Jackie Rose - Slim Chance

was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, where she now lives with her husband, daughter and dog. After cutting her teeth in the publishing world editing a travel magazine, she decided to devote herself to writing full-time. Slim Chance is her debut novel.

When she’s not looking herself up on the Internet, Jackie likes to spend her time sleeping, shopping and musing about the meaning of it all. She’s also currently hard at work on her second book.

For Dan, my one and only love

Slim Chance

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Thanks to…

Robyn Berman, for lighting a fire under me and keeping it burning. Sam Bell, my devoted editor, for all your help and encouragement, every step of the way. Rachel Pritzker, for being the absolute polar opposite of the mother-in-law in this book. Nelu Wolfensohn, for that whole roof over our heads thing. Riana Levy, Tara Cogan, Wendy Cooper, Kathy De Koven and Ilana Kronick, for being the very paragons of friendship, if not always virtue. Lorne Scharf, photo expert, for the back-cover shot. Rose and Issie Lipkus, for your endless smiles and support. Natalie Rosenhek—aka “Bubba”—for baby-sitting with a passion. Shoel Rosenhek, for getting me started with all those trips to the library. Jordy, for sending news of the world home from New York, London and beyond. Sarah, lover of ideas and pursuer of wisdom, for everything, always. Sandy Lipkus, for being the best teacher I ever had.

And, of course, Abigail,

for helping with revisions from the inside.

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

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

EPILOGUE

If you’ve ever puked at work, it has probably been for one of two reasons—either you’re desperately, uncontrollably ill with some type of stomach flu or food poisoning, in which case you’re just glad to have made it to the bathroom on time and don’t really care if anyone hears you throwing your guts up, or else you’re sick in the sort of way you’d prefer to keep to yourself (i.e., violently hung over; just discovered you’re pregnant; fired, and so on). That afternoon, as I stared down into the bowl in the unforgiving light of the ladies’ room on the third-floor offices of Kendra White Cosmetics, The Second-Largest Direct-Selling Makeup Company In America, I realized that this situation definitely falls into the latter category, the sort of barfing where you pray for privacy while processing the certain knowledge that your entire life as you know it is about to change.

I can’t believe I said yes.

Until that moment, thanks to a healthy aversion to mayonnaise and an inherited ability to hold my liquor, I’d never suffered the indignity of being sick in public. Now, though, a gaggle of thick-stockinged co-workers fretted outside the stall door, gossipful glee disguised as concern. They’d seen me bolt for the bathroom. Now they waited for completion.

Please, just let me not puke.

But it was no use. My eyes filled with water, my knees hit the floor and the bowl became my whole world. In my day-to-day life at Kendra White, I make a concerted effort not to put my ass anywhere near these toilets. Now, my face was inside one.

An eternity passed, during which time I pretended I was in the Ally McBeal Unisex, so sterile, so sleek, so much fun…not at all like this abysmal pit, where ladies’ unmentionables are strewn all over the wet floor and the garbage can’s always overstuffed. Oh my God, is that a pubic hair on the seat?

“Are you all right, Evelyn? Do you need someone to hold your hair back?” Pruscilla Cockburn, my boss, wheezed from the other side.

“No, I’m fine,” I gagged.

“Well then, get a hold of yourself, dear. It’s only nerves! You’re going to make a wonderful wife. And what a fellow, that Bruce. He’s waiting just outside the door, you know. Gosh! Have you ever seen such a romantic proposal? Well I know I certainly haven’t—not even on A Wedding Story, and I’ve got every one on tape. I mean, can you imagine? Asking her at work? In front of everyone…?”

At this point, it was obvious she’d forgotten all about me, and was simply sharing with the others. What a hag. I had just suffered the worst sort of humiliation imaginable, my love life savagely ripped from the privacy of my own heart and put on display in front of everyone I hate most in the world, and all Pruscilla could think about was what a great story it would make at the coffee cart tomorrow morning. My entire life had just been turned upside down, and all they could think about was how it affected them. I turned away from the bowl and saw four pairs of feet, each in worse shoes than the next. Pruscilla’s were stuffed like sausages into worn-out red pumps. She always matches her shoes to her outfits—vast swaths of brightly colored fabric that go under the guise of “caftans” and “capes” in plus-size stores. They should be illegal, as far as I’m concerned.

“I’m okay. I’m coming out,” I sniffed, opening the door.

I should have seen it coming. Bruce’s proposal, I mean, not the puking.

That morning, for some reason, I read my horoscope, which is something I never do, seeing as how I’m usually far too late to read the paper, or even bring it in, mind you. Plus, I hate touching newsprint—it always ends up all over everything, especially my face. Not that I really believe in astrology anyway. Except for maybe the page at the back of Cosmo, since it’s a magazine, not a newspaper, and because once I used the lucky numbers and won $125 in the lottery. But I suppose that’s numerology.

Anyway, that morning, my horoscope was dead-on, although I had no way of knowing it at the time. The first sign that the planets were aligning against me occurred when I actually woke up early. Well, not so much early as just not late. And Bruce, dear that he is, made us breakfast. Three-egg cheese and mushroom omelets—with the yolks, of course; none of that whites-only shit for us—and coffee. It was unusual for me to lose my dietary resolve so early in the day (that usually doesn’t happen until right before lunch), but I knew that since it was Friday anyway, Monday would doubtlessly be a better time to start watching myself. Better not to spoil the weekend, and all the wonderful meals that might have been.

“Evie, you wanna go out for dinner tonight, just us?” Bruce asked, knowing full well we almost always go out Friday nights, just us. He probably thought he was being adorable for asking, but to tell you the truth he was verging on smarmy. Or maybe it was just that he’d already asked me three times. With our busy career-person schedules, Bruce doesn’t always see as much of me as he’d like, so I try to keep our weekly date sacred no matter what. That is, unless his mother, Roberta—known as Bertie to those who love her, or at the very least to those who don’t despise her, since not too many people can claim more than that—decides that she wants to have us over for watery soup and boiled potatoes, in which case we drop everything and run directly to the Fulbrights’ Greenwich, Connecticut compound for a meal that would make dinner with the Royal Family seem like a hoedown.