Strictly Love

Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Four - Live Like it's Heaven on Earth (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

E-book Extra (#litres_trial_promo)

Strictly Love (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#u38a7811d-d6e3-57b9-8b2b-7b70efcba029)

Dusk was falling as Emily got off the train at Thurfield. She looked about her and breathed a sigh of relief. Welcome and all as the Christmas break had been, it was good to be home.

Home. And where exactly was that? Not in Wales any more, that was for sure, where the absence of her father had been a permanent feature of Christmas, during which they had all tried very hard to pretend that things really hadn't changed. But could she yet call Thurfield home? In the year and a half she'd lived here, patiently (foolishly, her sister Sarah maintained) waiting for Callum to make a move to put their relationship on a more even footing, she had seen it more as a holding station – a place for her to temporarily rest while she waited for her life to begin.

But now, looking around her as she emerged from the station onto a snowy High Street, she realised with a jolt that she did feel at home here. Perhaps it was just that she knew her friend Katie was only up the road, or that Callum and his rich parents lived tantalisingly close. Or perhaps it was simply the little country cottage she had fallen in love with the summer before last, despite its desperate need for DIY. Being cramped in her mum's council flat over the Christmas period had made her long for the serenity and peace of the view from her window, looking out onto the common. Not that the rolling foothills of the South Downs compared to the more dramatic Pembrokeshire coastline of her birthplace, but they were hills nonetheless, and Emily was always comforted by them. Particularly now, as they gleamed and sparkled white in the late winter sunlight. They looked heavenly. And it felt heavenly to be back.

It was good to be here, away from the frantic guilt that accompanied the discovery that her mum had somehow got herself into huge debt thanks to a rather unhealthy addiction to scratch cards, or the feeling that her sisters Mary and Sarah were now more burdened than she was by the care of their mother. And it was a relief to get away from Sarah's nagging strictures about Callum.

‘When are you going to get him to commit to you?’ Sarah had insisted on knowing, but Emily couldn't answer that one. She wasn't even sure she wanted him to anyway. Part of the fun of Callum was the lack of commitment, and his ability to surprise, shinning up her drainpipe late at night, turning up at the office with champagne when she was working late, making her fizz over with pleasure when he made it all too clear how sexy he found her. Who needed commitment when he gave her all that?

Emily pulled her rucksack further onto her shoulders, and made her way down the High Street as snowflakes fell softly. The splendid Christmas tree in front of the imposing Victorian mansion that housed the council offices twinkled with a warm bright light. The grounds of the mansion were thronging with people: children shrieked and whooped as they spun round on a carousel while their parents looked on, and teenage couples straggled their way round the temporary ice rink the council had erected for the festive season. Emily belatedly remembered the leaflet that had been shoved through her door, promising a New Year's Eve Victorian Extravaganza. They were even roasting chestnuts. The smell was delicious, and took Emily back to the cosy warm Christmases of her childhood. So different from the barren coldness of this year.

Emily watched the skating couples, the laughing families, the elderly grandparents, for a few moments, before setting off again.

She walked on down the High Street. Though dusk hadn't yet fallen, the rather tacky decorations were already blinking on and off. Emily smiled at the sight. The beauty of what she'd just witnessed and the tackiness of the decorations summed up the incongruity that was Thurfield.

The long High Street went from posh to poor in almost a hair's breadth. The train station from where Emily had emerged was at the poor end of town – the chavvy part, which Katie cattily referred to as Turdfield. But walking towards the top end of town, the cheap nail bars and pound-saver shops, with their competing gaudy Christmas lights, were soon replaced by upmarket hair salons and chichi shops that would have done Covent Garden proud. By the time you got to the top end you could purchase your groceries from M&S and Waitrose, rather then Lidl. Thurfield even possessed a family department store, which resembled something out of Are You Being Served, and in keeping with the Victorian theme was currently displaying a tableau from A Christmas Carol in its front window. The staff had all joined in the spirit of the thing and were dressed in Victorian garb, handing out mulled wine and mince pies to anyone who wanted them. Emily was tempted for a moment, but she was cold and tired, and really just wanted to get home.

