Fern Britton - A Seaside Affair

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014

Copyright © Fern Britton 2014

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

Illustration © Carrie May

Author photograph © Neil Cooper

Fern Britton 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 e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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.

Source ISBN: 9780007468560

Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007468584

Version: 2019-03-01

To Harry and your exciting future with all my love, Mum xx

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Part Two

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Epilogue

An Exclusive Extract From Fern’s New Novel: The Newcomer

Read an extract from Good Catch

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

‘You should’ve woken me, silly.’ Ryan Hearst ambled into the sunny kitchen, scratching himself somewhere inside his rumpled boxer shorts.

His girlfriend, Jess Tate, glanced up from reading the paper at the kitchen table and allowed her eyebrows to wrinkle briefly in distaste.

Ryan bent down and gave her a kiss on her freckled nose. A small gesture he was prone to, which always managed to irritate her.

‘What’s for breakfast?’ He stretched out his muscular arms, then straightened up and yawned. His armpits gave off an unpleasant odour.

Jess pushed up her reading specs, sweeping her loose brown curls off her face, and gave him what she hoped was a relaxed smile. ‘If your fans could see you now …’

‘Yeah, don’t tell them. Anyway, baby, I’m all yours.’ He placed his hands either side of her head and thrust his hips and crotch towards her, mimicking a male stripper. She pulled a face and turned away. ‘You pong. Go and have a shower and I’ll make something to eat.’

‘You love me, baby, you know you do.’ He scratched his chest and yawned again. ‘I’ve missed you, Jess. I really have.’

She looked into his dark, almond-shaped eyes, even more sexy with the tanned creases of crow’s feet at their edges.

‘Yes, and I’ve missed you,’ she murmured, closing her eyes and forming her full lips into a shape for kissing – but he was already on his way to the bathroom.

With a sigh she got up and made her way to the fridge. There were plenty of eggs, a slab of cheese and some mushrooms. Ryan hadn’t touched a carbohydrate since the third person in their relationship, Cosmo Venini, had entered their lives.

‘Will an omelette do you?’ she called. But he couldn’t hear her over the sound of the shower.

Two pairs of beady eyes popped up over the dog basket next to the dishwasher.

Jess bent down to tickle a brace of plump tummies. ‘Daddy’s home, girls.’

Elsie and Ethel were miniature dachshund sisters. Ryan had brought them home nine months ago, the day he had landed the title role in Venini , a TV series about the exploits of a globe-trotting classical conductor who moonlights as an MI5 agent. The show had been an overnight success and as a result the tabloids had given Ryan the dubious honour of dubbing him ‘the thinking woman’s brioche’.

Jess recalled that cold January afternoon when he’d poked his head round the living room door, the smell of frosty air clinging to him. She was huddled on the sofa in front of the TV, swaddled from head to toe in their duvet to combat the lack of heating, watching Deal or No Deal and wondering whether she should apply to be a contestant in the hope of bringing home some prize money. One look at Ryan’s face told her his audition had been successful.

‘Oh my God! You got the job?’ The icy temperature forgotten, she’d thrown off the duvet and leapt up from the sofa.

‘Yep. Call me Cosmo!’ He pushed the door wide open and stood in front of her, smiling self-deprecatingly, still wearing the huge misshapen tweed overcoat that he’d bought in the charity shop the previous winter.

For a moment Jess could only jump up and down on the spot, beside herself with happiness, then she ran across the room, hugged him tightly and kissed him. ‘I’m so happy for you! This is it , Ryan! This is your big break – oh my God, oh my God – we can pay the gas bill!’