The Woman Who Ran For The Hills

Reid Carmen

Description

Brand new from the bestselling author of Worn Out Wife Seeks New Life!

Jennifer McAndrew thinks she’s living her best life in London – wonderful man, great job, happily child-free. Except the ‘wonderful man’ turns out to have a secret that ruins everything...

Shocked and devastated, Jen doesn’t know what to do. So, she packs her bags and runs for the hills – away from her problems, all the way to her childhood home in Scotland and the safety of her dad.

But her dad is a changed man. Busy with his girlfriend, golf and G&Ts, he doesn’t have time for Jen’s worries. And she can’t see her sister, Isla, who she fell out with years ago.

So, Jen rekindles friendships with her old school pals, Alison and Rory. They’re juggling work and young families, but still find time to take her out and set her up with some terrible dates.

The more time she spends with Rory and his daughters, the more Jen thinks there could be something big missing from her life. But could she ever go back to small town life? And can she forgive what happened in the past? Should a good friend become something more?

The biggest question for Jen is – will she try to solve her problems, or will she cut and run for the hills again?

Another brilliant laugh out loud emotional read, perfect for fans of Fiona Gibson, Tracy Bloom and Sophie Ranald!

Praise for Carmen Reid:

‘Escapist summer reading at its best.' Jill Mansell

Sujets

• Mashups
• Women
• Escocia
• Friendship
• Contemporary history
• Woman
• The Women
• City Life
• Contemporary
• Family Life
• Romance
• Scotland
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 18 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801628129
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WOMAN WHO RAN FOR THE HILLS


CARMEN REID
For Diana, who just kept on believing in me and this story, especially when the chips were down.
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

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35


Acknowledgments

More from Carmen Reid

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
1
LONDON, JANUARY

I’m in the back of the ambulance rattling towards the hospital when I make the big decision. Probably quite a lot of important decisions are made in the back of ambulances. I mean, it certainly focuses the mind, all that searing pain and panic, and the prospect of meeting serious-faced doctors, who are going to have to perform surgery, most likely this afternoon.
Generally, in ambulances, people are not thinking: Do I have any pasta sauce left? Did I put the bins out? Drat, I really need to cancel that app subscription before it renews.
No, in the back of the ambulance, it’s either: I really wish I hadn’t gone up that ladder/answered my phone on the treadmill/walked the dog when it was icy… or else it’s big decisions time.
So, my decision is, I’m going to leave Jono.
Yes. I am.
Definitely.
Well, I sort of have to… it’s the only thing I can do now to keep what’s left of my dignity. I have to see the situation for what it is. And act accordingly.
I have worked for Jono for three years, as his legal secretary or ‘right-hand woman’, and for close to two of those years now, we’ve been having a relationship that our work colleagues don’t know about and, for all of this time, I’ve been in love with Jono.
I’ve organised and smoothed out every one of his working days and in all the time away from work that we’ve been able to spend together, I’ve listened to him, loved him and soothed his soul. Because he’s older than me, and separated with young teenagers, I’ve always had to share Jono with his demanding career, his boys, his elderly parents, his golf time and the regular demands from his former wife.
I’ve put up with the indignity of only getting him during the workday and then in the time he can find for me in his busy schedule of a life – when he’s told the boys he’s working late, or ‘popping out for a pint with the team’, even, shudder, ‘servicing the car’ one weekend. As his executive assistant, I’ve even sent some of these messages myself to sophisticated Sophie, the separated wife, mother to his two children.


So sorry, Jono won’t be able to take the boys to the party on Friday evening because he’s working late, but he’s booked a taxi for them at 7 p.m. and he’ll pick them up at 10.30 p.m.. Will this work for you all? Just let me know, Jennifer
Leaving me with less than three hours of Jono time, of which at least a third will be spent wondering if it’s time for him to go yet.
For almost two years, I’ve put up with all our office-hours secrecy and all this sharing of his time because when I was with Jono – in the office, chatting on the park bench outside the office, making frantic love in my flat just ten minutes’ walk from the office, or drinking the cool glass of wine together afterwards – I felt happy. Nine years older than me, wise, experienced, an excellent legal mind, a good storyteller, a handsome man, I enjoy everything about his company.
But he never wanted to make me ‘official’. He doesn’t like to think about Sophie and their two boys, Oliver and Charlie, age fifteen and thirteen, having to know about me, having to accept me. Occasionally, when we have talked about it, he says that this is, of course, something he plans to do in the future, when the children are older. He doesn’t want to make them any more unhappy about the divorce. He’s worked on too many divorce cases. He hates divorce. And says it is almost always quite amicable until ‘the new woman’ turns up and then it all goes to hell.
‘Why don’t we go on holiday?’ I’ve been asking him. ‘I want to go away with you. I want to spend a whole week with you and wake up with you every morning. Surely you can tell the boys that it’s for work? Your demanding client? Or a conference? We’ll go somewhere sensible, plausible… like Brussels, Zurich, or Frankfurt… no one would take their girlfriend to Frankfurt.’
Jono had promised to think about it, which gave me hope that I would get a taste of the sophisticated, grown-up life that I had all planned for us in the future. In my fantasy future, we would live in one of those beautiful old mansion flats in central London. Inside, everything would be perfect, if a touch old school, like Jono really. There would be lovely crockery and lamps; polished, satinwood antiques; an art deco cocktail bar with crystal glasses and an array of bottles; me, with my hair done, in a dress and expensive underwear, having a cocktail with Jono, then a visit to the theatre and a delightful time together in that luxurious, king-sized bed afterwards. No children, I couldn’t really see children in this grown-up haven I was building – although I would aim to make friends with Oliver and Charlie and maybe even Sophie – no dogs, no cat, just me and Jono, looking after one another, devoted, enjoying our work and enjoying our lovely life together… travel, dinners, art galleries, love and passion. That was what I wanted for us. That was what I thought Johnathan wanted for us.



