The sun had started to set, and the three of us stayed by the wall to watch the orange glow spread its last ounce of warmth across the sea. And just before it vanished completely, I pulled my new selfie stick out of my bag. ‘No, no, no!’ Andrew protested.
‘Yes, yes, yes! We are capturing this moment!’ I laughed.
‘God, what have I done?’ he said in despair before I snapped a picture of the three of us: the first memory of our new journey together.
I have love, family, and friendship. I have a wonderful life.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to say a huge thank you to my editor, Hannah Smith at HQ Digital for her patience, guidance and support. Hannah, without you to channel my indecisiveness into a single plot, I don’t think I’d have ever finished this story. I’d like to extend my thanks to HQ Digital too, for agreeing to publish not one, but three of my books.
Throughout my writing journey I’ve met lots of supportive authors. Rachel Burton in particular provided me with endless support and advice as I wrote this novel and I’d like to say a massive thanks for that and to Audrey Davis for some fantastic input in the early stages.
Finally, I’d like to thank Katherine Trail for her valuable wisdom and input.
Read on for a sneak peek of The Secret to Falling in Love.
Chapter One
I opened my eyes with a start. A thin, bluish line of light crept in underneath the blind. It was morning. As my eyes adjusted, I scanned the room in confusion. I didn’t recognise it at all. I had no recollection of how I’d come to be there. It took a moment for me to recall the events of the previous evening. When I did, dread descended upon me. The true horror set in. I was suddenly wide awake. I had to escape. If I was going to get out without being rumbled, I had to do it quickly.
First, I needed to figure out where I was. I tensed my body, trying to keep it as still as possible, and slid a leg out of the bed into the cold, stark air. I felt around the floor with my toes until they found my handbag. Bingo. Slowly, I hooked my toe underneath the handle and bent my knee, bringing the bag up towards my chest. I unzipped it quietly.
Being careful not to make a sound, I slid out my phone. I had no memory of the end of the evening and hoped to find some clues, but a quick look through my messages and status updates was enough to draw a blank. Nothing there shed any light on what had happened or where I was. The sound of slow, shallow breaths close by refocused my attention. Panic set in. Time was not on my side. My heart started to beat harder, each beat pounding in my eardrums, trying to pull me into action. It was now or never.
I held my breath to keep myself silent as I carefully rolled over and slithered to the edge of the bed in a move that would have made James Bond green with envy. It was the second time in the space of a few minutes I’d been glad of my enduring commitment to Pilates. I stretched my left arm out so my hand could touch the floor, before pausing momentarily to check I was still operating under the radar. The coast seemed clear, so I brought my right leg over and down to the floor before heaving the rest of my body out of the bed.
So there I was, on the floor in some stranger’s bedroom, stuck in downward-facing dog, too afraid to move until I’d reaffirmed the bloke in bed was still asleep. It was hard to hear any changes in his breathing for all the blood pumping around my head, but he didn’t move, so I assumed he was still sleeping. Relieved, I allowed my knees to slump down to the floor and scanned the room for my belongings. Hanging from the lamp on the bedside table was my blue lacy satin bra. ‘Oh, God,’ I groaned under my breath as snippets of memory started slapping me in the face.
I didn’t dare put my clothes on for fear of being caught, so I scooped everything up into my arms. When I stood up, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror on the wall. Even more horrifying than the predicament I’d found myself in was my hair; it looked like the perfect home for a tittering of magpies.
I didn’t have time to think about that. I scurried towards the door. As I was about to leave, I turned back to check he was still sleeping. My panic had subsided a little, so I could appreciate that no matter how compelled I felt to get out of there, he wasn’t actually too bad. The slow rise and fall of his toned, taut chest was the calm before the storm. At that moment, he was blissfully unaware he’d wake up alone – that his date would have sneaked off after a night of passion. (I’d concluded there had been passion from the location of my bra.)
To my shame, I felt quite excited about being the one to sneak off. On the rare occasions I’d had one-night stands, I’d always been the one to wake up alone without so much as a note, but there I was, holding all the cards. Of course, it was just logistical, as we were in his house and he couldn’t exactly sneak off and leave me here.
Although that did actually happen once, back in my university days. I’d had to suffer the embarrassment of
