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A Girl’s Best Friend
Lindsey Kelk
A festive treat from the author of the bestselling I HEART seriesAfter the crazy six months she’s had, if there was a ‘clear history’ button for your life, Tess Brookes would be the first in line to press it.When the opportunity arises to join her best friend, Amy, in New York for Christmas, Tess jumps at the chance. The only slight hitch is that Nick, the man who broke her heart, lives there. And Charlie, the man she turned down, has just started talking to her again. And she has just four days to take a photo for a competition that could save her career.But aside from that, everything is going to be great: it’ll be the best Christmas ever. Won’t it?
Copyright (#ulink_1b63e0f8-c505-5067-9ebc-095dc7d1abb4)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015
Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2015
Cover illustration © Bree Leman
Other images © Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com)
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
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 e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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.
Source ISBN: 9780007582372
Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780007582389
Version: 2018-10-25
Dedication (#ulink_732212d9-97c0-53f0-ba9e-e4f9f3ff5ce9)
#TeamJeff
Contents
Cover (#u8b61a6c6-7cfc-5be0-a9c9-a3464eae1113)
Title Page (#ua62e7989-ec88-5be2-8be3-5c9204e06fd5)
Copyright (#u45113cc7-8c54-5758-b901-aaff8294263c)
Dedication (#u1873e328-d3e3-5003-819d-c0d3211864e9)
Prologue (#u8f7ac3fc-c6fe-5741-a680-e8ad9af50cca)
Chapter One (#u941a1875-22da-55b7-9466-7c79ac58c25d)
Chapter Two (#uc8f731d5-78e7-52fe-a6ea-93eb799ae2de)
Chapter Three (#ua513bf6b-aab6-520a-8b1b-0ca660382ded)
Chapter Four (#ua484f867-53fe-571d-aec4-f5fbbfa3eced)
Chapter Five (#ud67787ca-26be-5191-bee0-586aebf37d23)
Chapter Six (#udaf215eb-7408-584e-9e93-bf36032ef37a)
Chapter Seven (#ub780a685-61cb-559b-8ed1-00105f4741b4)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Lindsey Kelk (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_23b3c2aa-237d-51b9-8b27-d4e0146dfc1a)
New Year’s Eve
Doesn’t everyone wish they could go back in time and change the past?
First, I’d do the world a favour and kill whoever invented the front-facing camera on the iPhone; second, I’d try to convince the parents of some of humanity’s worst offenders to use more advanced family planning methods; and third, I would never, ever have kissed that man.
Or possibly any men. Just to be safe.
It had been the most ridiculous six months on record, not only of my life but quite possibly ever. I wasn’t sure if there was a way to check against everyone else’s cockups but my list was pretty impressive as far as I was concerned. Yes, there had been a lot of fun parts. Hawaii, Milan, New York, Nick … but dear God, the mistakes I had made. And, as Amy always said, there was no ‘clear history’ button for your heart. Actually, Amy always said there was no clear history button for your vagina but still, the sentiment was the same.
But there I was, against all the odds, standing in a dressing room, wearing a dress I never thought I’d wear, minutes away from changing my life for good.
No pressure, then.
‘Is it too late to elope?’
The door to the dressing room cracked open and Kekipi slipped inside, smiling.
‘It might be,’ I replied, looking at myself in the enormous, three-paned mirror that almost took over the room. ‘I’ve got the frock on, you’re in a suit, all the guests are here. Probably going to have to go through with it.’
He took both of my hands in his and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Well, it’s so easy to get a divorce these days, I’m not too worried. Let’s be honest, I’m not actually sure it will be entirely legal in the first place.’
I managed a half-smile and nodded. ‘You, sir, make a very good point.’
‘You look beautiful, by the way, white is your colour.’ Kekipi reached out to brush one of my semi-tamed curls back behind my ear. ‘You get a pass.’
The curl he had tried to tether sprang back in front of my face and Kekipi rolled his eyes. The rest of my hair had been bullied into something like a bun, although there were so many curls involved it looked more like a Danish pastry gone wrong. I had to stop believing I could do something just because I’d seen it on YouTube. The hairdresser had given up after an hour and I really, really should have taken her advice and left it well alone.
‘I think you look very handsome,’ I said with a mini curtsey, ignoring my mullet. It was true, he did. His bronze skin shone and his hair, usually slightly wavy and a little bit wild, had been brushed into a very dapper side parting. ‘You should wear a suit more often. Especially one with so many sparkles.’
