by Melissa Hill
It was with relief that she hailed a taxi outside the airport and dropped into the backseat to rest her tired feet. She supposed she should have been practical and worn flats for her trip, but when you're approaching forty you can't be caught slacking, she thought as she wiggled her toes out of one sleek calf-hair Manolo and stretched her foot gratefully.
Not that she had anything to worry about, really—though in her mid-forties she was as trim now as she had been in her late twenties, and judicious tanning and trips to the salon had kept her skin smooth and glowing and the grey hairs at bay.
Still, there was no sense being careless, especially in a city like Rome.
She thought ruefully of some of her less-cautious thirty-something friends who had begun to adopt a uniform of yoga pants and velour zip-up hoodies as they ferried their children to after-school activities. Some of them no longer even bothered to wear mascara, for goodness sake.
Not Lily. She leaned back in her seat and looked approvingly out the window, noting the late afternoon sun and the architecture of the city, just visible from a distance. She certainly wouldn't be accused of neglecting herself. A successful and high profile career as a novelist certainly helped; she had plenty of money to splash out on facials and a personal trainer.
She also had a tastefully decorated London apartment and a wardrobe to inspire envy in any fashion editor. An international bestselling author of historical fiction, Lily Forbes had everything she could want, and the ability to jet away to Italy for the weekend in the name of‘research’was just one of the perks.
There was only one small thing she lacked: a love life.
She almost laughed out loud as the taxi pulled away from Verona’s gleaming airport and into the busy city traffic. Wouldn't her loyal fans just gasp to hear that? Lily Forbes, unlucky in love. Because it was true: under all the layers of success and the luxurious lifestyle she'd cultivated by forty, there was a gaping hole in Lily's life that should have been filled by a relationship.
While all her friends went on to marry and settle down with children, Lily seemed to be caught in an endless string of dead-end relationships. Not that a white dress, house in the suburbs and 2.5 children were what she desired; she wasn't the type to bleat pitifully that she could only be fulfilled as a wife and mother.
She loved her career, loved the independence and enjoyed life’s luxuries. But whenever she saw a couple smiling at each other in a café, or walking hand in hand down the street, she felt a small twinge in her chest.
Why couldn't romance be as simple for her as it was for the characters in her books?
She thought of some of the recent fan mail she received. Dear Miss Forbes, read a typical letter or e-mail: Where can I meet the heroes in your novels? I've never read anything so romantic. I can't put them down until the last page. Her last novel No Ocean Too Wide, had enjoyed a good run on the Sunday Times bestseller list; the mass market paperbacks were out now and she'd seen some in the stands in the airport lounge at Heathrow. The success of that book however, had been both a blessing and a curse.
She'd booked her Italian trip after a long and decidedly unpleasant chat with her agent, who reminded her that the follow-up to No Ocean Too Wide was well past deadline.
The truth was that Lily hadn’t yet even begun writing it, and she'd begged, pleaded and stormed for a deadline extension, but in the end there was no way around it: No Ocean Too Wide had left readers panting for more, and her publisher wanted the next manuscript by the end of the year. They were willing to wait but not too long.
Unfortunately Lily just wasn’t in a good place to write about romance. She'd finished the last manuscript just as she was embarking on a promising string of dates with a city trader who lived in Dorset but worked in Central London.
She always wrote her best work when she was in love or in the mood for love, and their hot and heavy relationship had provided ample fuel for some of the novel's best bodice-ripping scenes. Unfortunately for her, a few months of whirlwind romance ground to a halt when he abruptly dumped her.
Lily suspected his wandering eye meant he'd been doing more in London than mere business, and while she hadn't been particularly thinking a long-term arrangement, the whole thing had soured her mood. It was just the latest in a long string of failed romances and with each successive one, Lily felt herself becoming more jaded and bitter about love.
Maybe at one time she'd believed in things like love at first sight, or true love uniting two people against all odds, and that breathless optimism has certainly made for a few great novels at the start of her career.
But now Lily was burned out. A heart broken too many times over had led her to believe that romance was just a ploy used to sell diamonds, flowers (and books), and that true love was not an option for most people.
Maybe a few people thought they had found it, but really they just hadn't discovered the warts on their frog princes yet. Soon enough something would happen to break the spell and like Lily, they would realise that true love was nothing more than a fairy tale.
But with her agent breathing down her neck and her publisher’s deadline fast approaching, Lily knew that drastic measures were called for.
Hence, the trip to Italy; first Rome for a spot of shopping, and then onwards to the city of Verona.
Where better to find inspiration for a romantic novel than the setting of one of the greatest love stories of all time, Romeo and Juliet?
Secretly Lily suspected that the place would be brimming with starry-eyed tourists dreaming of their own Romeos, and her inner cynic was prepared to spend a lot of time elbowing her way through crowds while she tried to latch onto some of the famed romance of the city for her new book.
She certainly didn't expect to feel much of a romantic vibe there, but she thought that she might at least find some nice locations and authentic on-the-ground local flavor.
And if nothing else, it would be a nice Italian break full of food wine and shopping before she returned to London to work on the book in earnest.
The traffic of the city flowed on around her as car travelled on towards the city—she glanced with some interest at the views of the countryside sliding by, but her mind was elsewhere. She kept trying to come up with something to use for the start of a book. Jilted bride travels to Verona and meets the man of her dreams? No, that was too similar to the plot of Honeymoon for One. (Although, to be fair, in that novel her heroine at least went through with the wedding—it was after the ceremony that she caught her husband with one of her bridesmaids.)
She drummed her fingers on the carseat. Perhaps her heroine could be newly divorced and spending some of the cash from the settlement on a European holiday... But she'd done something similar to Around the World For Love, sending her divorcee on a worldwide hunt for romance.
What about a heroine who keeps bumping into the same unlikeable male traveller and comes to realise he's actually her soulmate? (Done to death in general she decided, and too like the travellers-on-a-delayed-flight scenario of Stopover to Love.)
Try as she might, though, Lily couldn't bring her travel-wearied brain to come up with a good plot along those lines.
What if there just wasn't anything original left for her to write?
End of excerpt
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
International #1 bestselling author Melissa Hill lives in Dublin and is one of Ireland's most popular female fiction authors.
Her page-turning contemporary stories are published worldwide and translated into 25 different languages. Her titles are regular chart-toppers in Ireland and internationally and in 2011 SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY'S (aka A GIFT FROM
TIFFANY'S) became one of Italy's Top Ten bestselling books overall. One of her recent novels is currently in development with a major Hollywood studio.
For more info, visit her website at www.melissahill.ie
Twitter: @melissahillbks Facebook: facebook.com/melissahillbooks
Also by Melissa Hill
Lakeview books
The Heartbreak Cafe
All Because of You
Never Say Never
Wishful Thinking
The Guest List
The Wedding Invite
Christmas at the Heartbreak Café
Italian Escapes
Summer in Sorrento
Autumn in Verona
Winter in Venice
New York books
A Gift From Tiffany’s
The Charm Bracelet
A Gift To Remember
Meet Me at Tiffany’s
Others
Something You Should Know
Please Forgive Me
Before I Forget
The Last to Know
Short Stories
Fairytale on Fifth Avenue
A Girl’s Best Friend
Box Sets
Lakeview–Books 1 - 4
Before I Forget/Wishful Thinking/All Because of You
Something You Should Know/Never Say Never/The Charm Bracelet
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
EXCERPT - AUTUMN IN VERONA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Also by Melissa Hill
