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A Girl Like You
A Girl Like You
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A Girl Like You

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A Girl Like You
Gemma Burgess

I've discovered the secret to successful singledom. I'm acting like a man. And it's working."I've discovered the secret to successful singledom. I'm acting like a man. And it's working.After breaking up with her boyfriend of, well, forever, Abigail Wood must learn how to be single from scratch. Her dating skills are abysmal, and she ricochets from disaster to disaster – until Robert, one of London's most notorious lotharios, agrees to coach her.With his advice, she learns to navigate the bastard-infested waters of the bar scene and practices the art of being bulletproof. The new Abigail is cocky, calm, composed…but what happens when she meets her match?A Girl Like You is the second book from Gemma Burgess. Her first book, The Dating Detox, was published in 2010 to rave reviews: "Laugh out loud funny" Closer magazine. "Smart, plotty and funny… Buy it, read it, love it." The Irish Herald. "For those waiting to option the next Bridget Jones, Gemma Burgess answers back." VF Daily, www.vanityfair.com.

A Girl Like You

GEMMA BURGESS

Copyright (#ulink_04ae3421-4e1f-5071-8b72-1888b7822930)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2011

Copyright © Gemma Burgess 2011

Gemma Burgess asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847561909

Ebook Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780007334018

Version 2018-06-27

Dedication (#uef3209a7-0d39-55fe-b3b5-198ae5a47162)

For Paul

Because you rock.

Contents

Title Page (#ub11f4031-1ee6-51a2-84ec-c1c1056bc3bf)

Copyright

Dedication

February. (This year.)

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty Two

Chapter Forty Three

Chapter Forty Four

Chapter Forty Five

Chapter Forty Six

Chapter Forty Seven

Chapter Forty Eight

Chapter Forty Nine

The Rules of Surviving Singledom

Acknowledgement

Part One: Changing How You Think

The Dating Detox: A Sneak Peek.

About the Author

By the same Author

About the Publisher

February. (This year.) (#ulink_970aa744-9de1-5e8d-9c20-59e3da979a9e)

I never thought I’d spend hours crying on the floor of a hotel shower.

The weird thing is that underneath the hysteria, I’m completely aware how dramatic-yet-amusing this is. I’m crying for a soul-shakingly horrible reason, my contact lenses are flipping over in my eyes from the tear-water onslaught and I don’t have the strength to get up, turn off the shower and reach for a towel . . . but I can still see that this is a teeny tiny bit funny.

Is it normal to feel so detached from reality after a heartbreak? Is this heartbreak? God, I don’t know.

And as usual, my mind is wandering. I can’t help but notice how nice the shower gel is, and how I wish I had a dinner plate showerhead at home, because crying under the pathetic trickle in my skinny white bath is so depressing.

Home, oh God, home.

Then reality hits me and I start sobbing again.

I wonder how my black eye is coming along, but I can’t bear to look in the mirror. I swear my jowls droop when I’m this tired. On top of everything else that life has landed me with (inability to tell right from left, inability to tell lust from love, inability to drink whisky without becoming really drunk), that’s just not fair.

The sick feeling I’ve had for days just won’t go away. I wonder if it ever will.

I think I’ll make the water a little bit hotter and curl up on the floor. There. I’m almost comfortable. The shower is huge, taking up about half the bathroom, which, like the rest of the hotel room, is dark and sexy with a dash of chinoiserie, and flattering lighting that whispers five star in a posh accent. Hey, if you’re going to have a breakdown, you may as well have it in the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, that’s what I always say.

Perhaps I should call my sister. Sophie. She is always good at being comforting. That’s the best thing about little sisters: they spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters (when they’re waiting to go to big school, waiting to get a bike without training wheels, waiting to get their ears pierced, though wily Sophie got her ears pierced the same day as me, despite the fact that I’d been begging for YEARS and I was 13 and she was only 11) that in the end they’re far wiser than the elder ones could ever be. She’s in Chicago right now, so that’s only . . . Oh, I can’t figure out time differences.

I don’t even know what time it is here. Late afternoon?

It feels like the sun hasn’t properly risen in Hong Kong today. It’s grey and humid and thunderstormy. I love it when the weather matches my mood.

I think I’m almost sick of being in the shower. Perhaps I should go and lie on the floor of the hotel room again. I spent a good two hours crying next to my open suitcase earlier. I estimate . . . Wait. Was that the door?

I stare into space, listening intently.

Another knock, very loud and impatient. Not like the soft knock of the hotel staff.