Fiona Gibson - The Woman Who Met Her Match - The laugh out loud romantic comedy you need to read in 2018

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2017

This ebook edition 2017

Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2017

Cover design © Emma Rogers 2017

Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of 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, 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.

Source ISBN: 9780008157029

Ebook Edition © Feburary 2016 ISBN: 9780008157036

Version 2018-05-10

For Maggie Dun

My first ever (and best ever) boss xxx

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

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About the Publisher

‘It’ll be good for you,’ Mum announced. ‘You’ll improve your French; see a whole different side of life. You don’t want to be stuck in boring old Yorkshire all summer, do you?’

She was applying her make-up at her dressing table mirror: two coats of spidery black mascara, frosted peach lips and a flash of apricot blusher across each cheek. She closed her small, tight mouth and swivelled round on the stool to face me. ‘You might even meet a nice French boy. Oh, I hope so, Lorrie! Just think – your first boyfriend. That’s what’s meant to happen on a French exchange!’ She turned back to her mirror, brushing on bronzer until her face took on a shimmery metallic hue.

At sixteen years old, I knew that people only said it’ll be good for you when it was something you didn’t want to do. And this was a prime example.

I didn’t want a French boyfriend. I had never been out with anyone in Yorkshire – no one had even shown any interest in kissing me – and I doubted that my arrival in a foreign country would suddenly heighten my allure. I didn’t even want to go to France, especially not to a stranger’s house. My French was pretty limited. I was fairly confident I could buy a cauliflower or report the presence of cockroaches in my hotel room but as for living in a French family’s flat for an entire month? I was fully prepared for no one to understand a single word I said. Although I had tried to convince Mum that I’d learn just as much by studying my textbooks at home, she wouldn’t listen. Once she had made up her mind, that was that; firm arrangements were made, my terrible passport picture taken in a photo booth with my hair scraped back so I looked like a potato, and travel tickets booked. Clearly, there was no point in arguing.

There were many other reasons why the thought of going to France scared me:

• I was to fly there, despite having never been on an aeroplane before. In fact, I had never been on any mode of transport where a talk on safety procedures was required.

• French girls were thin and sexy – and I was neither of those things.

• French people kissed on both cheeks just to say hello, i.e. much potential for humiliation. It was all about sex. Everything was. Even their nouns were either masculine or feminine.

In fact, I knew from occasional glimpses of French films that everyone was always snogging the face off each other. So what would I do while all that was going on? I would take photos of churches and force myself to buy things in shops. Bonjour! Un chou-fleur s’il vous plaît, Madame. Merci, au revoir! I would trot back to my penpal’s flat with my cauliflower in a basket and sit and write postcards home.

In my own bedroom, which smelt of the tinned meat pie Mum had heated up earlier, I dropped a selection of cheap biros into my suitcase, wishing I was at least travelling with someone. However, despite Mum’s insistence on using the term ‘French exchange’ – implying a load of British kids all singing excitedly on a coach – it was just me, being packed off to a stranger’s place, alone.

It had all started when we were allocated penpals through school and I’d ended up with a terse-sounding Valérie Rousseau. Our correspondence so far had been rather basic (‘What is your favourite sport?’ ‘Le ping pong,’ I lied, not actually having one). Next thing I knew, Mum was on the phone to Valérie’s mother, wafting her cigarette and putting on her Penelope Keith voice with the odd French word flung in: ‘Merci, Mrs Rousseau. Lorrie is très excited to come and visit chez vous!’ And that was that; the trip was arranged. ‘Well, she sounded very nice,’ Mum announced. ‘Not that she speaks much English, but you’ll be fine .’

I should also point out that my destination wasn’t Paris. It wasn’t even the CÔte d’Azur, which I’d at least heard of. I was travelling alone to somewhere called The Massif Central, which sounded like an ugly office block with an enormous road system around it. For all we knew, Valérie’s parents could have been alcoholics or child molesters – but this was the eighties and no one really worried back then.

I zipped up my suitcase and studied the instructions Mum had hammered out on her manual typewriter:

1 1. Overnight coach to London Victoria Station.

2 2. Tube (Victoria Line, light blue, then Piccadilly Line, bit darker) to Heathrow Airport. Check which terminal on your ticket – I think there’s a few?

3 3. Get on plane. If you need anything, ask an air hostess. I’m sure they’re very nice.

4 4. Arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport. Don’t leave your small bag on the plane and remember to pick up your suitcase from luggage collection thing!

5 5. Train to Gare du Nord.

6 6. Go to jail. Go directly to jail! Do not pass go! Do not collect £ 200!

7 7. Not really, haha. Just change onto Metro (like tube but French) and proceed to Gare d’Austerlitz.

8 8. Train to Châteauroux. Val é rie’s Mum (Jeanne) will meet you there (you should have phoned her in Paris to say what train. Number is in your purse in case you lose these instructions. DO NOT FORGET TO PHONE!).