by Jo Lovett
The House Swap
An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance
Jo Lovett
Books by Jo Lovett
The House Swap
The First Time We Met
Available in Audio
The First Time We Met (Available in the UK and in the US)
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
Epilogue
The First Time We Met
Hear More from Jo
Books by Jo Lovett
A Letter from Jo
Acknowledgements
*
To Charlie
One
James
‘I understand that James has a very special gift for Emily and a very special question for her.’ Emily’s mother directed a coy smile at James, replaced the mic in its stand, stepped back and ushered James forward.
James frowned. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. What did she mean by ‘special’?
He looked at the mic on the stage in front of him, and at the sea of expectant faces below. There had to be a good hundred and fifty people down there.
He glanced upwards. There were helium balloons bumping against the ballroom’s high ceiling. They weren’t three- and zero-shaped, as you might expect for a thirtieth birthday party; they were heart-shaped.
Special. Hearts.
Was he expected to ask Emily to move in with him or something?
Surely not. That would be ridiculous; they both knew their relationship wasn’t that serious.
How long had they been together now? Maybe nine months? But only loosely together. They didn’t talk a lot. They went out sometimes, they slept together; that was about it. They barely knew each other’s friends, and they were light years away from anything like exchanging an I-love-you. Except, what else would ‘special’ mean?
James looked sideways at Emily, standing just to his right. She was wearing a floor-length, shimmery-green, silky dress, very tight all the way from the strapless top down to around shin level, where it flared out at the back. Kicking room. Her hair was mainly up, with a few strands down round the sides. She was wearing a pearl choker and diamond earrings. She looked stunning.
His gaze moved back to her mother, standing just beyond her, holding a glass of champagne and beaming. What was the woman’s name? Nope, he couldn’t recall it; that was how close he and Emily were.
Like everyone else in the room, Emily’s mother was looking at him.
People were starting to murmur.
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced down. Emily had inched her left hand towards him, with her ring finger proffered.
What? No. Couldn’t be. Was she expecting him to propose?
Emily’s mother’s words replayed in his mind. Special. No. He really hoped not. Surely not.
He took another look at Emily. She actually looked quite bridal, in a green way. And her mother’s outfit looked pretty mother-of-the-bride.
Unbelievable.
Maybe if he hadn’t been running late and preoccupied by the god-awful day he’d had at work, he might have registered some of these details when he arrived. And run for the hills.
Emily, still with the proffered finger, raised her eyebrows and jerked her head slightly in the direction of the microphone.
James didn’t move.
‘It’s probably time to make the announcement.’ The acoustics of the room were terrible. Emily’s words were still bouncing off the walls whole seconds after she’d said them.
And everyone was still waiting for James to speak.
Except there was nothing that he wanted to say, other than Goodbye. And maybe Help. Clearly, Emily had completely mistaken where they were at in their relationship. Getting married was in no way part of James’s life plan. He was pretty sure that he was a good friend, godfather and uncle. He didn’t want any commitment beyond that, and he always made that clear to girlfriends from the word go; there was no point upsetting people unnecessarily. He’d definitely made it clear to Emily. Surely.
She’d cooed over babies in buggies when they’d walked through the park a couple of weeks ago. She might have talked recently about selling her Central London flat and wanting to buy a house with several bedrooms out in Wimbledon. He also had a vague memory of her saying something about getting a dog. But, really? Should he have extrapolated from that to this? It was a big leap from there to here.
‘James?’ Emily’s voice had a nasty edge to it now.
The guests had upped the decibel level of their murmuring.
He’d better do something.
He gave a small smile around the room, reached into his pocket, pulled out Emily’s present and held it out to her.
She didn’t immediately take it, probably something to do with the fact that it was long and thin, rather than a square, Tiffany ring-shaped box.
He didn’t actually know exactly what was inside it. Presumably a necklace, given its shape. He’d given Dee, from the concierge company that he used, what had felt like a pretty generous budget – although obviously, because he wasn’t getting engaged, nowhere near what you’d spend on an engagement ring – and had asked her to buy jewellery. Dee did all his present shopping and people were always pleased with what she chose.
Emily finally took the gift. James stood staring at the wall opposite. He could hear her tearing at the ribbon and paper and clunking the box open.
‘Is this a joke?’ she hissed in his ear.
Nope. Hadn’t been. Dee had told him that Kate Middleton owned the same piece of whatever jewellery it was and had been photographed wearing it to polo matches. That had sounded ideal for Emily.
Some of the guests were sniggering. He took a sideways look at Emily. Her mouth was pinched and her cheeks were scarlet. Still beautiful, but angry-beautiful.
