Claudia Carroll 3 Book Bundle. Claudia Carroll

vegetarian frittata then?’ said Eloise, wafting an untouched tray under her nose. Like this might make a difference.

      ‘I’m so sorry, I really have to go …’

      ‘Yeah … me too, it’s so late,’ said her pal, a tall modelly-looking one who Eloise vaguely recognised from seeing in the staff canteen a few times.

      ‘Go on, just have a slice of birthday cake before you go. You know you want to!’ Eloise offered, trying her best to keep the slightly hysterical note out of her voice. And not succeeding very well.

      ‘Can’t, I’m afraid. I live miles away and if I miss my bus …’

      ‘How about yourself?’ Eloise said to a new intern, whose name she thought might be Susan, as she thrust a plateful of vanilla sponge gateaux at her.

      ‘Oh … ehh … thanks so much,’ Susan answered politely, the only one to look even slightly sympathetic, ‘but you see, I really do need to make tracks as well, been a really long day …’

      Lost cause, Eloise thought. Waste of her time even asking them to stay. Instead she stood and watched the three of them clatter out the door and on towards the lift bank in their too-high heels, getting giddier by the minute it seemed, the further they were away from her.

      So this was it, she thought, this was the start of a brand-new decade for her. And so far, it was her worst nightmare come true.

      She hadn’t even wanted a party in the first place – no time, thanks very much – but then Eloise was famous for rarely socialising with anyone unless it was a) work related, b) would involve making several important new business contacts or c) there was just no possible way out of it. Even then, she’d be the last to arrive, the first to leave and would impatiently nurse a glass of still water for the hour or so that she was there, all while checking emails on her iPhone approximately every ten minutes or so.

      Oh sure, she’d put in an appearance at the staff Christmas party mainly because she didn’t really have a choice after all, she was the boss and even she knew how crap it would look if she didn’t. But by and large, she was her own best friend and perfectly happy to be so. She was an island and islands are rarely bothered about popularity. Which at that particular moment in time, as she sat all alone on an empty desk beside rows and rows of untouched wineglasses, was probably just as well.

      Absent-mindedly, she started to play with the string hanging off the end of a gaudy pink ‘Congratulations!’ helium balloon anchored beside her and for the first time in years, allowed herself a rare moment of introspection.

      Welcome to my life, she thought. Thirty years of age and utterly alone. No friends, no ‘significant other’, no office colleagues who, perish the thought, might actually want to spend some non-work-related time with her – no one. When it came down to it, she was basically living the life of a nun on a six-figure salary.

      Sure she had family, but she saw them so rarely, they barely even figured. Her darling dad had passed away years ago and her mother now lived in Marbella with a duplex, a perma-tan and a worrying habit of drinking during the day. But although they’d have a weekly chat on the phone and in spite of countless invitations to ‘jump on a plane and come and get some sun for yourself,’ Eloise really only got to see her mum once a year, when she’d fly home for Christmas. If work permitted even that much. Last Christmas Day, a story had unexpectedly broken in the Middle East and Eloise ended up having to rush back to the Post to cover it.

      She had a younger sister too, Helen, but she’d upped sticks and moved down to Cork a few years back. Besides, it was unspoken between the sisters, but deep down each knew they’d next to nothing in common. They saw each other rarely, spoke even less and even that was just for form’s sake, little more.

      In fairness, most of the time, Eloise didn’t particularly miss having friends, mainly because how can you miss what you never really had in the first place? Dating right the way back to primary school, when she continually came top of her class, the other kids, viciously cruel as small kids usually are, would ostracise her and call her a freak, mainly because no one wanted to be pals with the girl who constantly badgered the teacher about their homework load being insufficient and unchallenging.

      Eloise read at Junior Cert level by the age of four, was declared a member of Mensa at five and by nine, had composed a violin concerto to accompany the senior school’s production of Romeo and Juliet.

      For God’s sake, even the teachers were a bit scared of her.

      And so unsurprisingly, she grew up being utterly self-reliant and not really needing other people, thanks very much. Totally married to her job; in fact, she was the job. Youngest senior editor the Post had ever had, by the way, with all the stress ulcers to prove it, and in the space of a few short years she had not only trebled their circulation but completely turned their readership around, a la Tina Brown. First at her desk every morning, last to leave at night; this is not a woman who did down time, friends, family or socialising, ever. Sorry, no time.

      Small wonder people didn’t warm to her. She had a clatter of various nicknames behind her back among subordinates at her office, none of which stuck, mainly because the very phrase ‘Eloise Elliot wants to see you in her office, now,’ delivered just like that, unfrilled and straight up, was pretty much enough to terrify any poor unfortunate who worked for her into white-faced, trembling, silence.

      And now on this of all nights, Eloise was suddenly seeing the rest of her whole life stretching right out in front of her. Seeing it as vividly as if she’d already lived it. Clear as crystal, she could see herself at forty, then at fifty, then right up all the way to retirement age, still editing the paper, still working eighteen-hour days, and still alone.

      Pretending to celebrate a day she didn’t particularly care about, while a handful of strangers looked at her the way everyone seemed to look at her these days; with a mixture of pity and terror.

      Sometimes we don’t recognise the most significant moments of our lives till they’ve long passed, but not Eloise. Hard to believe that miserable night would change the whole course of her carefully ordered existence, and yet that’s exactly how it would pan out.

      Years later, she’d look back and pinpoint this as the precise moment when heaven whispered in her ear and when she suddenly knew what needed to be done to kill this life, to fix this problem. Because to someone with Eloise’s keen mathematical brain, that was all this was; a problem to be solved, like a simple maths equation.

      And make no mistake: solve it, she would.

      So with that same dazzling clarity that you only ever get on rare, road-to-Damascus moments in life, Eloise Elliot rubbed sore, red eyes, took a deep breath and made one of the lightning-quick, clear-headed decisions for which she’d become legendary.

      It was time to take action.

PART ONE THREE YEARS LATER

       Chapter One

      Not today. Just please not today. I can’t tell you how I so do NOT need this today.

      It’s barely five thirty in the morning and already my whole life seems to be spiralling dangerously out of all control, something that’s happening with all-too alarming frequency these days. For starters, while I’m trying to slip out the door at the crack of dawn (nothing unusual there, this is when I have to leave for work every morning), Elka, my Polish nanny, picks today of all shagging days to have an out-and-out meltdown.

      There I am, sneaking downstairs in my bare feet, trying not to wake anyone, already running late for the early morning news briefing. Never, ever a good start to the day. Next thing, madam stomps out of her bedroom, still in her dressing gown, not so much asking, as demanding, to have a ‘queek word with you.’

      ‘Emm … yes, of course, Elka,’ I say, instantly smelling trouble and deliberately keeping my voice down to a low hiss, so as not