Maddie Please - The Mini-Break

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Maddie Please 2019

Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2019

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock

Maddie Please asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2019; ISBN: 9780008305222

Version: 2019-02-19

For Brian.

Unfailingly supportive and encouraging.

Thank you.

LYL

M xx

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page THE MINI-BREAK MADDIE PLEASE

Copyright Published by AVON A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019 Copyright © Maddie Please 2019 Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2019 Cover illustrations © Shutterstock Maddie Please asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © March 2019; ISBN: 9780008305222 Version: 2019-02-19

Dedication For Brian. Unfailingly supportive and encouraging. Thank you. LYL M xx

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Five years ago, my sister and I were skiing together (Val d’Isère, a chalet full of our friends and a case of Grey Goose vodka to get the party going) and Jassy took a tumble and dislocated her knee. Apart from the pain – which must have been awful – she was furious. She’d made us get new salopettes for the holiday too, really attractive, and matching fur-bobble hats. There were paparazzi all over the place photographing some Swedish princess and her family, but instead we attracted all the publicity, the sort Jassy wasn’t used to.

After several weeks of medical attention and physio we thought her knee was healed, but then in January she was on the ice rink at Somerset House, fell over and as a result needed an operation. Leg in plaster, the works.

The trouble was, with Jassy’s knee and with me going through a bad patch with Benedict after a rather disappointing Valentine’s Day, both of us had lost focus. We needed a break. Jassy came up with a plan and as usual she was very persuasive; she had a first draft of her latest book to finish while her husband was away in the West Indies, commentating on some mind-numbing cricket matches, and from all the media evidence, enjoying himself a bit too much out of the commentary box.

I had some structural edits to do on Choose Yes (okay, more of a rewrite if I’m honest) and a partner who was starting to get on my nerves. I know Benedict was stressed at work and I did sympathise, but all he ever seemed to do was complain loudly and at length about colleagues who were being more annoying and incompetent than usual. I really needed some peace and quiet, no arguments about whose turn it is to put the recycling out or when the water filter was last changed. Benedict is very particular about the water filter, you’d think what came out of the tap was poisonous.

And so, there were lots of reasons why we had borrowed our literary agent’s holiday house near Dartmoor. Jassy thought it was a good idea and it sounded fun. We would take some time out to get our writing wagons into a circle, do some proper work and recover after the alcohol-fuelled madness that had been our Christmas and New Year.

Sally had described in mouth-watering detail the glorious view across pretty fields and opening the diamond-paned windows to breathe in great lungfuls of clean air. Which is a joke as she smokes like a chimney.

We pictured ourselves sitting in comfortable armchairs next to a gorgeous fire. Jassy would be wrapped up in her pink cashmere robe, with her laptop open on her good knee. I’d be flicking through my proofs, ticking things off with the silver propelling pencil Jassy gave me for Christmas. Occasionally we would look up and grin at each other, pleased with the way things had worked out.

Peace, quiet, rest, lovely meals, large glasses of Merlot glowing like rubies in the firelight. I imagined a bird feeder in the window with all sorts of little birds fluttering around it.

Well it wasn’t a bit like that.

*

For a start the weather was rubbish. But then it was February in Devon. I suppose we should have expected horizontal rain and red mud everywhere.

One week in and I wanted to go back to London with just about every atom in my body. Back then my idea of a breath-taking view was the glass canyons of Knightsbridge. I’d been invited to a really brilliant birthday party at the V&A and turned it down to come here. What was I doing there with only sheep and my sister for company?

You might well ask.

I write romances – the sort where ditzy girls take over cafés or inherit cottages from their godmothers and find a wonderful and passionate love with the local surfer dude. I’ve written a whole series of medical romances too where the handsome surgeon falls in love with the feisty little nurse. Don’t sneer, you’ve read them, you’ve heard of me: Lulu Darling. I’ve sold millions of books; I know what I’m doing.