Cover

Dedication

To my editor Emily Yau – thank you for all your support on this book!

1

And I knew when we kissed, I had found the love of my life. And it wasn’t a happy ending after all.

It was just the beginning for us.

I closed the book with a contented sigh as the Tube train pulled into my station. I hastily stuffed When I Met You by Jake Richards into my bag, jumped up and alighted, following the throng of my fellow commuters onto the long escalator, tapping my card at the barrier at the top, and walking out into the fresh air. I left Oxford Circus station and passed by the shops that were a dangerous temptation every day and headed down a side street towards my place of work.

It was a bright June morning and the sign of sunshine, coupled with the warm, fuzzy feeling I always got at the end of reading a romance novel, left me beaming as I walked to the office. My smile broadened further when my phone buzzed in my bag and I saw that it was my cousin Liv calling me.

‘Morning, Liv,’ I greeted her as I slowed my pace to chat. I pushed back my wavy, auburn hair off my face, wishing I had tied it up.

‘Hey Freya, where are you?’

‘Walking to work… I just finished the new Jake Richards book on my way in.’

‘Oh my God, how was it?’ Liv asked eagerly. She not only was a huge romance reader like me but we also made our living from romance books. Liv was an author, and I worked for a literary agent specialising in the genre.

My chunky ankle boots clip-clopped along the cobbles on the road where the tall, white building that housed the Hayley Harper Literary Agency stood. ‘It was so swoony, Liv. When the couple finally kiss and declare they love each other at the end, I had tears in my eyes. It’s gorgeous. I think it might be his best book but who knows if it will ever see the light of day?’

‘Hmm. I still can’t believe he said what he said,’ she agreed, darkly.

I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. ‘It kind of broke my heart a little bit,’ I confessed. Jake Richards wrote the most romantic stories and he had always been one of my favourite authors.

But now, I wasn’t so sure.

‘His readers are all heartbroken; I wonder if Hayley can get this book published,’ Liv mused.