Lindsey Kelk - I Heart London

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2012

Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is a work of fiction.

The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

All rights reserved under International 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 e-books.

EBook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007383733

Version: 2017-08-10

Della, Beth, Sarah, Jacqueline, Ryan, Emma and Rachael.

People always ask me who my Jenny is and I tell them I’m lucky because I don’t actually have one, I have all of you … I would absolutely take your diaphragm out if I had to.

Not you, Ryan.

Table of Contents

Title Page LINDSEY KELK I Heart London

Copyright Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2012 Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is a work of fiction. The incidents and some of the characters portrayed in it, while based on real historical events and figures, are the work of the author’s imagination. All rights reserved under International 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 e-books. EBook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007383733 Version: 2017-08-10

Dedication Della, Beth, Sarah, Jacqueline, Ryan, Emma and Rachael. People always ask me who my Jenny is and I tell them I’m lucky because I don’t actually have one, I have all of you … I would absolutely take your diaphragm out if I had to. Not you, Ryan.

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

Acknowledgements

Angela’s Guide to London

About the Author

Also by Lindsey Kelk

About the Publisher

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ I babbled as I ran into the Gloss magazine office, unbuttoning my top as I pushed the door open with my arse. ‘I had a Jenny emergency and lost my shoes and couldn’t get a cab, and how come it’s so hot today? Oh and my shirt is covered in crap but I think I left a T-shirt here so—’

‘Ms Clark.’

My blouse was halfway over my head and my arms were tangled upwards in a dying swan when I heard someone who most certainly was not Delia Spencer say my name. The reason I knew it was not my colleague and friend Delia Spencer was because it was a man’s voice. And it was one I had heard before.

‘Mr Spencer?’ I peeped through a buttonhole to see Delia’s grandfather, owner of Spencer Media and ultimately my boss, leaning against Delia’s desk with a very grim look on his face. Behind him, Delia sat in her squishy leather chair biting her lip and trying not to laugh. Neither of them seemed terribly impressed by my bra. It wasn’t one of my best.

‘How lovely to see you,’ I said, trying to pull my shirt back down over my head as casually as possible before offering Mr Spencer a handshake and a dazzling smile. ‘I’m very sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. Then he stood up, ignoring my hand, and walked straight into our tiny meeting room. ‘I understand you had an emergency and are covered in crap.’

‘And I lost my shoes,’ I whispered to Delia with a wince.

‘Happy Monday,’ she whispered back, following her grandfather into the meeting room. ‘Jenny emergency? What threat level are we on there?’

‘Orange? Maybe even a lovely reddish coral. She’s losing it. I had to intervene.’

‘As long as she’s OK now,’ Delia gave me a sympathetic look and opened the door to the meeting room. ‘There’s a spare sweater on my chair. It doesn’t have any crap on it.’

Delia had enjoyed my BFF, Jenny’s downward spiral as much as anyone over the last few months. It had been six months since she’d broken up with her ex-ex and since then she’d been doing a fine job of ruining her life. That or she was auditioning for a role on the next Jersey Shore . I hoped that was it, she was definitely going to need a new job soon if she didn’t sort herself out.

‘Perfect,’ I muttered to myself, hurriedly changing shirts and checking out my blouse for permanent damage. ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’

‘So the launch phase will take place in Q three so we can be out for fashion week, with Gloss on limited availability in New York,’ I said, as confidently as I could. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Delia nodding confirmation. Directly in front of me, Mr Spencer, my boss, formerly known as Bob, was not nodding. He was sipping coffee and fixing me with a gaze so steely I was fairly certain it could cut through a tin can. I concealed a tiny squeak and clicked onto the final slide of my PowerPoint presentation. Oh yes, I was a PowerPoint person now. ‘Once we’re out there and have established a solid audience, we’ll launch on the West Coast in Q four, and then, Q one, we go nationwide with a long-term view to international expansion in Q three the following year.’

I was incredibly proud of myself. After a less than promising beginning, I’d got through all my slides without cocking up and I hadn’t spilled a single thing down Delia’s jumper. Things were looking up. Now all we needed was Mr Spencer’s go-ahead and we were quite literally in business. I attempted my best Wheel of Fortune pose in front of the drop-down screen and gave my audience of two a dazzling smile. I was ninety-nine percent certain I looked deranged, but still, Bob was pulling his concentrated face and Delia hadn’t kicked me yet, so I took that as a win.

‘Interesting,’ Mr Spencer said. ‘Very interesting.’

Once upon a time, Mr Spencer and I had been best buds – he had brunched with me at Pastis, offered me dream jobs in Paris. We were total besties − but then I might or might not have accidentally called his granddaughter and Delia’s identical twin sister, Cici, several very colourful and slightly unflattering names in an email and, well, punched her in the face at Christmas. After that, we sort of drifted apart. He’d given Delia and me a chance to get