* * *
But now, this morning has happened.
It is still so raw and so painful that I don’t want to think about it clearly. Plus, one of the ambulance crew is now fitting a mask over my nose and mouth and I don’t think laughing gas has ever helped anyone to think more clearly.
I take a deep breath in and the events whirl about in my mind. It began, of course, when I answered the office phone and the woman at the other end said she was Sophie, and that I must be Jennifer, and she’d heard so much about me… For a moment, I paused, no idea what was going to come next. Was she going to scream at me? Or ask me out for a bonding lunch, maybe?
But instead, she sounded quite relaxed, almost breezy, as she said: ‘I’ve left messages for Jono and tried to get through to him, but no reply. So, can you just make sure he definitely knows it’s today, 3 p.m., at the Marylebone Hospital antenatal department for the second scan? Marylebone Hospital, antenatal department, 3 p.m.,’ she’d repeated. ‘Have you got that, Jennifer?’ she’d asked. ‘I really want him to be there.’
And as my stunned, make that whacked-sideways-with-a-bat, mind struggled to grasp the meaning of this hospital antenatal scan information, she’d added just to make it crystal clear to me: ‘He’ll have told you, of course. We’re expecting twins. Who would have thought? Back together again and pregnant in our forties! We are thrilled. Absolutely thrilled.’
I’m a little blurry about the sequence of events that followed, but I do know I dropped the heavy, landline receiver. I remember the clang that it made on the desk. And then I interrupted Jono in a client meeting.
‘So sorry… it’s very urgent…’ I said at the door, voice low and trembling, but urgent.
‘Really? Are you sure?’ he’d looked at me in dismay as he racked his mind for what could possibly be so urgent.
And then, in my little office room, I furiously whisper-shout at him. I am as angry, as enraged as anyone could possibly be while whispering to make sure his client and no one else in a nearby office can hear.
‘That was your wife on the phone!’ I whisper-screech, yes, turns out whisper-screeching is possible, if you’re insanely angry, but also allergic to ‘making a scene’.
He is utterly shocked and aghast. It’s as if it’s come as a monumental surprise to him that his lover, who is expecting him to commit to her in the very near future, might be quite unhappy to hear that he and his ‘former-now-separated’ wife are happily reunited and, in fact, planning to welcome in a whole new branch of the family.
He sits down, he stands up, he walks from one side of the office to the other.
‘When did this happen?’ I keep asking and when I say ‘this’ I mean the whole hideous scene: from Jono back with Sophie, to Sophie getting pregnant to antenatal scans. Yes, scans … this is a second scan… and twins … twins!!
‘I was going to talk to you…’ he keeps repeating.
Funnily enough, this information does nothing to calm me down, as I now spiral, thinking of recent short ‘holidays’ he’s been on, supposedly with Oliver and Charlie, plus a smattering of ‘golf weekends with the chums’ when he’s been completely unavailable on the phone. Then there’s a torrent of other strange little memories that had me wondering momentarily and now they all make sense … his shirts smelling of Lenor and lavender ironing water, instead of the starch-heavy laundry service; his car not being at his ‘Divorced Dad flat’, on occasion, with no explanation…
I remember Jono putting a glass of water into my hand and my hand shaking hard. I remember getting up and rushing out of the room into the corridor, my footsteps ringing out on the hard limestone tiles. So, I’m rushing towards the lift. I just want to get out. The glass is still in my hand, shaking, spilling. I’m rushing, crying and my foot in my high, office pump skids out behind me and I crash to the ground… glass shattering, water spilling, bones and soft tissue landing hard, hard on those shiny, unforgiving tiles.
Pain in my chin and my face, where I’ve hit the floor and bitten into my lip. Burning pain in my elbows, which have been skinned on landing. But much worse, shooting, searing pain coming from my knee, which has taken the full impact firs