Emma reillys secret admi.., p.1
Emma Reilly's Secret Admirer, page 1
Emma Reilly’s
Secret Admirer
A novel by
Valencia Young
About the Author
Emma Reilly’s Secret Admirer is the debut novel of Valencia Young, a romance author from the Midlands, UK. She talks with a recognisable Birmingham accent whilst drinking copious amounts of tea. Feel free to try and recreate the writing process by reading it in her native accent as you indulge in caffeinated beverages.
For more information about Valencia please visit her website www.valenciayoung.com, where you can sign up to her newsletter and receive all the latest news and offers.
She loves to connect with readers on Facebook (AuthorValenciaYoung), Twitter (AuthorValencia) and Instagram (AuthorValencia).
Copyright
First printing edition 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Valencia Young
Valencia Young asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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.
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 onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 permission of Valencia Young.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
www.valenciayoung.com
Dedication
For you know who,
because of you know what ♥
Table of Contents
Emma Reilly’s Secret Admirer
About the Author
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
The end
CHAPTER 1
Emma sits alone at her vanity table inside 13b Station Road in Walthamstow, London. She’s getting ready to go out but stops to paw at a photo that’s pinned to the mirror. It shows her with her ex-fiancée, smiling as they wrap their arms around one another.
‘Kyle,’ she says with a sigh.
She wonders whether she has emotional whiplash from the speed with which her entire future has evaporated into thin air. Then she wonders whether emotional whiplash is a thing? It should be a thing, and she should be able to sue the man who has caused it! Kyle. Kyle was her soul mate. At least that’s what she was telling people up until a week ago, in embarrassingly gushing tones. Now she feels foolish for even believing that such a thing exists. She thinks of all the gossiping everyone must be doing at her expense, and her freckled cheeks start to redden.
Kyle was full of charm, promises and good looks. He was slightly cocky, but good-natured, with a cute, lop-sided grin, and abs you could pounce a coin off. His gym membership card was his most prized possession, and he spent a good hour there every night. Well, at least that’s what he used to tell her he was doing. She’s come to question a great deal of what she thought she knew about Kyle.
Life started to unravel on Monday morning – nothing good ever comes from a Monday – when she used her day off from work to go on an impromptu cleaning spree. She was in the mood for a deep cleanse of the flat, resulting in everything they owned being pulled out to make way for the hoover. The annual purge wasn’t due for another few months, but Emma was in high spirits. As far as she was concerned, life was going great. Sure, she didn’t love her job, but it paid the bills and left her financially secure. Her friends and family were all well, and her and Kyle were going through a lengthy good patch, seemingly over the constant rows that plagued them six months previously. He’d been extra attentive of late, more so than at any point throughout their entire relationship. Last night, he even brought home her favourite flowers, his only agenda being, ‘to make her smile.’ She zipped around the living room, singing away to her Henry hoover.
That’s when it fell out from behind the bookcase… a mobile phone. Emma tried to dismiss it as another spare, old phone, that Kyle must have left lying around. When will he learn to tidy up after himself? She thought about texting him and chastising him for his lack of organisational skills, but then the voice of doubt started to creep in. She’d never seen that phone before. Then her gut couldn’t let go of where she’d found it, stuffed around the back, like a concealed treasure chest. It gave off a vibe that said, ‘don’t tell Kyle you’ve found me.’ And she didn’t, at least not at first. Rather than confront him about it, she hid it, and then watched him squirm all evening as he tried to look for it without raising her suspicions. She was surprised by how much she enjoyed his repressed panic.
‘You OK, babe?’ she asked coyly.
‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’ he replied defensively.
Emma knew what she had to do. That night, as soon as Kyle fell asleep, she gently unlocked the mystery phone with his index finger. He stirred for a moment before falling back into a deep sleep. She went and sat on the utility room floor, steadying herself for whatever came next. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, unsure of whether she wanted to see what was inside. ‘You have to know,’ she whispered to herself. Her worst fears were realised when she saw the text messages, months and months of them, to and from nearly a dozen other women. Most of them seemed to be nothing more than flirtations, but at least two of them were a full-blown affairs! Tears ran down her face as she read through the culmination of twelve years of her trust and love. For a good hour afterwards, she quietly cried to herself, alone on the floor of the cold room. Waves of humiliation and regret washed over her.
She had another look – tormenting herself further – moving onto the hundreds of photos on the phone. ‘Pfff, they’re not real,’ she snorted. She found a picture that Kyle had sent out to numerous women. He’d clearly used some sort of imaging software to enhance the photo, if you know what I mean. It was petty, but she took great delight in pointing this out to him in the showdown that followed. She roughly shook him awake and wagged angry fingers in his face, whilst he stared at her blearily and without comprehension. His eyes swelled in size, and he shot up in bed when he recognised what she had in her hand.
