How to Fall in Love Read Free

idea or not, whether they had a computer or not, whether they had a pen and paper or not. Their desire wasn’t determined by a specific pen brand or colour or whether their latte had enough sugar in it or not – things that were distractions and obstacles to my creative process whenever I sat down to write. Brenda often came out with pathetic insights but I feared that for once her observation of me might be true. I wanted to write, I just didn’t know if I could and if I ever made a start I was afraid I’d discover that I couldn’t. I’d slept with How to Write a Successful Novel by my bed for months but I hadn’t opened the pages once, afraid that not being able to follow the tips would mean I could never write a book, so I hid it in the bedside locker instead, parking that particular dream until the time was right.
    I finally found what I was looking for on the shelf. Six Tips on How to Fire an Employee (With Pictures) .
    I’m not sure the pictures helped, but I’d had a go at standing in front of the bathroom mirror and trying to emulate the concerned look on the employer’s face. I studied the notes I’d made on a Post-it inside the front page, unsure whether I was going to be able to do this. My company, Rose Recruitment, had been in operation for four years and was a small practice of four people, and our secretary Gemma helped us function. I didn’t want to let her go, but due to increasing personal financial pressures I was having to consider it. I was reading my notes when there was a knock on the door, quickly followed by Gemma’s entry.
    ‘Gemma,’ I squeaked, fumbling guiltily with the book in an effort to hide it from her. As I was stuffing it into an already crammed shelf, I lost my grip and sent it plummeting to the floor, where it landed at Gemma’s feet.
    Gemma giggled and bent down to pick up the book. Noting the title, she flushed. She looked at me, surprise, dread, confusion and hurt all passing on her face. I opened and closed my mouth, no words coming out, trying to remember which order the book had told me to break the news, the correct phrasing, the correct facial expressions, the tips, clarity, empathy, not too emotional, communicate with candour or without candour? But it took me too long and by then she already knew.
    ‘Well, finally one of your stupid books worked,’ Gemma said, her eyes filling as she dumped the book in my arms and turned, grabbed her bag and stormed out of the office.
    Mortified, I couldn’t help but be insulted by the emphasis on finally . I lived by these books. They worked.
    ‘Maguire,’ the unwelcoming voice barked down the phone.
    ‘Detective Maguire, it’s Christine Rose.’ I put a finger in my free ear to block the sound of the ringing phone wailing through the wall from reception. Gemma still hadn’t returned after storming out, and as I hadn’t been able to bring everybody together to work out how to share Gemma’s duties, my colleagues Peter and Paul were refusing to do the job of someone who had been unfairly dismissed. It was everyone against me, regardless how many times I told them it had been a mistake. ‘I didn’t mean to fire her… today ’ was not a good defence.
    It was quite simply a disastrous morning. But although it was obvious I needed to keep Gemma on – something I was sure Gemma was trying to prove – my bank balance disagreed. I still had to pay half the mortgage on the home Barry and I owned together, and from that month on I would have to fork out an extra six hundred euro to rent a one-bedroom apartment while I waited for us to sort it all out. Considering we’d have to sell an apartment that nobody wanted, for an eventual price that neither of us could really survive on, I imagined I would be digging into my savings for a very long time. And even in the event desperate times called for desperate measures, Barry had already waged a war on my jewellery collection, taking every piece he had ever given me and keeping