Her mother’s Botoxed forehead was creasing a little.
The guests were all talking quite loudly now.
Okay. James needed to wrap this up and go home. He wanted to be inside his flat, with the door closed on the rest of the world, so that he could forget that this day had ever happened. There seemed to be only one obvious way to do that.
He leaned into the mic, gave it a little ‘check the sound’s working’ tap, cleared his throat, nodded at the band, made a big conducting motion with his hands in the direction of the guests, and started to sing, ‘Happy birthday to you…’
The band obligingly struck up the tune and a lot of the guests joined in.
‘You bastard.’ Emily spat the words.
James carried on singing, staring straight ahead. There didn’t seem to be any alternative. He’d apologise and make his escape as soon as the song finished.
Emily slapped his face on the ‘dear’ of ‘dear Emily’ and, while he was still reeling
– the woman had some serious strength in that arm – dug her nails into his cheek and scratched, hard, on the ‘ly’ of ‘Emily’. Impressive; he saw stars briefly.
James moved out of her reach while Emily’s mother put her arm round her daughter’s rigid shoulders and said, voice brittle and high, ‘You were supposed to be proposing.’
‘There must have been a misunderstanding,’ James said, which was extremely polite considering that Emily had just assaulted him.
The mic was obviously still on. Someone at the back of the room started cat-calling and cheering, and a fair few people joined in. Some of the other guests started booing.
In retrospect, he should have left immediately after Emily’s mother asked him onto the stage.
‘Good evening,’ he said into the mic, and walked off the stage and out of the room, to what sounded like a pretty fifty-fifty mix of cheering and booing.
Home. Thank God.
James really needed a whisky. He rarely drank by himself – in his experience, when you grew up around an alcoholic you either went that way yourself, or you were very careful to do the opposite – but today had been a shockingly bad day, this evening the icing on the crappy cake.
He sank into his favourite armchair with a glass, cradled it in his hands for a moment, then took a large sip, leaned his head back and rolled his shoulders while the fire of the alcohol spread through his body.
He looked out of the long windows over the end of Campden Hill and into Holland Park. He loved this view at night, the streetlights and sometimes the moon illuminating the park’s majestic trees, their outline sharp tonight against the black sky. Today had been one of those crisp, cloudless April days that reminded you that summer was just round the corner and how great this part of London was during those summer months.
He also loved his gloriously tidy and orderly flat – a long way from the chaos of his childhood. And he loved living alone. Just one of the many reasons that he wasn’t planning to get married.
He definitely hadn’t said anything to lead Emily to expect that he was going to propose. Or even that he was in love with her. He was certain he hadn’t. And was she really in love with him? Surely she didn’t know him well enough. It had to be his flat and his lifestyle that she’d fallen for.
He took another sip. Yes, this was good. He could hunker down for the weekend and re-group. Thank God for peace and quiet.
Right. Some TV and then bed.
A clicking sound from behind him punctured the silence. What? It sounded very similar to a key turning in a lock. And a door opening. Again, what?
‘James.’ It was Emily. In his flat.
He stood up so fast his whisky spilled onto the floor.
‘What are you doing here?’
She walked across the room towards him, smiling. ‘I came to apologise. I overreacted. I just thought that now would be the perfect time to get engaged, being our one-year anniversary.’ One year? Really? That long? ‘When we met in the club last year it was my birthday party.’ Her smile and voice had both hardened.
James shook his head. ‘How do you have a key?’ There were four spare keys to the apartment. He kept one in a drawer in the kitchen, and the other three were with his cleaner, the concierge company and his best friend, Matt.
‘You gave me one at the weekend, remember.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘James. You did. When I left the restaurant.’
He worked back through Saturday evening in his mind. Oh yes. They’d been at a dinner in nearby Notting Hill with a group of Emily’s friends, and Emily had told him that she’d left something in the flat. He’d offered to return himself for it, in fact he’d tried to insist, but she’d insisted harder, saying that she also wanted to pop to the loo and didn’t like the ones in the restaurant, and was more than happy to come back by herself.
‘You borrowed my key to pick something up,’ he said. ‘And then you gave it back. How do you still have it?’
‘I got one cut,’ she said, like he was stupid.
Right. Twenty-four-hour London. Normally a good thing, but not in this instance.
‘I’d like you to give me the key.’ He put his hand out. Emily put it inside her dress, down her cleavage.
‘Come and get it.’ She lowered her head and looked up at him from under her eyelashes. Really? Did she seriously think that she could set him up to propose to her, hit him and reveal that she’d obtained a key to his flat by deception, and then flirt for two seconds and they’d have sex?
