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      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      You wouldn’t be holding this book if it wasn’t for the incredible support and encouragement I’ve received over the years, and I’d like to thank everyone who has stood by me through the thick (and not-so-thin) versions.

      Naming a few names, special thanks and love must go to: Susie, Anthony, Peter, Paul and Omi—for years of unconditional love, support (emotional and financial), for believing in me and for never being disappointed that I didn’t get a real job. Carole Blake—for picking me out of the slush pile, continued encouragement and for never doubting it would happen (or not telling me if you did!). Also to Isobel and the whole team at Blake Friedmann. Sam Bell at Red Dress Ink—for seeing what the others didn’t and helping Matt realize his potential. Kate Patten—for all your invaluable advice on everything, for endless cups of tea, mutual appreciation and for such happy days at no.95. Charlotte Cameron—for spectacular sounding-board properties, wise words, SoCeLo, mix tapes and martinis. Louise Hooper—for high-energy positivity and fast-talking since 1979. Melissa Andrewes—for pedantic proofreading and for encouraging me to exercise. Alice and Stuart Morgan—for the temporary roof over my head and boundless enthusiasm. Chris Gore—for so much support at the outset and for almost as many pizzas as I got rejection letters.

      Many thanks also to: Steve, Jan, Tanya, John and Tracy Arie, Gemma Brown, Elton Charles, Camilla and Sue Codrington, Sarah Cohen, Marten Foxon, Mary Ann Graziano, Mandy Key, Hilary Love, James Meikle, Fred Metcalf, Mandy Moore, Siobhan Mulholland, Patsy Newey, Notting Hill and Ealing High School, The Parises, Sandy Paterson, Chris, Lavender, Laura and Alice Patten, The Smails, Julia Stones, Annabelle Tym and Lizzie Tyrrell.

      And finally, to the creators of Sex and the City and The West Wing—for making British winters a little less gray.

      For Edward & Dora

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      chapter 1

      Why is it that we always want what we can’t have? It doesn’t matter whether it’s that Prada bag, Nike’s latest offering to trainer culture, Jennifer Aniston’s hair, Jennifer Aniston’s husband, George Clooney or the senior school sweetheart; there are times in our lives when we think—no, we know—that life would be complete if only we had the item in question. By the same token it is a human failing that we rarely realise what we do have until it is no longer ours to keep. Both have happened to me more often than I would care to remember.

      Mark was all I ever wanted between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. My school exercise books were littered with his name, hearts with our initials carved by my lust during double English and, most importantly, our percentage of compatibility which I once worked out to be eighty-four per cent. A miscalculation. I should have spent more time paying attention in maths. When he finally asked me out the week after my seventeenth birthday—because, I now fear, he had asked everyone else out already—I thought I was going to burst with pleasure. It was a match made in heaven—I had the soft-focus daydreams to prove it.

      For five weeks it was the real hand-holding thing. My months of background research paid off and I had all the right answers to his questions and all the right cassettes in my collection. I was In Love. Then the object of my misplaced affection stole my virginity before chucking me publicly and unceremoniously just before the end of term. My life ended as quickly as it had begun. I wept and fasted, and wept and fasted some more. Then came the hunger and I ate like never before. My adolescence would certainly have been less traumatic without him, but I would have laughed in the face of anyone who’d tried to tell me at the time. Adult lesson # 1 learned; the hard way…

      ‘There you go, love. Have a nice evening.’

      Lizzie looked up from the magazine. She’d been so busy checking her weekly column for mistakes that she’d momentarily been transported back to her teens. A fist of nerves settled in her stomach as she realised that she’d arrived at her destination.

      Four hundred people were expected to celebrate Christmas and a successful first year in which City FM had been put on the radio map and, as the station controller Richard Drake liked to tell her, as their newest recruit she was an important part of that. Lizzie wished he was there to remind her just once more for the record as her self-confidence temporarily vanished and she fought an increasingly strong urge to melt into the Soho crowds and disappear. Just because it was a work do, it didn’t mean that it was supposed to feel like an assignment, and she couldn’t help feeling that anything referred to as a ‘do’ should always be a don’t. There was, of course, the develop-a-mysterious-24-hour-bug tactic, but from previous experience Lizzie knew that two painful hours at the office party were worth their weight in nights out on the beers for the rest of the year.

      As the taxi pulled away from the kerb, having deposited its perfumed payload on the pavement, a familiar ringing noise caught her attention. Saved by the bell? She prayed it was an emergency. Nothing life-threatening, just party-threatening. Lizzie rummaged for her mobile, which for several rings eluded her grasp despite the smallness of her bag.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘It’s nearly quarter to ten, for God’s sake. Shouldn’t you be paralytic by now?’

      Lizzie smiled. It was Clare. Best friend, flatmate and chief party outfit adviser.

      ‘I’ve literally