice instead of getting pulled by Don.
I was too easygoing. Too undemanding. My expectations were so low, they barely registered. I picked up my cheese sandwich and then put it down again quickly. Cheese. A mouse would choose a cheese sandwich.
I should have chosen the fashionable roast vegetables in sun dried tomato bread. But, mouse that I was, I loved cheese.
I should be wearing designer label jeans with high heels, instead of an old pair that had once belonged to the last of my brothers to leave home—shortened to fit my pathetically short legs—with a pair of cheap trainers I’d bought from the market. (I was saving up to get married, okay?)
I should have my nails professionally manicured. I should at least have painted them with something more exciting than the pale pink nail polish I’d borrowed from my mother.
I might never have wanted to be a tiger, but surely I should at least aspire to be a kitten?
Unfortunately any attempt to change my character would only raise a patronising smile in Maybridge. I’d lived there all my life. Who would take me seriously if I changed into a scarlet-nailed temptress overnight?
But it occurred to me that in London, where no one knew me, I could be whatever I chose. I had to face facts. Being mouse-like, I hadn’t been able to untie Don from his mother’s apron strings and fix him to mine.
Maybe my mother—tough though it was to admit this—was right. Maybe a break would do us both good. Don had six months to experience life without me at his side to hand him a wrench before he’d even asked for it.
And I had six months to put on some gloss, put an edge on my character, so that when I went back to Maybridge Don would be down that aisle before he—or his mother—knew what had hit him.
As the train arrived in Paddington I stuffed the magazine into my shoulder bag for further study and grabbed my bulging suitcase from the rack.
New job. New life. New clothes. I was in London and I was going to make the most of it.
I didn’t actually growl as I joined the crowds heading for the underground, but I was beginning to take to the idea of being a tiger.
CHAPTER TWO
It’s the rush hour and raining. You hail the same taxi as a tall, dark and handsome stranger and he suggests sharing. Do you:
a. think it’s your birthday, flirt like mad until you reach your destination, then as you leave the cab hand him your phone number with a look that says ‘Call me…’?
b. remind yourself that your mother would not approve, but it is raining and he doesn’t look like a serial killer. What could be the harm?
c. tell him to get lost and leave him standing on the pavement?
d. let him take the taxi and wait for another one?
e. walk?
HAVING battled with the intricacies of the underground system, only going in the wrong direction twice, I finally emerged into the light of day. When I say light of day, I’m using poetic licence. What actually confronted me was the dark of a wet November evening.
And when I say wet, I do mean wet. No poet needed. The rain, miserable icy drizzle that had perfectly matched my mood when I’d left home, had intensified to the consistency of stair-rods.
In the country it would have been quite dark. But this was London where the neon never set; excitingly opulent shop windows and the rainbow colours of a million Christmas lights were reflected in the wet street, cutting through the gathering gloom.
And there were people, hundreds and hundreds of people, all with somewhere to go and in a hurry to get there.
I stood in the entrance to the underground, A-Z in hand, trying to orientate myself as impatient travellers pushed past me. On paper, it didn’t seem far to Sophie and Kate Harrington’s flat, but I was well aware that distance, on paper, could be deceiving. And my problems with north and south on the underground system had seriously undermined any confidence in my ability to map read. A taxi seemed like a wise investment and as I glanced up I spotted the yellow light on a cruising black cab.
I’d never hailed a taxi before—in Maybridge taxis didn’t cruise for custom, you had to telephone for one—but I knew how to do it. In theory. I’d seen people do it on television often enough. You stood on the kerb, raised your hand and yelled ‘Taxi!’…
I’d never make it to the kerb before it passed so I raised my hand and waved hopefully, but, realising that my self-consciously ladylike rendition of ‘Taxi!’ didn’t stand a chance of being heard over the noise of traffic, I tried again, this time yelling loud enough to wake the dead. I didn’t care. It had worked! The driver was heading for the kerb, pulling up a few yards ahead of me.
Wow! Who was the mouse now? I thought smugly as I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and, towing it after me, I cut recklessly through the crowds who were charging along, heads collectively down against the rain. Before I got to the kerb, however, someone had already opened the taxi door and was closing his umbrella prior to boarding.
‘Hey, you! That’s mine!’ I declared, uncharacteristically tiger-like in my defence of my first London taxi, despite the fact that my adversary towered above me.
The black silk umbrella he was holding collapsed in a shower of rainwater, most of which went over me, and the taxi thief glanced at me with every indication of impatience.
‘On the contrary, I hailed it before you even saw it,’ he said, giving me the briefest of glances. Brief was apparently all it took. After a moment’s astonished gaze, he muttered something beneath his breath that I didn’t quite catch—but didn’t for a moment believe was complimentary—and, with a look of resignation that suggested he was being a fool to himself, he stood back and gestured at the open door. ‘Take it. Before you drown.’
Oh, no. This was bad. I could be mad at a man who nicked my cab, but I couldn’t take it if it was rightfully his, even if my need was clearly the greater.
He did, after all, have an umbrella.
But I was already so wet that no amount of rain would make any difference. As I dithered on the kerb, he was rapidly getting the same way. But it had only taken a moment’s reflection, a pause long enough for my brain to override my mouth, for me to realise that I had in fact seen him standing at the edge of the pavement in that moment when I’d looked up from the A-Z. That my own efforts to attract the driver’s attention from the back of the pavement had gone unheeded. Feeling very stupid, the tiger in me morphed back into mouse.
‘No, really,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry…’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ He seized the handle of my suitcase, crammed with everything I might need for the next six months and weighing a ton, and tossed it into the cab without noticeable effort. ‘Stop wittering and get in.’
‘Would one of you get in?’ the driver demanded testily. ‘I’ve got a living to make.’
‘Maybe we could share,’ I said, scrambling in after my suitcase. My irritable knight errant paused in the act of closing the door behind me. ‘I’m not going far and you could…um…we could…’ He waited for me to finish. ‘At least you’d be in the dry.’
Oh, heck. This wasn’t like the quiz at all. I wasn’t supposed to do the asking. But then the quiz wasn’t real life.
In my real life I didn’t offer to share taxis with tall, dark and handsome strangers. In my real life Friday evenings were spent handing Don his spanners as he talked endlessly about the intricacies of the internal combustion engine; a well-drilled theatre nurse to his mechanical surgeon. Comfortable. Familiar. Safe. Nothing to get the heart racing. Not the way mine was racing now.
‘Where are you going?’
I told him and he raised his brows a fraction.
‘Is that on your way?’ I asked.
After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded, told the driver where to go, then climbed in and pulled down the jump seat opposite me, sitting sideways, his legs stretched across the width of the cab, so that his knees and feet wouldn’t intrude on my space.
He had the biggest feet I’d ever seen and as I stared at them I found myself wondering if it was true about the size of a man’s feet indicating the size of, well, other extremities…
‘You’re new in London aren’t you?’ he said, and I looked up. The corner of his mouth had kinked up in a knowing smile and I blushed, certain that he could read my mind.
‘Just this minute arrived.’ There was no point in pretending otherwise. I’d dressed for warmth and comfort rather than style. With nothing more glamorous than baby cream on my face—I’d chewed off my lipstick in the tussle with the underground—and my hair neon-red candyfloss from the damp, I was never going to pass as a sophisticated City-girl. ‘I suppose the suitcase is a dead giveaway,’ I said, wishing I’d taken a lot more trouble over my appearance.