Jayne picked one of the menu cards out of the holder and laughed, ‘This was our first meal together!’
‘It was also the moment I fell in love with you again.’
Jayne took Will’s outstretched hand as they looked around their small but perfectly fitting group of friends and family. ‘I can’t believe this!’ Jayne gasped, ‘It’s incredible, thank you so, so much.’
Will’s grip tightened, ‘Well, you once said to me, when you came back from Ireland, that our life was very nearly perfect, and, to be honest, I just felt that wasn’t quite good enough …’
Epilogue
So if you can all come next week armed with pithy insights on the genre of magical realism I would be eternally grateful. The set text is Angela Carter’s Nights At The Circus, so do me a favour and at least read the back of it before entering the lecture hall. Until next time.’ Picking up his jacket from the lectern, he then stuffed some books back into his rucksack. Mandy, his wife, despaired at him using the same battered Adidas rucksack for work and the gym; she had even bought him a leather satchel for Christmas in the fervent hope that his frayed sports bag would be consigned to the bin, but he’d never been one for following fashion. If it did the job and wasn’t a lurid shade of neon, it was good enough for him.
He took the stairs of the auditorium two at a time, stopping occasionally to pick up a discarded empty can of Red Bull or chewing-gum wrapper, tutting at his students’ nonchalant littering. It was the same at home with his two teenagers; it would be impossible to ever lose them – you’d just have to follow the detritus they casually dropped as they went about their business.
He sighed when he saw a folded newspaper on the last row of seats. Facing a couple of hundred yawning undergrads is one thing, but to know that some of them are actually reading a tabloid while you’re trying to inject some literary charm into their lives was a step too far. He picked the paper up and wrinkled his nose in distaste. The Globe – car-crash journalism at its best. What anti-immigration, anti-royalist, far-left mixed with far-right witterings made the press today? Oh look, apparently eating only a diet of pickled beetroot can cure cancer. Who knew?
Flipping the paper over, his brain started whirring at a thousand spins a second as he gaped at a young blonde girl staring back at him. She was sitting on the steps of a Thai beach hut, squinting into the camera, but it was definitely her. Losing your virginity was not a moment you’d be likely to forget, particularly when the girl was as full on as Crystal was. He’d often thought about her, wondering why she had never written to him as he’d made sure that he’d earnestly pressed his address into her hand before leaving. He’d been such a nerdy child and to have this assertive blonde girl quite literally throw his books to one side, pin him to the bottom bunk and straddle him had been the first, and last, time he’d ever been seduced like that.
He quickly scanned the article; apparently her daughter had got married to a famous chef in a tiny ceremony in Italy and didn’t invite Crystal. Getting to the last paragraph made him sharply inhale and grab the back of the bench to stop himself stumbling over.
Jayne always blamed me for not having a father, but what could I have done? I was fifteen, pregnant with twins, alone. Knowing that she has just got married without any parents there just breaks my heart.
The small thumbnail of two mixed-race girls, one slender like Crystal, the other slightly larger, with an out-of control afro, confirmed it to him. They were the spit of his own two teenage daughters. He sank onto the bench, his heart pumping blood loudly into his ears. How could he have lived his life not knowing that he had these girls out there in the world? He sat there for almost an hour, staring down at the picture, seeing two beautiful women who were half him and wondering what kinds of lives they had had without him being part of it.
With trembling hands he reached into his jacket for his phone and started punching in Mandy’s familiar cell number and suddenly stopped. He knew what he had to do instead. He dialled directory enquiries and heard himself calmly ask for the number of The Globe.
He felt a little sorry for the woman he’d been put through to, Samantha something or other, when he’d introduced himself; he thought she was going to hyperventilate with excitement until he’d ruined her day by telling her that under no circumstances was he going to talk to her on or off the record. He just wanted to reach his daughters.
It had taken thirty-six years for him to find them and it took precisely six minutes for them to call him back.
Acknowledgements
A huge amount of thanks have to go to my lovely agent Luigi Bonomi and the team at LBA for their constant support, advice and unwavering belief in me. My editor, Charlotte Ledger and the fabulous team at Harper Impulse deserve a lorry-load of love for seeing the potential in me and for holding my hand through this whole magical process. Being surrounded by amazingly talented editors who love romance as much as you is a wonderful thing.
Being one of the winners at the Montegrappa First Fiction award at the Emirates Literature Festival set this wonderful dream sequence into action, and I will always be eternally grateful to Isobel Abulhoul and her team at the Lit Fest for having this platform for aspiring authors to realise their dreams.
Closer to home, thank you to my fabulous husband Ed for never letting me have a minute of peace until I’d started writing this novel. You believed I could, so I did. Your endless support and copyediting even though ‘chick lit is not really your thing’ was appreciated more than you’ll know. I also owe a huge thank you to my parents, Tim and Carol, who encouraged me to write stories from the minute I could hold a pen and never doubted that one day I’d be writing the acknowledgements to my own book. Thank you to my sisters Hannah and Davinia who have had to listen to my stories for almost four decades. I love you all 60-80.
A huge amount of gratitude has to go to my beautiful friends and first draft critics, Lisa Stratford, Jasmine Collin and Anya White who read, re-read and inspired me, Marites Tugade for being wonderful, and my gorgeous writer friends Rachel Hamilton and Annabel Kantaria for their invaluable advice and for pouring a steady stream of Prosecco into my mouth.
And thank you to Amélie, Rafe and Theo, who make the world a whole lot brighter. And louder. So, so much louder …
About the Author
Former magazine editor Charlotte Butterfield was born in Bristol in 1977. She studied English at Royal Holloway University and an MPhil in Gender and Women’s Studies at Birmingham University before becoming a journalist and copywriter. She moved to Dubai in 2005 and lives with her husband and three children.
@charliejayneb
charlottebutterfieldauthor
www.charlottebutterfield.com
About HarperImpulse
HarperImpulse is an exciting new range of romance fiction brought to you from the women’s fiction team at HarperCollins. Our aim is to break new talent from debut authors and import the hottest trends from the US, bringing you the very best in romance. Whether that is through short reads for your mobile phone or epic sagas that span the generations we want to proudly publish romance fiction that gets everybody talking.
Romance readers, come and meet the team at our website www.harperimpulseromance.com, our Facebook page www.facebook.com/HarperImpulse or follow us @HarperImpulse!
Writers, we are simply looking for good stories! So, what are you waiting for? To submit, e-mail us at [email protected].
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
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Canada
HarperCollins Canada
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United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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United States
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