To reach her cottage, Emily had to cut through the park that ran behind the department store. The snow was falling harder now and she couldn't help but stare at the families strolling through the park. Men pushing buggies, couples laughing together, children running with unbridled joy through the snow. It was no good her looking with longing. She knew that was not what Callum was about, and she had never been either till now. Funny how things changed. More and more she looked at pregnant women with an envy she hadn't ever experienced before. Wistfully, she wondered what it would be like to hold a baby of her own in her arms. Her nieces and nephews just didn't count.

While you're with Callum you'll never know, Sarah admonished her from afar.

Shut up, sis, said Emily. It's my life, not yours. She turned down the tiny lane that led to her cottage, but then took time to stop and watch the families sledging on the lower reaches of the downs. There was one dad with two girls, one dark, one fair, who were all wet and snowy, shrieking with laughter. Emily wondered if she'd ever have fun like that. She envied the man's wife. He looked like such a devoted dad. She tried and failed to picture Callum larking about like that, without worrying about his hair being ruined.

Shaking her head, she made her way down the lane to her house. It was time to take control of things. A new year soon. A new start. The purity of the snow seemed like an omen. Somehow her life seemed to have got bogged down in a way she couldn't have imagined. Perhaps she needed some purity too. She should take Callum in hand, get their relationship on track, and start to plan a future.

First things first, though. She opened the front door, switched on the light and looked at her cosy little lounge with pleasure. She was back. And for the first time since she'd lived here, it felt like she'd come home.

Part One Dance Like No One's Looking (#u38a7811d-d6e3-57b9-8b2b-7b70efcba029)

Chapter One (#u38a7811d-d6e3-57b9-8b2b-7b70efcba029)

‘Remind me what I'm doing here again?’ Emily stared into the mirror with a frown as she applied some lippy.

‘Emily Henderson, what are you like? Because there's free booze, we get to meet famous people and it's a laugh,’ Ffion assured her. ‘Come on, you know you'll enjoy it.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Emily, staring at herself critically. God, she was a mess. Her normally sleek dark bob was uncharacteristic ally unkempt, and she had dark circles under her pale blue eyes. She was looking gaunt. Even her mum had commented on it at Christmas. No wonder, with so many late nights since she'd been back at work. Working hard and playing hard. It was one way of not thinking about things, she supposed.

‘Besides,’ added Ffion, with characteristic thoughtlessness, ‘you've been as miserable as sin since Christmas. You need cheering up.’

And why would that be, I wonder? Emily thought to herself. She really had tried to keep her resolution of looking on the New Year as a new beginning, but the grey cold of January had sapped away all her resolve, and she felt more miserable then ever. And less clear than ever about Callum. Like an idiot, Emily had mistaken the tenderness Callum had shown her briefly as they shared brunch together on New Year's Day for something else. Then she'd further compounded the mistake by mentioning babies. Callum had been pretty elusive since.

Emily followed her friend reluctantly out to the trendy bar, jammed full of Z-listers and their acolytes eager to buy copies of Jasmine Symonds's autobiography, Jasmine: My Story So Far. All Ffion cared about, with her endless invites to celebrity functions, launch parties, tickets for the Brits and the like, was hanging out with famous people. As if some of that shiny stuff would rub off on her. It was only a matter of time before she appeared on some crap reality TV programme.

‘Hey, look.’ Ffion dug Emily in the ribs as they picked up their free glass of dubious chardonnay from a bored-looking waiter. Crackers was the trendy bar much beloved of the celebrity set (or zedlebrities, as she and Ffion had taken to calling them. Mind you, such sarcasm didn't stop Ffion from wanting to join their ranks), and the place was heaving.

‘What?’ Emily had a headache and was thinking longingly of a long, hot bath and the Margaret Atwood she'd been given for Christmas. The thought of Jasmine writing anything was risible, let alone such an impossibly thick volume for someone who was a mere twenty-two years old.