by Jo Watson
Copyright © 2019 Jo Watson
Cover images © Shutterstock. Design by Caroline Young for Headline Publishing Group.
Author photo © Chelsea Nicole Photography
The right of Jo Watson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in this Ebook edition in 2019
by HEADLINE ETERNAL
An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4722 6553 1
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
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www.headlineeternal.com
www.headline.co.uk
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Praise for Jo Watson
Also by Jo Watson
About the Book
Dedication
Prologue
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
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Acknowledgments
Don’t miss Jo’s laugh-out-loud rom-coms
Find your Destination Love
Find out more about Headline Eternal
About the Author
Jo Watson is the bestselling author of the Destination Love series, Love to Hate You, which has sold over 100,000 copies, and Love You, Love You Not. She’s a two-time Watty Award winner with over 50 million reads on Wattpad and 85,000 followers. Jo is an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee. She lives in South Africa with her family.
For more information, visit her website www.jowatsonwrites.co.uk, follow her on Twitter @JoWatsonWrites and Instagram @jowatsonwrites and find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jowatsonwrites
Praise for Jo Watson’s hilarious romantic comedies:
‘The perfect choice for fans of romantic comedies’ Gina’s Bookshelf
‘It was amazing, it was hilarious’ Rachel’s Random Reads
‘A brilliant read from beginning to end’ Hopeless Romantics
‘Found myself frequently laughing out loud and grinning like a fool!’ BFF Book Blog
‘Witty, enjoyable and unique’ Harlequin Junkie
‘Heart-warming, funny, sweet, romantic and just leaves you feeling good inside’ Bridger Bitches Book Blog
‘Full of pure-joy romance, laugh-out-loud moments and tear-jerkers’ Romantic Times
‘A treat of a book’ Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews
‘Well written and lovable . . . a bundle of laughs' Monash Times
‘Heart-warming and raw . . . I urge you to go on this journey’ Four Chicks Flipping Pages
‘I absolutely loved this book. It has humour, romance, heart-wrenching grief and the excitement to live life to the fullest’ Njkinny’s World of Books & Stuff
‘Completely lovable’ Katy Reads
‘Unputdownable! . . . Love to Hate You is more than just a rom-com, besides the inevitable plenty of laughs it will have you wonder, sigh, hope, and dream. Want a great date? Call Ben White, err, I mean grab this book!’ Darkest Sins
By Jo Watson
You, Me, Forever
Destination Love Series
Burning Moon
Almost a Bride
Finding You
After the Rain
The Great Ex-Scape
Standalone
Love to Hate You
Love you, Love You Not
About the Book
It all started with faulty elevator - and a love letter. . .
Writer Becca Thorne needs an idea – fast! She might have a huge bestseller to her name but, with the deadline for book two approaching, Becca knows she’s in danger of losing the career she cares so much about. But Fate has other plans for her when she almost plummets to her death with two strangers in a faulty elevator.
Although Becca emerges in one piece, her precious vintage handbag doesn’t, and that’s when she realises that inspiration has been with her all along. Hidden inside the bag’s now-torn lining is a set of beautiful love letters.
It might not be her story, yet Becca can’t seem to get the romantic words out of her head and feels compelled to discover who wrote the letters. But there’s more waiting for Becca than the tale of a romance from long ago – it might be the chance to live her own love story and follow the path Fate has always intended her to. . .
Don’t miss Jo’s laugh-out-loud rom-coms, Love You, Love You Not, Love to Hate You, Burning Moon, Almost A Bride, Finding You, After the Rain and The Great Ex-scape.
To anyone who’s ever been told who they’re not allowed to love!
PROLOGUE
There are a few things you should know about me before we begin this story. I think these things are important in order for you to understand why . . . why I did the things I did, why I am who I am and just why? Because isn’t why? the ultimate question? Why is everything? Why is this and why is that and why am
I?