After going back and forth with one another for several hours and exchanging many unkind sentiments, this neighbour-antagonising row culminated in a revelation from Kyle.
‘Look, Emma, I don’t know how to tell you this,’ he said with an ashen face. ‘This isn’t easy for me. I’m – I’m a sex addict.’ He wasn’t prepared for Emma’s reaction. She started to laugh. A big, belly wobbling laugh. ‘It’s not funny, babe.’
Emma threw her arms up in the air as ambiguous tears streamed down her face.
‘Don’t call me babe. A sex addict? Really? That’s what you’re going with?’
‘What? It’s a real thing!’
‘Says who? Google? Did you google crap to tell your fiancée when you get caught screwing around?’
‘You’re just – discriminating – yeah, against, umm–’
‘Kyle… you know where you can stick your discrimination...’
‘I have a disease, Emma!’ he pleaded.
‘You’re a selfish, conniving son of a–’
‘Look, I’m sorry! This isn’t all my fault, anyway.’
Rage filled her face, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
The firestorm culminated in Kyle blaming his lack of loyalty on a combination of sex addiction and Emma not being the person she was when they first met. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get her to admit that she’d changed and didn’t take care of herself like she used to.
‘Newsflash, Kyle, women have curves! We don’t stay teenagers forever. Besides, you didn’t seem to mind them on all your bang buddies!’ she screamed. She threw the ornamental, metal plate from the coffee table, an unusual Christmas gift from kooky Aunt Ruth, towards him like a frisbee. It missed. ‘Good riddance to you!’
One of their neighbours shouted through the wall, ‘Finally! Some of us need to sleep!’
‘You don’t mean that,’ he replied nervously. ‘Baby?’
She looked at him challengingly for a moment, before storming upstairs, packing a bag, grabbing the dog a
That was four days ago, when she turned up unannounced at her mother’s flat, overlooking Carol’s Cuts, her mother’s hairdressing salon. ‘Back again,’ she muttered as she waited for her mum to drag herself from sleep and stumble down the stairs.
‘Emma? Is everything alright, love?’
Emma rolled her eyes, ‘Is that a baseball bat, Mum?’
‘Well, it’s – I don’t even know what time it is. What time is it?’ Carol asked from underneath her dressing gown.
‘Late,’ she admitted.
Carol spotted Emma’s bags and hurried her inside without question.
‘In future, Mum, if you think there’s something baseball bat worthy on the doorstep… Can you call the police? Or me. At the very least call me before you tackle the world on your own?’
‘I – I will take that under advisement.’
Emma dropped her bags in the living room, ‘Where did you even get it from?’
‘I found it in storage. I’d confiscated it from your Uncle Pete. He was using it to – never mind. I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said gratefully, dropping down onto the sofa. She ended up falling asleep on there, and Carol didn’t have the heart to wake her. This kindness wasn’t well-received in the morning, when it resulted in Emma experiencing the worst neckache she’d ever felt in her life.
In the four days that followed, Emma worked her way through a good chunk of the five stages of grief. She tackled denial and undertook an abundance of anger. She put her own spin on bargaining, sending Kyle a series of texts threatening to destroy all his worldly possessions, and then talking herself out of any action that would result in the police turning up at the door. She was now firmly rooted in the depression stage. Acceptance probably wouldn’t be visiting anytime in the near future.
Back to this evening, and Emma reluctantly let’s go of the photograph. She sits, looking forlornly into the mirror, pulling funny faces. Her long, wavy hair is looking particularly wild today, which has always irked her hairdresser mum. Emma considers dying her dark locks blonde – she’d always fancied going blonde - and then decides against it. Her colouring is all wrong for blonde, with dark hair and eyes sitting on top of a pale, freckled face.
‘What do you think, Luna? Should Mummy go blonde?’ she asks the sweet collie-cross at her feet. ‘You don’t care what I look like, do you baby?’ She gives Luna some appreciative fuss.
‘Emma! Dinner’s ready!’
Emma groans, ‘Mum, I’ve already told you, I’m not having dinner here tonight!’
‘What, love?’
‘I said, I already told you I’m not having dinner!’
‘I can’t hear you, love!’
Emma admits defeat, ‘I’ll be down in a minute!’
‘OK.’
