The Summer of Second Chances: The laugh-out-loud romantic comedy. Maddie Please

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       PROLOGUE

      It was quite incredible really, when I considered what a long time things took to do as a rule. Meeting Ian and moving in, supporting him as he built up his business, entertaining people who drove me nearly mad with boredom, getting contracts, the crazy nit-picking of flaky homeowners. These things took months, sometimes years. To lose it all took no time at all.

      I lost my partner, my home, a lot of my friends and my peace of mind – not necessarily in that order – and yet, only a few days had passed.

      We had shared the usual formulaic Christmas with Susan picking at her food as though I was trying to poison her. And then Ian had started on about the bloody New Year’s Eve party we were having.

      He’d rolled his eyes at his mother who was sitting opposite me.

      ‘I had to persuade her, you know, Mum. Lottie hates New Year’s Eve,’ he said. Quietly, as though I was simple and couldn’t hear him.

      ‘I don’t!’ I said. ‘That’s so not true.’

      I would have said it more emphatically with words like bollocks or crap attached, but Susan has been known to leave the room when I swear so I didn’t. It was Christmas after all.

      ‘She says it’s just one more day,’ Ian continued. He sent me a mischievous grin to show he was teasing me. I pulled a face at him and tried to kick him under the table.

      Susan put down her knife and fork and peered over her glasses at me.

      ‘You’re very young, Charlotte. Perhaps you think there will always be one more day.’

      Oh God, I knew what was coming.

      Susan sighed and shook her head.

      Yes, here it was.

      ‘I would give anything to have one more hour with Trevor. One more day.’ She bit her lip, shook her head and struggled on bravely. ‘If I had known he would be taken from me so soon.’

      And after the party, wallop! One bloody shock after another, everything getting worse and worse until I came to dread waking up each day because I knew something else horrible was bound to happen.

      And then the day came when I packed my clothes, my jewellery box, my grandmother’s clock and as many of my belongings as I could fit into my car – the only thing I now owned – and handed back the keys to the house to an anxious solicitor who looked like Rodney Trotter’s younger brother doing work experience. I could almost imagine Susan’s glee as she closed one claw-like hand over them with an evil cackle. I’d always known she had never really liked me, but now she could make her feelings more than clear. She blamed me for what happened, and this was the perfect revenge.