‘I’m sorry, but it seems that we have different ideas about what we wanted from this relationship. It’s over. Could I have my key, please?’
The remainder of Emily’s smile dropped from her face and she launched herself at him. This time James was more prepared. She got in one – again impressively hard – slap to his temple before he caught her arms, spun her round and marched her to the door. He had the door closed and the deadlock on before she’d managed to get the key back into the lock.
She stayed outside, smacking the door and screaming like a banshee. Very disturbing. She hadn’t seemed drunk, but maybe she was. Hard to explain this otherwise.
Despite the way she’d ambushed him, it was hard not to feel sorry for her, but he couldn’t really see how he could help her; better to keep the door firmly shut and hope that she’d calm down soon.
Two
Cassie
‘So we’re agreed that you’re going to come over to London for a week or two. Soon.’ Jennifer had a very piercing voice. Strident. Cassie winced and turned the volume on her phone down. ‘And then we can finalise where you’re going to set the books. And finally meet.’
‘I’m not sure.’ Cassie looked at the beautiful, calm, shimmery sea through the trees at the end of her garden. What would that shade be called? Cerulean? Azure? If she could get rid of Jennifer quickly, she could get a swim in before lunch. ‘I’m really sorry but I don’t think I can set any books in London. I don’t know it at all.’
‘Really? I thought all Brits knew London.’
‘No. I’ve only ever been about three times and the last time was about ten years ago.’
‘But you were a lawyer.’
‘Yes, but all my clients were in Scotland.’
‘And you never lived in London. Ever?’
‘Nope. Before I moved here I spent my entire life in Glasgow and Edinburgh.’
‘How did I not know that?’ Probably because Jennifer didn’t ever do touchy-feely small talk. ‘Well, not a problem. Maybe you don’t have to know London to set your books here. You can use the internet and your imagination.’
‘I really don’t think I can. I know Glasgow, Edinburgh and Boston very well.’ Cassie had rented an apartment in Boston for a few months after she left Glasgow, while builders made her new home on Hawk Egg Island, Maine, habitable. ‘That’s how I’ve been able to write about them. If I wrote about London, my readers would spot my mistakes. I mean, the books are supposed to be semi-educational.’
‘Cassie. This is a fantastic deal. Six more books in your series. Huge. TV rights guaranteed. Huger. And a mega advance to match. If you need to get to know London, you’re just going to have to spend some time here. Move here for six months.’
‘Right.’ Cassie remembered too late that sarcasm was usually wasted on Jennifer.
‘Great. So you’re going to come soon? Next couple weeks?’
Seriously? Of course not. No-one decided at the drop of a hat to go and live on the other side of the world for any period of time. And Cassie didn’t want to go and live in London. She didn’t want to go to London for even just a few days. What she wanted was to stay on the island and go for a swim this morning. The weather forecasters had stated with great confidence that today was going to be the last day of this once-in-a-decade April heatwave. Snow was a lot more usual than sunbathing weather at this time of year in Maine. It probably wouldn’t be warm enough again for weeks.
‘Maybe.’
&nbs
p; ‘Maybe definitely?’ Ouch. Near-perforated eardrum. Jennifer was getting more excited and her voice was getting shriller.
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Think fast. We don’t want to let this opportunity go.’
‘Okay. I’ll think soon and I’ll call you back.’ Obviously she should consider it properly. From a personal perspective, it really didn’t appeal, but from a professional perspective, she couldn’t ask for better.
‘Today?’ Honestly. Always so demanding. ‘This is going to be even bigger than your Scottish books. Edinburgh and Glasgow are great, but this is London we’re talking about. Think film rights, even more merch. That’s going to be a lot of money.’ Jennifer was big on exaggeration, but it was good money and it would be a very exciting project, if it didn’t involve an enormous and unpalatable lifestyle change for the next few months. ‘So we’ll speak later? You know what? Why don’t I call you? This afternoon. Four p.m.?’
Cassie closed her eyes. This was why Jennifer was a very successful agent. She was also, occasionally, a nice person. Cassie should remember both those things and not judge her. ‘Okay. Great.’ Wonderful. Well, she’d think about it. Actually, maybe they could compromise. Set the new books in a different big city, like New York.
Jennifer hadn’t finished. ‘And don’t tell me that we could set them in your backyard. It has to be London. Your Scottish ones sold a lot better than the Boston ones. They want British. That’s the deal.’ Mind reader as well as super-bossy. Irritating. ‘Later.’