‘Love the sparkles, hate the suit,’ he confided, tugging at his stiff collar. ‘I still think this whole thing would have been much easier if we’d gone with my suggestion of a beach wedding.’
‘Well, bear with me.’ I held a finger up in front of my false eyelashes. ‘We could ditch these outfits, jump out the bathroom window and run away to Hawaii together?’
‘Tempting,’ Kekipi replied. ‘Very tempting.’
‘No one is running away anywhere without me,’ a sharp voice called out from behind the toilet door. ‘Do you know how long it took me to get her in that dress?’
‘How long?’ Kekipi whispered.
‘Too long,’ I replied, breathing in. ‘I should never have let her loose with corseting.’
Amy, my dresser, and my best friend, emerged from the toilet with a very serious pout on her face and a very silly unicorn T-shirt on her back. ‘I mean it,’ she said, a pair of jeans in her hand. The girl was so afraid of missing out on something she had run out of the bathroom, half-naked. ‘You’re going nowhere.’
‘And may I ask why you aren’t dressed yet, dearest Amy?’ Kekipi leaned in with a kiss for each of her pink cheeks, eyes averted from her pants. ‘I do believe the ceremony starts in fifteen minutes.’
‘I’m putting it on now,’ she muttered, eyeing me with defiance.
‘Ever since the hot Ribena and holy communion incident of 2001, Amy isn’t allowed to wear nice dresses for very long before an event,’ I explained as Kekipi watched a look pass between us. ‘Amy spills things.’
Kekipi blinked. ‘Say that again?’
‘AMY SPILLS THINGS,’ she repeated loudly. ‘I’m putting it on now. I can’t fuck it up in the next fifteen minutes, can I?’
I fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. As she had proved to everyone a million times in the last three months, Amy was not a child. Not that she was doing a much better job of passing as a grown-up than I was. I watched as she hunted around the bodice of the bridesmaid dress hanging on the back of the door with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, looking for the tiny covered zip. Eventually she found it, pulled it down – and leapt back as the entire dress fell to the floor in a silky puddle.
‘Tess?’
The door to the dressing room opened again and a tall, beautiful blonde, wearing the same dress Amy was attempting to gather up off the floor, peeked inside.
‘Are you in here?’
I held my breath.
‘We’re all in here,’ Kekipi replied before I could grab anything appropriately stabby. Could you bludgeon someone to death with a can of hairspray? Probably, if you were motivated enough. ‘Paige, you ravishing beast,’ he went on, ‘let me get a look at you.’
‘I was looking for you too!’ A shining smile lit up her anxious face for a moment as she became the latest recipient of Kekipi’s kisses. ‘I couldn’t find you out front – oh, you look fabulous.’
‘Oh, hello,’ Amy said across the room. Her stern tone might have carried more weight if she hadn’t been stood with her hands on her hips, wearing nothing but mismatched underwear and a frown. ‘What a lovely dress you’ve got on there – are you going somewhere nice?’
‘Amy,’ I said quietly, ‘don’t.’
Paige pressed her lips into a thin line and shuffled her shoulders. I kept my eyes on the floor.
‘Oh, the tension!’ Kekipi said, settling into an overstuffed armchair by the window to watch the show. ‘If you two were gay men, I’d send you into the bathroom to bone and get it over with.’
‘I don’t know what else to say, other than I’m sorry.’ She fussed with the full skirt of her dress. ‘I didn’t want to miss today.’
‘You’re such a twatfink,’ Amy said with a low growl. ‘Bros before hos, Sullivan.’
‘Are they Mr Men knickers?’ Paige asked, squinting over at Amy.
‘Yes, they are – what of it?’ Amy braced herself for a fight. ‘I swear, Sullivan, just give me a reason.’
‘Look, can we not?’ I jumped in between my friends, hoping the ridiculous whiteness of my dress might blind them both momentarily. ‘Paige, I don’t really know what to say. I was a bit worried you might not show up and I would have felt horrible.’
‘And I would have been furious at you messing up my Charlie’s Angels bridesmaid theme,’ Kekipi interjected.
‘I’ve been feeling horrible.’ Paige grabbed my hand and wrenched me across the floor into a hug I wasn’t ready for. ‘I should have talked to you, this really wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.’ I felt her arms tighten around me.
‘You’re both ridiculous.’ Amy threw herself into the group hug, burning rage beaten out by overwhelming FOMO. ‘Daft cows.’
