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HALEY HILL is a fresh new voice in fiction. Prior to becoming an author, Haley launched and ran the Elect Club dating agency – and is an expert in all things dating! She lives in South London with her husband and twin daughters. Love Is… is her second book.
To my grandmother, Grace, whose love life never quite measured up to the romance novels she read.
Keep flirting with the Elvis impersonator, nan, there’s still time.
One of the greatest secrets to happiness is to curb your desires and to love what you already have.
Emilie du Chalet
Contents
I sat on the toilet and stared at the packet.
After years spent bringing couples together, attending their weddings, then their offspring’s christenings, spending more money on baby gifts than I did on my mortgage, surely I deserved my chance of happiness too. Wasn’t that the way this karma thing was supposed to work? I thought Eros and I had a deal.
I glared up at the ceiling to register my protest, then ripped off the cellophane. It must have been about the hundredth pregnancy test I’d bought since our wedding day. I’d tried to restrict it to one per cycle, but invariably I ended up back at Superdrug, clearing the shelves in the family planning section, hoping that a different brand might provide a different result. And I’d tried them all, from the basic two-liners to the early-response super tests complete with digital screen to spell out the result in shouty capitals. And then of course there were the ovulation kits, the sight of which now triggered some kind of Pavlovian response in Nick, sending him on a desperate quest for alcohol before I presented myself wearing Ann Summers lingerie and a ‘you know what that does to your sperm count’ nod at his wine glass.
I continued to stare at the turquoise and pink branding until the colours merged like a Maldivian sunset and my thoughts wandered back to our honeymoon. At the time, I’d believed that all it took was a sandy beach, white linen sheets and a quick flick of the fertility fairy’s wand. And after seven nights of consummating our marriage in a five-star beach hut, as I skipped
