It Had to Be You Read Free Page B

horror film. Her laptop was on the bed next to her, still open on the last
Daily Mail
article about her: ‘Unmarried Women in Japan Hold Candlelit Vigil for Lizzy Spellman’.
    There was no way she could go to work. She sent her boss a text and crawled back under the covers. She’d have to hire someone to do
her
PR at this rate.
    Poppet called on her way to a client meeting. ‘Have the reporters gone yet?’
    ‘There’s even more of them,’ Lizzy said wearily. ‘They’ve started putting twenty-pound notes through the door trying to bribe me to talk to them.’
    ‘Why don’t you watch something that isn’t the news? It will take your mind off things,’ Poppet said soothingly. ‘I’ll call you at lunch.’
    Lizzy rang off and switched on
This Morning
. Phillip and Holly had their serious faces on. A violet-haired woman was sitting on the sofa opposite them. The caption on the screen read ‘Mary DuVille, author of
Single Women Need Self Love First
’.
    ‘Lizzy Spellman will be in a very dark place right now,’ Mary DuVille intoned. ‘Being rejected by the man you thought you were going to marry affects the psyche at a primeval level.’
    ‘How can Justin have done that to her in front of a room full of people?’ asked an outraged Holly. ‘It’s totally out of order!’
    Mary DuVille looked grave. ‘From what I can see, Lizzy displays all the symptoms of a classic fantasist. It’s a common problem for women who are on the threshold of their thirties and are panicking about being left on the shelf.’
    Phillip Schofield gazed solemnly into the camera. ‘Are you like Lizzy Spellman and have been told that you’re not “The One”? If so, please get in touch and call the number on the screen now. Next up – how to wow dinner guests with the perfect rum baba!’
    Lizzy woke from a new nightmare slumber where she was trapped inside a bridal shop and there were dozens of faces pressed against the window laughing at her. Someone was banging on the front door. ‘Go away!’ she shouted hysterically. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you!’
    Her mother’s voice sliced down the corridor like a scythe. ‘Elizabeth! Open up. We’ve only got fifteen minutes’ parking on the car.’
    ‘Leave me alone!’
    ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. Are you going to open up or am I going to have to ask your father to force the door and put his shoulder out?’
    Muttering obscenities, Lizzy hauled herself out of bed and trudged down the hallway. She opened the front door and saw her parents framed on the doorstep in a blinding display of camera-bulbs. They threw themselves in and shut the door behind them.
    ‘I hope they don’t use those pictures, I didn’t have time to do the back of my hair.’ Lizzy’s mum pulled off her sunglasses. ‘Oh, darling, you look
dreadful.
’
    ‘I feel dreadful,’ Lizzy said, and burst into tears.
    That was the thing about parents. They had been the last people Lizzy had wanted to see – her mum anyway – but they had come in and immediately made everything better.
    By the time Lizzy had got out of the shower her dad had done the washing up and her mum had tidied away all the old Sunday papers in the living room, stripped Lizzy’s bed and laid out an outfit for her to wear.
    ‘We’re taking you out for lunch,’ her mum informed her.
    Luckily her dad had had the foresight to bring his golfing umbrella in, which he opened up in the reporters’ faces as they charged out to the car. The three of them were now ensconced in a nearby Pizza Express. Lizzy was wearing a Topshop scarf round her head and had insisted on sitting away from the window so no one could recognize her.
    ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not like you’re Princess Diana back from the dead.’ Her mum looked at the menu. ‘Are we having garlic doughballs?’
    ‘I thought you were on the 5:2 diet,’ Lizzy said.
    ‘It’s one of my “off” days. Oh come on, darling, don’t start crying again.’
    ‘Poor old Lizard’s