Vanessa Carnevale - The Memories of Us - The best feel-good romance to take with you on your summer holidays in 2018

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers

Copyright © Vanessa Carnevale

Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2018

Cover photograph © Shutterstock 2018

Cover photograph © Getty 2018

Vanessa Carnevale 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: 9780008295066

Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008295059

Version: 2018-02-12

For my dear friend, Lucy. May the memories of your mother, and the memories that made us, be cherished forever.

Contents

Cover

Title Page The Memories of Us Vanessa Carnevale

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

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

We have been arguing for six minutes. Blake switches off the radio. We never travel with the radio off. Unless we are arguing of course, something we hardly ever do. He takes one hand from the steering wheel, flicks open a tin of mints with his thumb, tilts back his head and lets one fall into his mouth. He crunches it between his teeth before swallowing. He doesn’t offer me one like he usually does. I sink deeper into my seat and stare at the tin lying in the console between us. The car seems quieter than it did before.

‘How are we going to handle this, Gracie? What do you want to do?’ he says finally, the sharp scent of mint permeating the space between us. His brow creases in a way that makes me want to reach over and smooth it out. Make things better. Only now would be a terrible time to do that. I check my watch. Another eight minutes and we’ll be off the freeway and at the restaurant. We’re already late. We are never late. Except for today because we are arguing and the radio is turned off and I don’t know how I’m going to tell my fiancé the truth.

‘I don’t know,’ I say through gritted teeth. Only I do know. And it’s going to throw our lives into total disarray.

‘You don’t know?’ he says, tossing me a glance. He resets the cruise control, lets his window down, and undoes the button on his collar. A rush of cold air enters the car.

‘Can you put the window up?’ I say, the annoyance in my voice evident as I try to hold my hair in place.

He presses the window switch and looks over at me. ‘If you don’t know what you want, then how should I know?’

‘Keep your eyes on the road. Let’s talk about it later. I don’t want to ruin Scarlett’s birthday.’ I clasp the flowers I’m holding for my best friend closer to my chest, a classic spray of creamy white Claire Austin roses, the same blooms I manage to source for her every year.

‘Don’t change the subject,’ he says. ‘You were the one who brought this up, and I think it’s time we work out once and for all how we want things to go. So, let me ask you again so we can put this to bed—’

Deep breaths, Gracie. Deep breaths.

There will never be a perfect time to tell him how I’m feeling. I fumble with my engagement ring and form the words I’ve been too afraid to admit out loud. ‘Okay, so if you want to know the truth, I don’t want to m—’

The sound of Blake slamming the brakes robs the breath from my chest and seals our fate. We slide towards the truck that’s pulled out in front of us on the freeway and then we are spinning into a lane we shouldn’t be in. Blake calls my name. He sees what’s coming before me. I scream. Two dozen flower stems lurch from the safe crevice of my arm. They hit the dashboard before I do, the force of the impact showering the car with petals as I’m tossed in one direction and then the other.

And then, the world goes silent.