Erin Lawless - Somewhere Only We Know - The bestselling laugh out loud millenial romantic comedy

ERIN LAWLESS

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2015

Copyright © Erin Lawless 2015

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

Erin Lawless 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 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,

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.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007558322

Version 2015-05-19

‘Funny and Addictive…If this is Erin Lawless' first book, I can't wait to read her next one!’

Fabulous Magazine (The Sun)

‘Friendships, trust, lies, deceit, love and so much more – a real page-turner for me!!’

Cosmochicklitan

‘A superb debut about complicated ties, betrayal and lies, and one of my favourite books of the year.’

ChickLit Club

‘The Best Thing I Never Had was mind-blowingly good and everyone should read it.’

ChickLitReviews

‘One of the most engaging books I’ve read this year. I loved it.’

Books with Bunny

'A lovely, warm read to snuggle up on the sofa with.'

Novelicious

Моей лучшей подруге

KSENIA

and also,

to LONDON

a home of my heart

People are like cities:

We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn’t know were there, even the ones they wouldn’t have thought to call beautiful themselves.

Hilary T. Smith

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Best Thing I Never Had

Dedication

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

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

EPILOGUE

Also by Erin Lawless …

Erin Lawless

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Alex

The weight Donnelly was putting on was definitely starting to show; his paunch was forced to rest on top of the boardroom table, his straining lower shirt buttons pointing to the ceiling. He looked as though at any minute he was going to start stroking his stomach like a Bond villain with a cat. The new graduate trainee to Alex’s left was enthusiastically taking notes; Alex had stopped bringing a notepad and pen to this sort of meeting after his first six months. He tilted his head to see what he’d missed whilst distracted by Donnelly’s chub. Attention to detail , Newbie had jotted down. Asking the right questions. Adding value to your day was underlined neatly. The thing that would add most value to his day, Alex thought, was not having this pointless team meeting scheduled for a Friday afternoon.

After a few more motivational mantras, Donnelly released them back to their desks for the final twenty minutes of the working week. Alex shook his mouse to wake up his PC and had to hurriedly smother his office-inappropriate smile at seeing he’d received an email from Lila.

It was only a couple of lines asking him if he fancied spaghetti bolognaise for dinner or if he had other plans. Like he’d have other plans! Seeing Lila was, no exaggeration, the very highlight of his week. Just getting to eat a meal she’d put together, sit with her in companionable silence as they watched a DVD. Being madly in love with someone made the mundane magic.

Then, as usual, his flatmate, Rory, came straight to the front of his mind, putting a bullet in the brain of Alex's enthusiasm. “Hey, Lils,” Alex typed, with a sigh. “Spag bol sounds great! Thank you! What are you and Rory up to this weekend?”

Nadia

Nadia was almost certain the police were coming for her. It made it difficult to relax.

She made herself yet another cup of tea, but that just made her jittery, so most of it went down the sink. She tried to distract herself with a little Facebook stalking, but – for some reason – other people’s lives weren’t as fascinating as they usually seemed. Television was a lost cause since daytime TV made her want to poke her eyes out with a fork, so she ended up just sitting and fretting for hours. By the time Holly got home from work, Nadia was in a right state and had been waiting in the hallway for twenty minutes.

“I’m having second thoughts,” she admitted, without preamble, before Holly had even got fully through the flat door.

Holly arched an eyebrow at her as she kicked off her shoes. “Bit late for that, hun, the stuff’s in the post.”

“I know. I know. But, I was thinking, maybe we can call Royal Mail, or the sorting office, and get them to, sort of, pull it?” she said, hopefully.

Holly’s eyebrow arched higher. “Pull it?”

Nadia waved her hand vaguely. “Yeah. You know, take it out of the system and… return it to sender.”

“’Fraid it doesn’t work like that,” Holly said, moving past her flatmate towards her bedroom. “Don’t worry about it; everything’s going to be fine.”

“But… I’ve lied,” Nadia said, miserably. “On an official document. I could get in some serious trouble over this. Things are bad enough already. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Calm down,” Holly instructed, as she attempted to tame her heat-frizzed hair with a brush and pull it up and away from her flushed face and neck. She'd had a long, hot journey home on the stuffy Tube. “People lie on these things all the time. Besides, I wouldn’t even say you’ve lied, per se.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what would you call it, then?”

Holly considered her response. “You were just a little bit pre-emptive,” she said finally, scooping up an armful of dirty clothes from the hamper in the corner of her bedroom and moving past Nadia into the hallway again.