So, here are the facts: my name is Becca Thorne. That’s not my real name, by the way. My actual name is Pebecca Thorne, and the story of how I lost that little sloping line that magically turns a “P” into an “R” is quite a peculiar one. It involves a single drop of water that fell on just the right spot on my birth certificate to magically dissolve the ink. The stray drop of water came from my mother’s eye, right around the time that she heard the news that my father had died in a car accident. If my father hadn’t died at that exact moment, and my mother had received the news a mere second later, I might not have gone through my entire life being looked at strangely whenever people read my name out for the first time.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I bring up my name right now—surely something as trivial as a name should have little to do with all the existential questions of why? But I disagree; I think my name has a lot to do with all the whys of my life. A name is important and being given the wrong name soon after your birth definitely gets you off on the wrong foot. Not to mention being given the wrong name under such wrong circumstances. My strange misnaming always left me feeling like some great tragedy had been etched into my story right from the very beginning. It always left me feeling that I didn’t really know who I was, and, like that missing line, I too was missing something.
So that’s one thing to note about me; the other thing is that I consider myself a deeply flawed human. I know what you’re thinking: Everyone has flaws, and while this is true, my flaws really have led me to choose the wrong fork in the road more times than I care to remember. Dinner fork, fish fork, salad fork, dessert fork . . . Yup, been there, done that, got the forking T-shirt.
By now, you’re probably curious about what these flaws are and why I have them. Whilst the what is perhaps easier to answer; the why, though, well, that’s a little trickier, but I do suspect it has a lot to do with that single stray tear all those years ago. The tear that sealed my fate and made me who I am.
And who am I? I hear you ask. Honestly, I don’t think I’m entirely sure of that either. But I am sure of a few things, and they are definitely things worth noting. I’m a person who cares far too much about what others think of me! Sometimes, I care so much about what others might think of me and what I’m doing that I land up being crippled with fear, and do nothing at all.
Let’s move on to number two, now. Here it is: I work far too hard trying to prove the world “wrong” about me. I don’t even know what I’m trying to prove half the time, or to whom. But I just am. I’m constantly doing things just to be able to say, “See, I did it. HA!” Honestly, it’s bloody exhausting.
And here’s the last one, and perhaps it’s the one that’s landed me in the most trouble . . . I jump before I think. I jump before I’ve even thought about thinking. I jump with both feet and both hands and every other limb and digit one can jump with. The problem is, I always forget to take my brain with me on these jumps. I always seem to leave it behind as I run off blindly towards a fruit fork, or—God forbid—one of those sharp, pointy, oyster forks that can definitely poke your bloody eye out.
So, like I said, I think it’s important to remember these things as we embark on this story together. Because, if I think about it now, it all becomes very clear to me how I landed up in the situation I currently find myself in. I think it’s rather obvious that my flaws and that tear have all played a good part in helping me choose this particularly twisty fork in the road that has found me in such a monumentally, stupendously enormous amount of . . .
CHAPTER 1
Trouble.
I was in such trouble.
Not “little trouble,” like when you use a plastic straw in public these days, despite all those pics of the suffering seahorses. Or like when you swipe right instead of left and a man with a serial-killer moustache starts messaging you. Or like when you cut your own bangs because you watched a YouTube tutorial. No, I’m talking about the kind of trouble that forces you awake in the middle of the night, drenched in a layer of cold sweat and gasping from the stabbing pains in your chest.
I’d been trying to take a very spiritual approach to the “trouble” of late. This approach had me repeating phrases like, This too shall pass, and, The universe will provide the answers, blah, blah, blah! But after two months of walking around breathing into my heart chakra (which I still wasn’t sure I even had) and drinking thick goopy green smoothies for so-called mental clarity, I was still Fucked. Capital F. Several exclamation marks. Screaming ghost face emoji.
Opening my heart and mind to the universe had not helped my writer’s block one little bit. Neither had all that “free writing” I’d done, not to mention all that guided meditation, exercising, listening to classical music, doing a total social-media purge and, my last resort, Marie bloody Kondo-ing my entire office. Nothing had helped, and nothing changed the fact that I had exactly one month to submit my new novel to my agent and publisher, and I had exactly zero words written.
Due to the success of my first book, my publisher had signed a deal for my second one without even asking for a concept. They’d also given me a big, fat advance, which I had officially spent without thinking. So, if I didn’t produce a book, I would be paying that money back until the end of my days, which, by the way, I was currently hoping would come sooner rather than later. I was so desperate that, the other night, I’d prayed that some massive, global catastrophe—like the eruption of Yellowstone Park, or an alien invasion—would wipe us all out.
