Rosie Curtis

We Met in December


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      WE MET IN DECEMBER

      Rosie Curtis

       Copyright

      Published by AVON

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

      Copyright © Rosie Curtis 2019

      Emojis © Shutterstock.com

      Rosie Curtis 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 e-books

      Source ISBN: 9780008353551

      Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008353544

      Version: 2019-08-23

       Dedication

      To Archie, with all my love

      (and thank you for all the cups of tea, darling).

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Prologue: Jess

      Chapter One: Jess

      Chapter Two: Jess

      Chapter Three: Jess

       Chapter Eight: Jess

       Chapter Nine: Jess

       Chapter Ten: Alex

       Chapter Eleven: Jess

       Chapter Twelve: Jess

       Chapter Thirteen: Alex

       Chapter Fourteen: Jess

       Chapter Fifteen: Jess

       Chapter Sixteen: Alex

       Chapter Seventeen: Alex

       Chapter Eighteen: Jess

       Chapter Nineteen: Alex

       Chapter Twenty: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-One: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-Two: Alex

       Chapter Twenty-Three: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-Four: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-Five: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-Six: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-Seven: Alex

       Chapter Twenty-Eight: Jess

       Chapter Twenty-Nine: Alex

       Chapter Thirty: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-One: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-Two: Alex

       Chapter Thirty-Three: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-Four: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-Five: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-Six: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-Seven: Alex

       Chapter Thirty-Eight: Jess

       Chapter Thirty-Nine: Alex

       Chapter Forty: Jess

       Chapter Forty-One: Alex

       Chapter Forty-Two: Alex

       Epilogue: Jess

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

       Jess

      22nd December

      Christmas and London are a match made in heaven. There’s a man on the street corner selling hot chestnuts by the bag, filling the air with the smell of cinnamon and vanilla. The ornate wooden windows of Liberty are glittering with lights and decorations. I stop to look at a huge tree swathed in ribbons and hung with a million dancing fairy lights and—

      ‘Watch out!’

      A woman crashes into me, giving me a furious look and weaving past, muttering loudly about bloody tourists.

      I am not a tourist, I think. I am – or will be, in just a couple of hours – an official Londoner. I step out of the way of the thronging crowds, pasting myself against a carved wooden window frame, and watch as a sea of people scurry past.

      I add ‘stop dead on the pavement to my mental list of Things London People Never Do. I know that already, really, but it’s easy to forget when everything is so sparkly and festive. I pause for a moment and take a photo to share on my Instagram stories, because it’s just so ridiculously perfect and my life has been so beige and boring for months – it’s lovely to have something interesting to put on there. And then I take another of the street scene, because it’s just so … London-y and Christmassy and perfect.

      I look at the flowers in the doorway of Liberty, thinking that it would be a nice idea to take Becky some as a thank you (again) for offering me a room in a house that would otherwise be completely out of my reach. There doesn’t seem to be a price anywhere though, which I think is weird, then I hear my Nanna Beth’s voice saying, If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. But they’re only flowers, surely. How expensive can a bunch of flowers be?

      ‘Can