Chapter 2

       Dear Mr Armstrong,

       It is with regret that I am emailing to inform you that you really are the proverbial pain in the arse. Burying your head in the sand isn’t big and it isn’t clever. If you really are the Anti-Christmas then go ahead and ruin your own Christmas, but grow a pair and think about other people for once. Ditch the attitude, mate. You’re happy to take our clients’ money, so forget your ‘bah humbug’ – deck your flaming halls with jolly holly and answer my frigging emails!

       Love and festive kisses, Sarah xxx

       Making Memories, Travel Agents

      I hit the final ‘x’ with a flourish and sit back. My hand makes contact with something soft and squishy that shouldn’t be there, and there’s a yelp.

      ‘Ouch!’ Sam has her hand over her nose, and a pained expression on her face.

      ‘What on earth are you doing, peering over my shoulder?’

      She ignores the question and starts to rub her nose, which makes her words come out all funny. ‘You can’t send that, Sarah!’

      ‘Why not? I’m starting to hate the man.’ Following hot on the heels of the threat of legal action yesterday, I have arrived at work to a second disaster. Will Armstrong might not have been prepared to take me seriously yesterday, but I want to make sure he will today. Even if my approach is not quite as professional as it should be.

      ‘But you still can’t—’

      ‘You think I should have put ass instead of arse? Is arse too British? I was a bit worried about that bit.’

      ‘Bloody hell, Sarah. You can’t say arse or ass. What would Lynn say? Delete it! All of it! Now!’ She’s gone a bit squeaky.

      ‘Stop pulling my wheelie chair.’ I hang on to the edge of the desk by my fingertips. If I let go now I might whizz across the office and end up in the potted plant. It’s happened before. ‘Do you think it’s too much?’

      ‘Far too much.’ She’s given up on trying to move me away from my desk and is nodding her head vigorously and rubbing her nose at the same time.

      ‘Are you okay?’

      ‘Sure.’ It comes out as ‘dure’. ‘I was fine until you threw your arms out in a finale and hit me in the face with your elbow.’

      ‘Did I?’

      ‘You always fling your arms about when you’re pleased with yourself.’

      ‘Do I?’ I’m pretty sure I don’t, but as I’ve just squashed my best mate’s nose it doesn’t seem the right time to argue about it. ‘But you were snooping. You get more like your mum every day!’ I love Sam’s mum, and she knows I do. But we both know that Ruth is a total expert when it comes to creeping up like a ninja, so she can listen in on private stuff.

      ‘No, I do not! She listens to stuff that’s none of her business. This is my business. This is work, and you can’t send that. What the hell has happened now?’

      She’s right. This is work. She’s also probably got a good point as far as the email goes.

      ‘You’re right. And there are too many kisses, I hardly know the man.’ I delete one and am careful not to throw my arms in the air. ‘Not through want of trying, mind you. We’d have a flourishing relationship by now if he replied to my calls; instead I can’t even get past first base. Idiot.’

      Sam giggles and backs off to her own desk so there’s a safe arm’s-length distance between us. ‘Very funny, but you know I didn’t mean that!’

      Even though she’s known me a few years now, Sam, my best friend and lovely workmate, takes me far too seriously. She’s gullible. Or wise. It could be that she’s actually very, very wise and knows that my twitchy fingertips are actually dying to hit ‘send’ on this email, even though it might look like I’m just messing around.

      What she doesn’t know is why he’s upset me so much. I’m trying to be cool about this, to laugh it off, but inside it hurts. Inside it feels like a little bit of me is being destroyed, and last night in bed I decided I wasn’t going to let him, a complete stranger, do this to me. To us.

      Sam pushes a packet of Hobnobs in my direction. ‘He’s probably scared of you.’

      I realise I’m clenching my teeth. It’s what I do when I’m upset. My shrink said it’s important not to do that when I talk, or it will make me sound angry. She also said it’s better to express how I feel. So how does that work? I feel angry, I’m expressing it through clenched teeth. I’m beginning to think most of what she said was bollocks.

      I take a deep breath and unclench everything, then take my frustration out on a crunchy biscuit. ‘I am not scary. Real men appreciate the direct approach.’ I try and blow the crumbs out of the keyboard. The letter ‘T’ is already a bit dodgy; if this ruins W and A I’ll have lost one of my favourite words.

      ‘He might actually be quite nice. I’m going to look on their website. What’s he called again?’ Sam pokes me in the ribs when I don’t immediately answer.

      ‘Armstrong.’

      ‘Armstrong, what?’

      ‘William.’ I sigh, I can’t help myself.

      Sam swings round on her chair so she’s facing her own computer again and does some rapid key-tapping.

      It stops, and I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming next.

      ‘Oh wow. He’s . . .’ She pauses, her head tilted as she stares at the screen. Then rests her chin on her hand. There’s a long silence.

      ‘I can tell you’re struggling.’

      ‘No, I’m not.’ She flashes me her best headmistressy stare. ‘Have you seen him? I mean look! If I didn’t already have Jake I would be straight over there myself, to hell with crap reviews about his place. Look!’

      ‘I’ve seen.’ I try and act bored, but the truth is I’ve looked at William Armstrong’s photograph more than once. The man confuses me, because when I first rang him (after seeing that photo on the resort website) I thought he’d be nice, charming. But he wasn’t. He was curt, rude, and muttered something that sounded like ‘I’m going to string him up by his baubles for this’ before putting the phone down on me.

      ‘But he does look quite sexy, admit it.’

      ‘Are you for real?’ I’m not going to admit it, even though he does have a certain something about him. ‘Not my type I’m afraid.’

      ‘Aw, come on, he’s not that different to that guy you went out with before Callum.’

      I roll my eyes. ‘Exactly. He looks a lightweight.’ I stare at the image. ‘And smug, like he thinks a lot of himself.’ That guy before Callum spent a hell of a lot of time staring at himself in the mirror and it’s kind of put me off the well-groomed look. I mean, have you ever known a man to be checking himself out while you’re having sex?

      I thought he was reciting the alphabet backwards in his head or something, to try and delay the inevitable; turned out he was checking out if his hair gel was holding up. That was it for me. End of.

      ‘He’s good-looking, so cute!’

      ‘And he knows it.’

      ‘Rubbish, how can you tell that from a