Not The Man I Thought He Was

Phoebe MacLeod

Description

Perfect for fans of Jo Watson, Mhairi McFarlane and Catherine Walsh.Madison reckons she’s a pretty good judge of character.

When a disaster at work brings professional photographer Toby into her life, she has him all worked out within minutes. As their work collaboration blossoms into friendship, her preconceptions about him are only strengthened.

The problem is that Madison has got one aspect of Toby completely wrong, and it tears their friendship apart when she finds out. How will she make sense of his revelation and, more importantly, how on earth will she get him to talk to her again?

Sujets

• Loisirs
• Collections photographiques
• Photographie
• Photographie
• Mashups
• New Adult
• Humorous
• Women
• Men
• Friendship
• Contemporary history
• Workplace
• Romantic Comedy
• General officer
• Woman
• The Women
• City Life
• General
• Contemporary
• Topic
• Romance
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 16 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804262467
• Langue: English

Extrait

NOT THE MAN I THOUGHT HE WAS



PHOEBE MACLEOD
To Gwyneth, who would have loved the adventure.
CONTENTS



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue


Acknowledgments

More from Phoebe MacLeod

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
1
MADISON



Christmas Eve
I am never, ever drinking again.
This is the first thought that comes to me as I start to wake up and realise that my head is pounding, my mouth feels like something crawled in there and died, and my stomach feels like something crawled in there and is very much still alive.
This leads directly to the realisation that I’m going to be sick. Hastily, I throw back the duvet and run barefoot into my bathroom, where I vomit comprehensively and disgustingly into the toilet, thankfully remembering to hold my hair out of the way. Even when it’s obvious there’s nothing left to come up, my stomach keeps cramping, and the strain of retching is making the pounding in my head worse. I don’t think I could feel any sorrier for myself than I do right now.
Eventually, the cramping eases up to the point where I feel safe to move. I stand up tentatively, flush the toilet and move to the basin, where I splash some cool water on my face and rinse my mouth out. God, I feel dreadful. I dare to glance in the mirror, and the face staring back at me is a perfect reflection of how I feel. My eyes are bloodshot, my skin is deathly pale and clammy, and there are smudges of make-up here and there – I obviously didn’t remove it before I went to bed last night. My hair is hanging limply down each side of my face, as if in sympathy with the rest of my head. At least I’m wearing one of the long T-shirts that I like to sleep in, so I wasn’t so blotto that I went to bed in the very expensive evening gown I’d bought for the gala dinner last night. I quickly check and find that I am, however, still wearing the horribly uncomfortable thong that I’d decided on to make sure there couldn’t be even the vaguest hint of VPL showing through the tight-fitting dress. Another quick check reveals that I’m also still wearing a bra. A small part of my brain questions why I would have had the presence of mind to take off my dress before passing out, but not change into comfortable knickers, take off my bra, or remove my make-up. The rest of my pounding head quickly dismisses it though; I feel too rough to care.
A mark on my T-shirt catches my attention. It’s a little bit of sick. Yuk. I rip the T-shirt and bra off, step out of the offending thong, and open the door of the shower cubicle. Once inside, I turn the shower to cool and stand underneath, letting the jets of water massage my throbbing head. After a while I start to feel a little better and turn the shower temperature up. I wash my hair, condition it, and select an invigorating black pepper body wash for the rest of me. By the time I step out of the shower and wrap warm towels around my head and body I’m still feeling very delicate, but I allow myself to hope that the worst is over.
I’m not normally much of a drinker, which is probably part of my undoing. I enjoy a glass of wine or two, but it’s been years since I’ve had a hangover even beginning to approach the severity of the one I have now. There had been a lot to celebrate though, and, from the way I feel now, I evidently hadn’t held back.
Yesterday evening was the annual gala dinner hosted by Voyages Luxes , a luxury travel magazine for which I do a lot of writing. I’m a freelance journalist, specialising in travel, so I spend a lot of time reviewing hotels, experiences and so on. As well as Voyages Luxes , I also write for a couple of airline in-flight magazines and have a regular column in a Sunday supplement, so I’m lucky enough to make a decent living. Many people equate my job with being ‘paid to go on holiday’ but the reality is that it’s hard graft, and I probably spend more time pitching for work, or writing up in my flat, than I do actually travelling.
The Voyages Luxes gala dinner is one of the highlights of my year. Their head office is in Tunbridge Wells, where I live, so it’s always held in an upmarket hotel in the area. They negotiate discounted room rates for anyone who wants to stay over, but to date the venue’s always been close enough that it’s been cheaper for me to get a taxi home. When you’ve stayed in as many hotels as I have, it doesn’t matter how upmarket they are: I’d still rather be at home, in my own bed.