I admit, I’d gotten somewhat cocky after the success of my last book. Perhaps it had all gone to my head a bit. Because, let’s be honest, I don’t really need the Porsche I now drive. I don’t even think I like Porsches. I also don’t need to be living in this huge apartment, and I certainly didn’t need to fly business class on a flight that had taken all of two hours, especially since I learned that men still pee on toilet seats there. I’d become one of those people that my poorer self used to mock: the kind who spent R300 more for pale blue salt harvested from a babbling brook in the foothills of the Himalayas by Zen monks, for heaven’s sake. But I had such a point to prove to a certain someone, that I guess I’d gotten carried away. What’s new? I’m always carrying myself away, never really thinking too deeply about the consequences of such “away carrying.”
It’s really rather amazing how much money you can spend, and in such a short amount of time, when you’re not paying attention. And then one day you go to swipe your card, and the manager of the restaurant comes over and utters those dreaded words: “I’m sorry, but your card has been declined.” And they always do it in that voice—soft, whispered tones that somehow manage to convey both an air of sympathy and sarcasm at the same time.
I’d thought writing the second book would come easily; after all, I’d managed to write the first one in a matter of weeks. It had poured out of me like an open tap. My story had flooded the pages and filled them up until one day I’d looked up from my computer and seen that I had a full-blown novel on my hands. Sure, it had been inspired by some very painful personal experiences I’d recently had, which might have made it easier to write. I’d secured an agent very quickly and a week later had a publishing deal. “Unheard of, for a debut author,” my agent had said. My book had come out, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and had even put me on some rather prestigious bestseller lists.
Becca Thorne has written the most heartbreaking story of the year. Sad and brittle and unputdownable, the New York Times had said. A truly remarkable and relatable story of love lost that had me reaching for a box of tissues more than once, USA Today had said. I can’t wait to see what this author has in store for us next.
Talk about pressure! What if there wasn’t going to be a next? What if the first one had been a fluke, and there would never be a number two? I felt sick thinking about it. I looked down at my watch and felt that familiar punch in my belly again. I had a meeting with my agent in precisely forty minutes. She knew I didn’t have a book. She’d already
asked my publisher for three extensions and was now threatening to fire me. In fact, I think she was over threatening and today was the day I was going to be axed, and my very short-lived career as a once-bestselling author was over. My whole body constricted at the thought. I couldn’t lose this. I needed this. I needed to be an author, a someone who’d done something, or else who was I? A nothing? A maybe, sort-of, almost-something-once-upon-a-time, but-not-really-anything thing.
I rummaged through my wardrobe; what does one wear for such an occasion? For one’s firing? And what is the right soundtrack for it? I’m always looking for the perfect song for the moments in my life; it’s something I’ve done since I was a little girl. I especially look for them in those quiet, anxious moments that desperately need filling. And this was one of them. I took out an old, scraggly dress and wondered, if I wore this, didn’t brush my hair or remove my smudged eyeliner, and played a melancholic bluegrass song, whether she would take pity on me. Or maybe if I dressed up in an eighties power suit with shoulder pads and those pleated things called “slacks” she would find it harder to fire me. An anthemic song could be playing in the background as I stride into her office confidently . . .
“Let The River Run!”
I sighed and abandoned my Working Girl fantasy and grabbed a pair of jeans that were feeling rather tight around the middle, thanks to all those late-night, very non-keto binges, and pulled on a shirt with a smiley emoji on it—oh, the irony—but, honestly, it was one of the only clean things in my wardrobe. I swung my handbag over my shoulder and headed for the door, kneecaps shaking like two pathetic chihuahuas.
The strap of my handbag slipped down and I pulled it back up again. It was one of my favorite bags. I’d found it a year ago, stuffed into the corner of an old, dusty antique store in downtown Johannesburg. It was covered in a delicate, intricate beadwork that, when I felt nervous, I liked to run my fingertips over. There was something so soothing about the action, and, right now, I needed soothing.
I closed my apartment door and headed for the elevator. I lived in one of those newly refurbished downtown buildings (very cool and trendy). The kind that was part residential, part hotel, part office, part shop, part restaurant and part modern art gallery. I’d been to the art gallery once. I’d stood there sipping on a flowery, artisanal gin while pretending to understand the significance of the spray-painted iPhone hanging from the ceiling. It was on sale for R100,000.