Samantha Tonge - My Big Fat Christmas Wedding - A Funny And Heartwarming Christmas Romance

Author Bio SAMANTHA TONGE lives in Cheshire with her lovely family and a cat who thinks it’s a dog. Along with writing, her days are spent cycling, willing cakes to rise and avoiding housework. A love of fiction developed as a child, when she was known for reading Enid Blyton books in the bath. A desire to write bubbled away in the background whilst she pursued other careers, including a fun stint working at Disneyland Paris. Formally trained as a linguist, Samantha now likes nothing more than holing herself up in the spare room, in front of the keyboard. Writing romantic comedy novels is her passion. http://samanthatonge.co.uk/ http://pinkinkladies.wordpress.com/ https://twitter.com/SamTongeWriter https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaTongeAuthor

Acknowledgement Firstly, I’d like to mention my wonderful editors, Victoria Oundjian and Lucy Gilmour – thanks a million for your hard work and humour. Appreciation also to the whole CarinaUK team – I LOVE my book covers! Thanks to Martin, Immy and Jay for always offering a listening ear when I’m going through some (usually unnecessary) writerly crisis. I couldn’t do this job without you. The continued encouragement means everything. And keep those chocolate bars coming! Huge hugs to my fellow Carina authors. You guys are the very best. Frank de Jong, thanks for your support and continuing to inspire the character of Henrik. Sending warm wishes to all my Facebook and Twitter friends, and to the amazing bloggers who have helped me promote my books. As a digital-first author, you are my lifeline. I also appreciate those readers who take the time to contact me and say how much they’ve enjoyed my work. That brightens my day more than you can ever imagine and gives me faith on the days when doubt creeps in.

Dedication Here’s to our twenty years together, Martin, starting with the mouldy wedding cake and honeymoon mosquito wars. Like in fiction, the best real-life love stories have flaws…

Prologue

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

Excerpt

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

As if trying to rock us to sleep, the ocean lapped against the fishing boat’s sides. However, Niko and I couldn’t have been more awake as we lay lips pressed together, on its wooden bottom. A kaleidoscope of magical fairy dust danced before my closed eyes. Despite the midnight breeze, heat surged through my limbs. Almost two months I’d been in Taxos and the passion of my fisherman friend still left me with wobbly Greek semolina pudding for knees.

Okay. Bear with me. I know this sounded like an extract from one of my favourite romance novels. But a starlit Greek night, during the last humidity of summer, spent with the sexiest man in the Aegean, stirred every soppy cell of my being.

I opened my eyes, pulled away and grinned. Niko leant up on one elbow and an inquiring smile crossed those silken lips. In the moonlight (okay, with the help of our lamp) I drank in that caramel skin, those mocha eyes and the taut outline of a man who did physical work for a living. Then my gaze turned to Kos island’s shoreline. Glowing amber lights illuminated the village. The wind dropped and along with the familiar chirp of cicadas, string music drifted across the waves from the beach, where locals cleared up after a community barbecue. We’d all celebrated building work starting on the much-needed, income-boosting Marine Museum. Thank goodness for the faith of some foreign investors.

‘Pippa? You have a joke to share?’

‘It’s nothing,’ I said and chuckled.

He leant forward and with his free hand tickled just above the corner of my hip. His fingers crept up to under my arm and I laughed even harder. Then gently he bent further forward, so that our noses touched. He batted his lush eyelashes against mine – butterfly kisses, his speciality to make me giggle, when we were kids. They still did – but these days made me also tingle in places I never used to know existed.

‘Okay, okay,’ I said and backed away, longing to once again kiss his firm mouth. ‘It’s just that in my mind I called you my fisherman friend. A Fisherman’s Friend is a decades-old famous cough-sweet in England, made from liquorice and menthol – people either love or hate it.’

One eyebrow raised, Niko sat up on the blanket and took both my hands. ‘And you, my little juicy fig,’ he said, huskily, ‘are a huge fan of this particular fisherman friend, no?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said airily. ‘I might need to have another taste.’

Niko smiled and then stared for a moment. He cleared his throat and pulled me up, so that I was sitting too. Cue a more vigorous rocking of the boat. Water splashed onto my arm, like a sudden shot of aircon. This was the perfect night for skinny-dipping, me minus my polka-dot undies, Niko revealing his lower abdominal V muscle, acquired from honest labour, not some clinical gym.

‘You see me as much more than a friend though, no?’ said Niko, cheeks tingeing red. ‘And you like living here?’

‘Huh? Of course. Nikolaos Sotiropoulos. How can you even ask?’

Since my return to Taxos, the holiday destination of my early years, earnest, gorgeous islander, Niko, had become the centre of my world. This was quite an admission for a mathematician who, only a matter of weeks ago, commuted daily for work in a major London bank. If you’d told me back then that in September I’d be running a teashop in Kos, I’d have sooner believed I was going to relocate to Mars. Okay so it would be nice to visit my favourite restaurant in Soho now and again, plus shop in Oxford Street, but London couldn’t compete with the island’s freshly caught fish and coastal views.

‘I adore you and love living here,’ I said. ‘Watching the teashop take off has given me such an adrenaline rush – as has me making plans to branch out to make regular scone deliveries to the Creami-Kos café chain. And the summer weeks here have been idyllic. Diving into the refreshing Taxos sea after a hard day’s work, certainly beats catching a stuffy train home to take a shower. As for the raven-black night skies, untainted by the glow of city lights, and villagers shaking my hand every day… I’d never once spoken to some of my close neighbours in London.’