cushions and one of the walls was covered in wallpaper that boasted stylised purple flowers on a silver background.
Englishcrumpet: Actually, my husband died quite some time ago. But what I said is true. I don’t really want to go on a date, but I can’t leave the poor man sitting there on his own—that would be too cruel. Oh, I’m going to kill my daughter for this when she returns from backpacking! Kangagirl: Your daughter set you up?! Sanfrandani: LOL! What’s her taste in men like? Englishcrumpet: Her taste in men is fine—for a nineteen-year-old. I’m just not sure what sort of man she’d choose for her mother! Kangagirl: I think you should go. He could be cute! Sanfrandani: What’s the worst that could happen? You have a nice meal, chat a little. In a couple of hours it’ll all be over and you never have to see him again if you don’t want to. At least you’d have got back out there. Next time you could pick someone for yourself. Think about it.
Grace slid the laptop off her legs and left it on the duvet. Her right foot was all tingly from having been sat on for so long and she gave it a shake and stood up to get the blood moving again. Daisy’s dressing table stood a few feet away and she walked over to skim her fingertips over the curled edges of one of the photographs tucked into the rim of the mirror.
Daisy smiled back at her, her long dark hair ruffled by the wind, her eyes bright with mischief and easy confidence. Her gaze left the photograph and wandered until she met her own eyes in the mirror and she started. People said that she and Daisy looked more like sisters, rather than mother and daughter, but Grace could always see so much of Rob in her daughter. Just for a moment she was stunned by the similarity between her own reflection and the photograph. Apart from the eye colour, it was as if she were looking at herself in a time warp.
Yes, there were fine lines and wrinkles round her eyes now, and her once slender build had more curves, but she still looked closer to thirty than forty. What a pity that inside her head she was closer to being twenty-one. Being Daisy’s buddy had kept her thinking and feeling like that.
What would happen now Daisy was gone—only due to pop in and out of her life in between travels and university courses? Would she turn grey overnight? And it wasn’t just her hair she was worried about. She could imagine her skin taking on a dull grey pallor, her eyes becoming glassy. Would she wake up one day and discover an overwhelming urge to wear baggy home-knitted cardigans?
Come on, Grace! Snap out of it.
She twisted to check out her rear end and fluffed her hair with her fingers. She smiled. Even through the striped cotton of her pyjama bottoms, she could tell her derrière could stop traffic in the right pair of jeans. She was way too young to hide it beneath baggy cardigans. She did a little wiggle, just to prove herself right. Her reflection enjoyed the joke and laughed along with her.
See? She was still the same old game-for-anything Grace.
She picked the photograph of Daisy out of the mirror frame and studied it closely. One corner of her mouth lifted. That child was a chip off the old block, no doubt about it. This stunt with the dating agency was just the sort of crazy thing she would have pulled at nineteen. Why was she getting in such a lather about one silly date?
You never have to see him again if you don’t want to.
It was time she saw a little more sparkle in her own baby-blues.
She jumped back onto the bed, grabbed the laptop and typed in a frenzy, before she could change her mind.
Englishcrumpet: Okay, girls. I’ll do it. I’m going on the date.
After making a quick character sketch for his Ukrainian villain and jotting down some related plot ideas, Noah checked his emails again. He’d better get a move on, though. His PA would be here in twenty minutes and he really ought to finish getting dressed.
Yes, it was Saturday, but he had a big crime writers’ conference coming up soon in NewYork and they needed to go through the final travel arrangements and double-check that the notes for his seminar were all ready to go. Last job would be to proofread his keynote speech for the opening luncheon.
He shook his head, hardly able to believe that this was how his life had turned out.
It seemed he was always travelling, always speaking here and there. Everybody wanted to know what the secret of his success was, as if there were some ingredient other than a modicum of talent and pure hard graft. Living the life of a best-selling author had its great points, but there was a downside he hadn’t expected. For a start, he spent far too much time on publicity and promotion and struggled to find time to scribble more than a few words some days. Just as well his army background had taught him discipline and how to be cool under pressure.
And then there were the women.
His friend Harry thought he was crackers to complain about the women, moaning that he’d settle for just one per cent of the female attention Noah seemed to generate.
Oh, Noah had certainly enjoyed glamorous women making a beeline for him in the early days, when his books had first reached the top of the charts. The women had laughed and smiled and hung on his every word, marvelling at how clever and handsome he was and how he was just like a hero in one of his own novels. But after five years it was definitely getting a little tired. He was starting to feel like that guy in the movie who woke up and discovered the previous day was repeating itself. Only, in Noah’s case, it seemed to be the previous cocktail party repeating itself.
Okay, the colour of the skimpy dresses and the hair extensions changed. But that was as far as it went. He’d even stopped being surprised how so many stick-thin women professed to love martial arts or were totally fascinated by the cold war. One woman had even spent an hour telling him in great detail exactly how she could strip down an AK47, a hungry glint in her eyes the whole time.
After all his experiences, he could really write a convincing portrait of a glamour vixen who’d do anything to bag herself a rich and successful husband so she could bask in his glory and ride the celebrity merry-go-round for ever. Maybe he’d put such a character in his next book. And maybe he’d have the merry-go-round explode…
Compatibility started with sharing some interests, but it had to go deeper than that, surely. And it had to be a genuine interest, not facts and figures cribbed up on before a date. That was why his new pet project had come in handy. He’d read an article about this website in a Sunday magazine and had been intrigued with the possibility of being able to remain almost anonymous.
He flipped back onto the web page he’d minimised earlier.
Blinddatebrides.com.
If Martine, his PA, knew he’d been surfing on such a site, she’d have fainted.
But what was so surprising about him wanting to find a wife? He was of marriageable age, financially very secure and he had a huge house all to himself. It was just crying out for a wife. And he was fed up going everywhere on his own, being the odd one out at friends’ parties, always having to duck into the bathroom to avoid the glamour vixens at the writing ‘do’s’. Securing a wife would have the added bonus of being the ultimate deterrent.
He wasn’t asking for the moon. At forty-one, he was old enough not to fall for all that love-at-first-sight, finding-your-soulmate nonsense. He didn’t believe that his soul had another half floating around somewhere, desperately looking to re-attach itself. That sounded like a gruesome scene from one of his novels rather than romantic,
