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Автор: Charlotte Phillips
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Современная зарубежная литература
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780008119379
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      Access All Areas

      CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      HarperImpulse an imprint of

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2015

      Copyright © Charlotte Phillips 2015

      Cover images © Shutterstock.com

      Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

      Cover design by HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

      Charlotte Phillips asserts the moral right

      to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for 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,

      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

      written permission of HarperCollins.

      Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

      Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780008119379

      Version 2015-04-30

       In memory of my fantastic Dad. I love and miss you.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

      

       Chapter 8

      

       Chapter 9

      

       Chapter 10

       Coming soon from Charlotte Phillips …

       Also by Charlotte Phillips …

      

       Charlotte Phillips

      

       About HarperImpulse

      

       About the Publisher

       Chapter 1

      Anna Clark tried for the third time to squeeze her fingernails under the stupid sash window of room 214 of London’s Lavington Hotel, and prise it open. With each failed attempt, panic had increased its attempt to throttle her and panic was the last thing you needed when you were two floors up and on the wrong side of the sodding window.

      What she needed now was a cool head. And possibly nail extensions, not that she’d ever so much as crossed the threshold of a beauty salon. Long nails might be great for opening ridiculous sash windows that shut by themselves, but when you earned a living as a photographer, long nails were the last thing you needed. Not that it was earning her anywhere near a living at the moment, which was actually the whole point of her being here.

      It had all sounded so easy two days ago back in the sunny little kitchen at home. Exclusively her home now since her father had died, nearly six months to the day after her mother. She’d only just emerged from the crushing grief and shock, taking comfort in holding on to what remnants of family life she had left, to find it wouldn’t be her home for much longer if she didn’t find a swift and sizeable cash injection.

      Her old school friend Lucy had offered some straight talking, mainly because she couldn’t offer money.

      ‘I’d love to help,’ she said on the phone, ‘but they pay peanuts at the hotel and I’m still having no luck with auditions.’

      Lucy liked to describe herself as a jobbing actress who filled in the gaps by working as a waitress at the Lavington. Lately it was more the other way round. Her last acting job had been seven months ago, an advert for crisps which had required her to say the line ‘Love That Crunch.’ Hollywood was an elusive animal.

      ‘It’s fine. I’ve got lots more people I can ask,’ Anna had lied. ‘I just need to find enough to buy me some extra time with the bank. Then maybe I can get a second job, get things back under control…’

      Selling her soul was beginning to sound appealing.