To my readers, my editor Becky Slorach, Lisa Milton and everyone at Mills & Boon, including Kirsty Capes, Tom Keane, Stephanie Heathcote and Sian Baldwin, I will attempt to thank you in this small way and I hope this book does all of our efforts justice. You believed in me and my vision, I’m so proud of our ever expanding and passionate literature family! Long may this continue.

To the immensely talented Pippa Roscoe aka my writing partner in crime…words fail me! I will forever be in debt to you and your brilliance. To illustrator extraordinaire Lucy Truman, thank you for the wonderful illustration – what a way to finish the series.

I’d also like to thank Andrea Villanueva de Milne, navigating both work and life with you by my side is joyous. Thank you for being spectacularly diligent and the kindest person I know. Quick shout out to my dog Monty, alas still unable to read but not thanking him for his unwavering snuggles while writing would have been a total oversight on my behalf.

Lastly, to all of you out there who believe in the beauty and story of love – don’t ever stop, it is life’s greatest gift.

Toff x

Extract

If you loved Meet me at the Wedding read on for an extract of where it all began, in Victoria’s story Meet me in London

Out now by Georgia Toffolo

CHAPTER ONE

OLIVER RUSSELL COULD WRANGLE a wayward balance sheet back into the black, take failing stores apart and breathe new life into them, make difficult calls on staffing and personnel issues, make his shareholders happy and very, very rich. But he had never managed to curb his mother’s meddling in his private life.

Some things were just impossible.

Earth to Oliver. This is your mother asking about your Christmas Day plans. Will I need to set an extra place at the dinner table? Hint, hint. Your mother xx

Sitting on a stool at the bar in the upmarket wine bar The Landing, Oliver groaned as he interpreted the ‘hint’ as yet another badly veiled attempt to discover his relationship status. Great one, Mum. Way to put pressure on a guy.

Could this week get any worse? He threw his mobile phone onto the sticky, beer-stained counter, gripped the tumbler in front of him and took a sip of a much needed fifteen-year-old Scotch. As the honey-coloured syrup oozed down his throat and hit his stomach with a warming buzz he silently counted all the ways things had gone wrong in such a short space of time.

First mistake; allowing his mother to believe he was finally settling down when in reality his love life could only be described as … non-existent. And now having to think up all the ways he could appease his parents over the holidays without going quietly insane.