Haley Hill - It's Got To Be Perfect

HALEY HILLis a fresh new voice in romantic fiction who has previously found success in the self-publishing world. Prior to launching her fiction career, Haley launched and ran the Elect Club dating agency—and is an expert in all things dating! Haley lives in south London with her husband and twin daughters.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To all the fabulous clients who laughed, sobbed and, on occasion, vomited their way into my heart.

And to James for bearing with me.

‘If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.’

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

While this book is inspired by what the author learned and experienced during her career as a matchmaker, none of the characters portrayed are in any way based on real people. Just as Ellie Rigby is not Haley Hill, the names and characters in this book are a product of the author’s imagination. Although real places are referred to throughout, they are all used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

A Note to the Reader

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

PART TWO

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Love Is... Extract

Endpages

Copyright

IT WAS A bitter November evening when I found myself in Be At One in Covent Garden, sitting opposite a man whose head was too small for his body. Below a gelled curtain fringe were squinty eyes, shiny skin and bushy hair sprouting from one nostril.

‘You’re the only girl I’ve met online who isn’t a fatty,’ he said, getting up from his chair and sitting down next to me. ‘But I’d say you’re more a size ten than an eight.’

I forced a smile.

‘I don’t mind a bit of meat though,’ he said, his fingers creeping onto my thigh, tongue edging out in anticipation. His breath smelled of coffee and pickled onions.

I glanced at my watch and then downed my mojito. This date hadn’t even made it to eight p.m.

The bar’s heavy door slammed shut behind me and the icy air hit me like a slap in the face. I don’t know why I hadn’t just told him the truth, protected my online dating sisters. Instead, I’d found myself garbling an implausibly long-winded excuse, involving a twenty-four-hour veterinary surgery and a fictional cat undergoing pioneering bowel surgery. I pulled up my scarf and began the familiar trudge to Charing Cross station, wondering what crimes I must have committed in a past life to warrant such karmic retribution.

Eight months prior, spurred by heartbreak and lured by the promise of meeting thousands of ‘like-minded singles’, I’d embraced online dating with gusto, envisaging it to be like shopping for a husband: ooh, add to basket. But after what can only be described as intensive participation, I’d begun to learn that the slick profiles—comprising impressive credentials and enticing photos—often omitted pertinent details such as a clubbed foot, sexual deviance. Or a wife. Occasionally, I’d found one who walked and talked like a normal boyfriend, only to reveal a deep dark shadow that would have even sent Dr Phil running for the hills. And after tonight’s offering of a misogynist with hair from the nineties, I knew it was time to call off the online search.

I let out a succession of sighs as I traipsed through the streets. It seemed that while I was being groped in Be At One, London’s entire population had paired off, and then gone on to organise some kind of flash mob snog-a-thon. Couples criss-crossed my path and flaunted their love.

Enter besotted duo from the left. Cue loving gaze in restaurant. Candlelight, please .

Despite auditioning for roles such as ‘happy bride’ and ‘woman in love’, it felt as though I had inadvertently secured the lead in a new blockbuster entitled: Everyone finds love … except for you . Even my name, Eleanor Rigby, the lonely subject of a Beatles’ song, would have been perfect for the credits. By the time I’d reached Charing Cross station, I was humming ‘all the lonely people’ and wondering if anyone would come to my funeral. I leant back against a railing and stared up at the sky. It was only two years since Robert had proposed, on bended knee in the pouring rain, declaring that he would love me for ever. We would have been married by now. I watched the stars glinting in the distance and willed fate to rethink its plan for me.

A man, seemingly oblivious to miles of unclaimed railing, came and stood right next to me and began noisily eating a Big Mac. I glared at him, then stared back up at the sky and began to wonder more about love. I’d spent my entire career analysing chemical reactions, albeit from behind the shield of polycarbonate safety goggles, in the controlled environment of the laboratory at ChemPlant. There, the outcome was predictable. I understood the variables and had learned precisely what it took to create an unbreakable bond, a bond that could withstand all manner of tampering. The elements didn’t need a dating website. Carbon and oxygen didn’t need to make small talk over the gentle flame of a Bunsen burner to determine whether they were right for each other.

‘So how do you feel about polyamory?’ asks carbon, eyeing up oxygen’s electrons .

I glanced back at the man just as he shoved a fistful of fries into his mouth. I tutted. Perhaps I’d been naive to think it was possible to manipulate chemistry outside a laboratory, and maybe an online enhancement of the Collision Theory wasn’t really the answer for me, or for all the other singles in the world.

When I eventually arrived home, I found Matthew, my long-term friend and short-term flatmate, lounging on the sofa, glass in one hand, wine bottle in the other, a wildlife documentary flickering in the background.

‘So, how was the six-foot-two international entrepreneur?’ he asked, sitting up to pour me a glass.

I snatched the glass and took a sip. ‘Turns out, selling T-shirts in Thailand was the pinnacle of his entrepreneurial endeavours.’

He smirked. ‘Well, there are around seventy million people in Thailand and they all need T-shirts …’

I unravelled my scarf and collapsed down next to him on the sofa. ‘Yes, but I suspect they knew better than to buy them from a guy on a beach working to pay off his drug debt.’ I took another sip. ‘And he was about half my height. Like he wasn’t going to be found out.’