LINDSEY KELK: THE GIRL COLLECTION
About a Girl
What a Girl Wants
Including an exclusive extract from A Girl’s Best Friend!
Lindsey Kelk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2013, 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007497997; 9780007501557
Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008165277
Version: 2017-08-29
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2013
Copyright © Lindsey Kelk 2013
Cover illustration © Bree Leman
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2013
Lindsey Kelk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007497980
Ebook Edition ISBN: 9780007497997
Version: 2017-08-29
About my girls, Della, Beth, Emma and Terri.
I never meant for things to get so out of hand.
I’d lost my job. I’d lost the love of my life. My mum wasn’t talking to me. My best friend was epically pissed off. My flatmate probably had a hit out on me by now, and in twenty-four hours I would likely be homeless.
But, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Considering how incredibly cocked up my life was, I felt surprisingly chipper. Happy even. Stretching out as far as I could, I curled the tips of my fingers around the headboard and scrunched my toes up in the crisp white cotton sheets that had found their way to the foot of the bed. Everything was still, everything was calm, and I was smiling. Somewhere across the room, I heard a phone beep. Instead of jumping up to see who needed what and just how quickly I could get it for them, I concentrated on the sound of the shower running in the bathroom and pressed my lips together to refresh the tingling sensation before it faded away. The stubble burn that tickled my cheeks was altogether more stubborn. I was so happy.
My best friend had been wrong. Everything was going to be OK. Probably. Not that there hadn’t been some sketchy moments over the past week. Not that I hadn’t considered having myself committed. More than once. But now it was almost over. I’d survived. This afternoon I would get on a plane back home. I would call everyone who needed calling, and instead of behaving like a jabbering shell of a human, I would be cool, calm and collected and make things right. If I could get through this past week, I could get through anything.
Seven days ago, if anyone had even given me a hint of what was ahead, I would have crawled underneath my desk and refused to come out. But as I had learned from every television show I had ever watched and every book I had thought about reading, you never knew how strong you were until you had to find out. I was definitely stronger than anyone had reckoned. Either that or I was clinically insane. It was a fine line.