Last night’s dinner was at the Hotel Royal, a spa hotel with a golf course around ten miles from the town. It was a beautiful crisp winter’s evening when the taxi dropped me off, and I was looking forward to a fun evening. It’s always a black-tie event, so everyone looked very smart as I walked into the bar. There were waiters circulating with glasses of champagne and canapés on trays, and a happy buzz of conversation, punctuated by the occasional loud laugh. An enormous, tastefully decorated, Christmas tree stood in one corner, its lights twinkling. One of the things I love about the annual dinner is that my job entails working alone for the most part, so it’s a great opportunity to catch up with some of the other writers and swap stories. It’s also a chance to do a bit of networking and, if you win one of the awards that are given out on the night, it can be a real boost to your career.
I quickly found myself ensconced in a group of fellow writers, gossiping happily about our time on the road and this, along with a couple of glasses of champagne, had passed the time very happily until dinner was called.
The main function room was arranged in typical corporate style, with lots of numbered round tables, and seating plans displayed on easels as we walked in, so we could work out where we were sitting. I was glad to see that my friend Toby was sitting to the right of me, but felt a pang of disappointment when I saw that I had Peter Smallbone, a failed writer who somehow found his way into editing, on my left. Peter feels strongly that his lack of success as a writer is nothing to do with the fact that his columns were achingly dull (I know, I’ve read some of them), but all because he simply wasn’t in the right place at the right time. Any writer who is even moderately successful, when cornered by Peter, is treated to the same tedious monologue about how he could have made it if fate had dealt him a different hand. For some reason he particularly hates me, and even tried to get me dropped as a writer a while ago.
Last night was no different. As soon as I sat down, remarked to Toby that he looked very smart, and poured myself a glass of water from the bottle on the table, Peter had started up in his nasal whine.
‘Hello, Madison. You’re looking very pretty this evening,’ he began, innocuously enough.
‘Thanks, Peter, you’re looking good yourself,’ I replied, hoping that the conversation might actually take a civil track, for once.
‘It’s been a good year for you, hasn’t it?’ he continued. ‘The double-handed stuff you’ve been doing with Toby has gone down extremely well. Of course, I had a plan to do exactly that back when I was writing, but no editor was prepared to listen to me. I suppose—’ and here he looked me up and down disdainfully ‘—you being so glamorous helps you to get editors to listen to your ideas, doesn’t it? A flutter of the eyelashes here, a winning smile there. Who was going to listen to me, eh?’
I opened my mouth to contradict him and tell him that he was being unprofessional, but I could see it was pointless. He was winding himself up into his usual tirade and, without thinking, I reached for the bottle of white wine and poured myself a generous glass. I was desperate for him to finish, so I could turn the other way and talk to Toby, but Peter had snared himself his favourite captive audience and wasn’t going to let go easily. I steeled myself for a long and painful dinner.
By the time the desserts were being cleared away and the waiters were coming round with coffee, I’d made quite a dent in the bottle of white wine and was feeling slightly woozy. Peter seemed to be running out of steam, so I took the opportunity to break away from him and escape to the ladies’. I remember feeling slightly unsteady in my heels as I tottered in the direction of the bathrooms, and giving myself a stern warning to slow down and drink more water when I got back to the table. Thankfully, when I got back, Peter was talking to the woman on his left, so I was able to chat to Toby.
We’d barely got beyond the usual pleasantries before the waiters started circulating and putting glasses of champagne in front of each guest. As soon as they were done, a hush had fallen over the room and Voyages Luxes CEO, Oliver Phillips, took to the stage. On a table behind him was a row of acrylic award plaques, jokingly referred to as tombstones, waiting to be handed out to their lucky winners.
He started, as he always does, with a twenty-minute ramble about the state of the travel industry, the success of the magazine, how customer expectations were becoming more exacting, and how he thought the travel industry should plan to respond to that in the year ahead. There was polite applause at various points, and a couple of shouts of ‘hear, hear’ from some of the travel company CEOs in the room, but most of us (me included) were willing him to get on with it so we could get to the awards.
You’re supposed to say, in any line of work, that awards don’t matter, and that you do the work because you love it. However, travel writing is a fiercely competitive industry, esp