Jill Mansell - Chapter 1

‘You’ve dropped your hairband,’ said Nick as Lola just about managed to haul the strap of her sports bag onto her shoulder.

‘I can’t pick it up, it hurts too much.’

She waited as Nick went back to retrieve the pink hairband, then turned and wearily pushed through the glass swing doors.

Dougie was standing on the other side, watching her.

‘Oh!’ So much for thanking her lucky stars he wasn’t here. If there was a god, he really did have it in for her. A trickle of sweat slid down her forehead for that extra-glamorous finishing touch.

‘Lola, what’s going on?’ Doug shook his head. ‘Are you stalking me?’

Lola swallowed, suddenly realising that this was exactly what she was doing. Instantly on the defensive she said, ‘What are you talking about? Of course I’m not stalking you! Who says you’re not stalking me?’

‘I’ve been a member of this club for the last three years. I thought maybe my sister happened to mention it.’

‘Well, she didn’t.’ Technically this was true; Elly who worked for him had been the one who’d mentioned it. But shame crept up and Lola felt her pulse quicken. Oh God, he was right, she was turning into one of those deranged females incapable of accepting rejection, madwomen who end up shouting in the street and getting arrested for harassment.

‘Here’s your hairband.’ Catching up with them, Nick eyed Dougie coolly and said, ‘What’s this about stalking? I was the one who suggested we try this club. It wasn’t Lola’s idea to come here.’

And now she had her father covering for her, lying to protect his deranged-stalker daughter.

Mortified, Lola gazed down at her feet and felt the trickle of sweat drip down to her chin.

‘Sorry, I was just surprised to bump into her. Didn’t have Lola down as the badminton-playing type.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Defiantly Lola said, ‘We had a fantastic game.’

‘Really?’ Dougie’s mouth was twitching. ‘When I looked through the window half an hour ago you didn’t appear to be having much fun.’ He turned to Nick. ‘Hi, I’m Doug Tennant. You must be Lola’s father.’ Shaking Nick’s hand, he said, ‘You were wiping the floor with her.’

Nick relented. ‘I was rather, wasn’t I?’

Oh terrific.

‘I’m going to get showered and changed,’ said Lola.

‘Me too. See you in the bar afterwards.’ Nick nodded cheerfully at Doug. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Ten minutes later Lola screeched to a halt at the entrance to the bar. Doug\was standing with his back to her, talking to a couple of women with toned brown thighs. There was no sign of Nick.

She retraced her steps and waited for him to emerge from the men’s changing room.

He looked surprised when he did. ‘What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting in the bar.’

‘I don’t want to stay for a drink. Doug’s in the bar. He’ll only think I’m stalking him again.’

‘Hey, that’s OK, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes it does matter.’ Lola wearily shook her head. ‘Because he’s right, I have been stalking him.

And it’s time to stop.’

They went to Café Rouge in Lancer Square. Over red wine she’d ordered but no longer had the heart to drink, Lola told Nick the whole story from beginning to end.

‘So that’s it, I’ve basically made the world’s biggest fool of myself but it’s all over now. Doug’s not interested in me and I’ve finally accepted it. I gave it my best shot and I failed. Time to give up and move on. As everyone always loves to say, there are plenty more fish in the sea.’ Lola curled her lip. ‘Although whenever they say that, it really makes me want to get hold of a big fish and smack them round the face with it.’

‘I won’t say that then. Oh, sweetheart, I do feel for you.’ Reaching across the table, Nick gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t told me any of this before.’

‘I didn’t want you thinking you’d got yourself a scary daughter. You might have run for the hills.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

‘OK, but you might have thought I was pathetic.’ Lola shrugged. ‘I wanted to impress you, make you think you had a daughter to be proud of.’

‘Sweetheart, I am proud of you.’

Lola blinked back tears; he was being so nice to her and it felt lovely being called sweetheart.

‘Yes, but I have behaved pretty stupidly. I mean, throwing myself at a man who kept telling me he didn’t want me, it’s hardly the brightest thing to do. Anyway,’ hastily she drew a line with her free hand, ‘I won’t be doing that any more.’

‘I wish there was something I could do to help.’ Nick thought about it for a couple of seconds.

‘Do you want me to have a word with him?’

Lola smiled, because that brought back memories. Once, when she’d been ten, a boy in her class had been teased about his ginger-ness and frecklediness. The teasing had carried on for a few days and the novelty had been about to wear off, until one morning the boy’s mother had turned up at the school, gathered together the group of culprits and given them a good talking-to.The entire school had listened, enthralled. Sadly, she’d been even gingerier and freckledier than her son, so from that day on he’d had to endure months of merciless mickey-taking directed at both himself and his mother.

‘Thanks, but there’s no need: She imagined Nick giving Doug a good old ticking-off, telling him not to be so mean and ordering him to be nice and give his daughter another chance. ‘It’s over.

He’s with Isabel now’

‘And you’ve got EJ.’ Nick’s tone was encouraging. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

Lola shrugged. Of course she liked EJ, but only as a friend. They kissed — which was fine —

but hadn’t slept together. He was great company and a nice person but the magic wasn’t there. It wasn’t fair on EJ and she was going to have to tell him. It was time to finish that relationship too

— if you could call it a relationship when you weren’t even having sex.

As they were leaving Café Rouge Nick said, ‘So, what happened to the money Blythe mustn’t know about? What did you spend it on?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

He laughed. ‘Tell me!’

Lola spotted an approaching taxi. ‘Really, I can’t.’ She stuck out her arm and flagged down the cab. ‘Sorry, Dad, but I can’t tell anyone. Ever.’

Chapter 46

Sally had done something to annoy Gabe and she had a pretty shrewd idea what it might be.

The tidiness issue – or rather the lack of it – had over the last couple of weeks become a real bone of contention.

OK, even more of a bone of contention than it had always been. She could tell because the difference in Gabe was pronounced. He had withdrawn mentally, almost as if he couldn’t be bothered to argue with her any more. He was also distancing himself physically, working all hours and spending less and less time at home. At first she’d been thrilled that he’d stopped nagging her to clear up after herself but after a while she’d kind of begun to miss it. As her torn calf muscle gradually repaired itself and she grew less reliant on crutches, Sally had even found herself once or twice doing the washing-up while there were still clean plates in the cupboard.

Not that Gabe had noticed or shown signs of being remotely grateful when she’d pointed it out to him; he’d been so distant and off-hand recently that she’d almost given up trying to please him.

Almost, but not quite. Because Gabe was being a grumpysod but Sally still wanted to cheer him up, get the old relaxed smiley Gabe back.

And today was her last day of being an invalid. At midnight, Cinderella-style, her sick note expired. Tomorrow she was going back to work at the surgery and she was looking forward to it.