‘Oh, she heard that just fine. What a surprise,’ she observes. ‘Thirty-one-years-old and my mum is calling me for dinner. Urgh!’ She gently bangs her head against the vanity table before tenderly rubbing the area. At least she’s seeing Alex tonight, she thinks to herself. That will cheer her up. Emma quickly applies some lipstick and heads out the bedroom.
Emma walks into the living room, wearing a slinky black dress, 5” stiletto heels and the latest must-have celebrity perfume. She’s feeling a million dollars.
‘You’re not going out like that, are you, love?’ asks Carol, screwing up her face.
Emma’s dazzling smile drops from her face. ‘Why? What’s wrong with it? I’ll have you know, this was expensive,’ she says, pointing to the dress.
‘Was it?’ asks Carol, continuing her gurning. ‘It’s a bit Pretty Woman, isn’t it?’
‘And that’s a bad thing?’
‘Well, you know, before she had the makeover.’
Emma tuts. ‘Mum! You’re so old fashioned. It’s barely above my knee.’ She flicks one of the Christmas cards hanging across the fireplace and then starts readjusting her hair in the mirror.
‘I can practically see your funny bits.’
‘My funny bits,’ Emma says to herself with a light laugh. She wrestles with a defiant curl in her hair. Carol keeps an eye on her from the vantage point of her favourite, floral armchair.
‘How are you feeling, sweetie?’
‘Fine.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes, mum, you don’t have to worry about me,’ she says, becoming angrier with her hair the more she teases it. ‘I’ve got everything planned out.’
Carol raises an eyebrow, ‘Oh? I’d love to hear what your plans are.’
‘Yup. I have a plan. I’m becoming a lesbian.’ Carol smiles at her. ‘I’m serious, Mum. I’ve realised that Alex has the right idea. Down with men.’
‘At least you’re being proactive, I suppose. Let me know what you decide.’
‘You should consider that my decision. The decision has been made,’ she says with finality. She mutters some insults at a particular section of hair. Carol hears her and tuts.
‘If it’s all the same with you, I’ll let you dwell on it a little longer before I arrange your coming out party.’ Carol thinks on this, ‘We could do with a nice, little party. It’s been ages since we had the family together. It might cheer you up a bit?’
‘That’s fine, but don’t invite any men. They’re all banned from the house.’
‘That will upset your father.’
‘Well, tough. Someone has to pay for the crimes of their species.’ Emma gives up on preening herself, deciding she’s satisfied with what she sees. Her phone bleeps. ‘Anyway, my taxi is outside.’ She leans in, planting a kiss on Carol’s forehead, ‘I’ll be back late, don’t wait up.’
‘OK. Give Alex my love. And be careful.’ Emma doesn’t respond to her. ‘You hear me, Emma?’
She hates it when her mum fusses over her. ‘Awe, really? Because I was planning on running headfirst into danger...
Carol rolls her eye, ‘Oh, Emma.’
‘Yup, I was going to walk around the streets yelling danger where are you?! You know me, always a thrill seeker.’
Carol is unimpressed. ‘I’m your mum, Emma. It’s my job to worry about you.’ She’s about to follow this up with another point, but Emma is already heading out the door.
‘There’s nothing to worry about!’ she shouts back, on her way out.
The front door slams shut.
‘I don’t know about that,’ muses Carol.
CHAPTER 2
The black cab weaves slowly through the busy London traffic. Many of the drivers around them have their hands permanently glued to the car horn. It does nothing to dissolve the standstill, but still they persist in honking their disapproval. The taxi drives past Harrods, on the left, covered top to bottom in its eye-catching rows of Christmas lights. The traditional white bulbs run up and down the substantial building, lighting the way to their world-famous festive window displays. Every year, people flock from all corners of the world to catch a glimpse of this visual treat. Normally, Emma would be another smiling face among the crowds, but tonight she keeps her eyes firmly fixed ahead.
Her favourite part is coming up – the Spirit of Christmas on Regent Street – a series of spectacular, sculptured angels, showcasing seventeen-metre, blue and white-lighted wings, spreading out dramatically over the pavement below. Instead of falling under their spell, as she usually does, she stares moodily at her phone screen, going over the last text she received from Kyle.
‘Baby, I’m sorry. Please answer your phone.’
That was two days ago, and it’s been radio silence ever since. The penultimate text from him had accused her of being childish for not answering his stream of phone calls. This was followed by a swift apology and yet another plea to answer her phone. There’s a part of her that’s disappointed by his lack of dedication to her. She had considered herself worthy of more than two post-breakup grovel-days. Given what he’s been up to, at least a week, maybe even a fortnight would have been more appropriate. She consoles herself, thinking about how she won’t have to keep emptying her voicemail. It isn’t much of a consolation.
