Love Is…

Love Is…
Haley Hill

‘High drama and lots of laughs’ - Fabulous MagazineDating Agency doyenne Ellie Rigby always thought that helping people find love with the hard part…But now she’s all loved up with husband Nick and has hundreds of matchmaking successes under her belt, Ellie ought to know all there is to know about love.As her struggles to get pregnant put strain on her marriage, and her matchmaking service starts losing clients, Ellie realises she has so much more to learn. So setting off on a global research trip, Ellie makes it her mission to find out what makes love last forever, and whether it’s enough to save her own romance.

HALEY HILL is a fresh new voice in fiction. Prior to becoming an author, Haley launched and ran the Elect Club dating agency – and is an expert in all things dating! She lives in South London with her husband and twin daughters. Love Is… is her second book.

To my grandmother, Grace, whose love life never quite measured up to the romance novels she read.

Keep flirting with the Elvis impersonator, nan, there’s still time.

One of the greatest secrets to happiness is to curb your desires and to love what you already have.

Emilie du Chalet

Contents

Cover (#u297f7491-49fc-5680-90bc-f227c59c67f3)

About the Author (#u5f9440f2-2760-5bf0-8a8c-6e5871a1aa90)

Title (#u4164ee10-988a-55f1-8576-5e9e8078c139)

Dedication (#ua04b7b64-e6b7-5c65-895d-ff638f6b7c22)

Epigraph (#u3f5478b6-3cfd-5d02-b9f9-c61c8d88270b)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_166b8d9f-a74b-5419-bb6e-75dafde52451)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_c1ac6609-466b-5930-958b-c9b9471c602d)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_5105a076-c282-5fe7-a960-26f1aa62e8b3)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_2ca02c52-40d1-5437-9de3-a27e35efa4dc)

Chapter 5 (#ulink_57357dc4-163d-5bd7-9a9c-f0cccf748868)

Chapter 6 (#ulink_4fc3ae4b-d80f-5bb5-a5c3-caa6915f9e86)

Chapter 7 (#ulink_b00f7535-8a85-5faa-b6d5-5fcc88cb9067)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_140d82b2-e830-51d6-b7ad-a56f72258ceb)

I sat on the toilet and stared at the packet.

After years spent bringing couples together, attending their weddings, then their offspring’s christenings, spending more money on baby gifts than I did on my mortgage, surely I deserved my chance of happiness too. Wasn’t that the way this karma thing was supposed to work? I thought Eros and I had a deal.

I glared up at the ceiling to register my protest, then ripped off the cellophane. It must have been about the hundredth pregnancy test I’d bought since our wedding day. I’d tried to restrict it to one per cycle, but invariably I ended up back at Superdrug, clearing the shelves in the family planning section, hoping that a different brand might provide a different result. And I’d tried them all, from the basic two-liners to the early-response super tests complete with digital screen to spell out the result in shouty capitals. And then of course there were the ovulation kits, the sight of which now triggered some kind of Pavlovian response in Nick, sending him on a desperate quest for alcohol before I presented myself wearing Ann Summers lingerie and a ‘you know what that does to your sperm count’ nod at his wine glass.

I continued to stare at the turquoise and pink branding until the colours merged like a Maldivian sunset and my thoughts wandered back to our honeymoon. At the time, I’d believed that all it took was a sandy beach, white linen sheets and a quick flick of the fertility fairy’s wand. And after seven nights of consummating our marriage in a five-star beach hut, as I skipped into the chemist at the airport, I couldn’t have been more certain that the tiny mound of a stomach I’d developed was the manifestation of Nick’s and my future happiness, and entirely unrelated to the ten thousand calories I’d consumed each day at the hotel buffet. I glanced back down at the box and laughed out loud. If only I’d known, I thought.

My phone vibrated. I ignored it.

‘Well, I know now,’ I said to myself as I pulled out one of the tests, ‘that even with the aid of a NASA-engineered ovulation detector, we had no hope of conceiving.’