Strictly Love. Julia Williams

nerves were jangling as she walked through the door. Mel didn't tolerate slackers on her team, as she put it.

      Luckily, Mel was late too this morning, which allowed Emily enough time to get herself a latte and calm down before she started work. She sat down to a pile of paperwork and opened her emails, to find there were still hundreds she hadn't responded to from last week, including one from an ex soap star whose efforts to revive her career by applying for the next series of Love Shack looked doomed since she'd got into a racism row with another would-be contestant. Emily groaned loudly. She could feel another late one coming on. It was too bad they were so short-staffed and the secretary she had shared with her colleague had left, but at least working long hours kept her from thinking too much about everything. It was another form of escapism, she supposed, but not quite as satisfactory as shagging an unsuitable boyfriend.

      ‘So that tooth we root-treated last time is still giving you gyp?’ Mark asked once Jasmine was ensconced on his dental chair. Her crop top was hitched halfway over her stomach and her hipster jeans sagged below it. She had less of a muffin top and more of a meringue mountain … God, it amazed him that someone so foul-mouthed, foully dressed and generally appalling as Jasmine could be deemed worthy of being in the public eye. Once upon a time people actually did something worthwhile to be famous. Not any more.

      ‘Too right it is,’ whined Jasmine. ‘It's bloody painful all the time. Those antibiotics were useless.’

      ‘You do realise that if I can't sort it out this time, I shall have to take the tooth out,’ Mark said.

      ‘No way!’ Jasmine was horrified.

      ‘I'm sorry,’ said Mark, a little nonplussed. ‘I did warn you.’

      ‘You can't mess with my teeth,’ shrieked Jasmine. ‘I've got a contract which says my teeth are all me own.’

      ‘She's got a contract,’ growled Jasmine's mother from the sofa. Kayla followed Jasmine everywhere and, Rottweiler-like, was always on hand to defend her daughter's interests.

      ‘Well, if you want a second opinion …’ This was Mark's get-out clause for all his difficult patients. Sadly, Jasmine had never yet taken him up on the offer, and she wasn't about to now.

      ‘Oh go on then,’ she said sulkily.

      Mark felt his way round Jasmine's mouth. Despite her brilliant white smile, her teeth were shot to pieces. The dazzling grin covered a multitude of sins to all except her dentist. The rate Jasmine was carrying on, it wouldn't be too long before he provided her with dentures. He prodded around for a while. Jasmine responded when he poked the molar two doors down, but the tooth she was moaning about didn't evince a single response. Which meant it was as dead as a doornail.

      ‘I'm really sorry,’ he said. ‘Your tooth's died. I'm going to have to pull it out.’

      ‘You can't!’ Jasmine shrieked.

      ‘What about her contract?’ Kayla demanded. ‘You must be able to do something.’

      ‘I'm touched by your faith in me,’ said Mark, knowing that sarcasm was completely wasted on these two, ‘but even I can't work miracles.’

      Jasmine winced dramatically as he gave her the strongest injection he could. Her pain threshold was notoriously low, and this was a back tooth which would take a fair amount of work to get out. Mark toyed with asking Sasha for the right instruments, but as she leaned back against the sink, looking bored and playing with her nails in between taking text messages (even though he had asked her hundreds of times not to), he figured that in the time it would take to explain what he needed, he could have got it all himself. One day, God would take pity on him and send him a decent nurse.

      ‘I can't lose a tooth,’ Jasmine wailed. She was clearly not going to take this lying down. ‘What about my contract?’

      ‘I'm very sorry,’ he said. ‘But the tooth has got to come out. I'll make you a bridging unit, which I'll attach to the adjacent teeth. No one will ever know the difference.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ Jasmine eyed him suspiciously. ‘What if someone finds out?’

      ‘No one will find out,’ said Mark. ‘Your records are completely confidential.’

      ‘You sure about that?’ the Rottweiler jumped in, looking uncertain.

      ‘Yes,’ said Mark. ‘Now, I have to do something about this tooth. I can't leave it like this.’

      Eventually, Jasmine agreed. Luckily, the tooth came out relatively easily, and Mark took some impressions for her crown.

      ‘What if someone sees the gap?’ Jasmine demanded as she got down from the chair.

      ‘It's pretty unlikely,’ said Mark, ‘it's a back tooth, no one is likely to be looking. You could always try not to get photographed for a bit.’

      Which was as unlikely as him getting back with Sam, he realised. Jasmine was always splashed over one tabloid or another.

      ‘You'd better be right,’ Jasmine said, ‘or there will be trouble.’

      ‘I'll bear it in mind,’ Mark replied, before showing Jasmine and Kayla out to the desk, where Kerry was chatting animatedly to Tony, Jasmine's third-division footballer boyfriend. Jasmine shot Kerry a dirty look, clicked her fingers at Tony, and swept out imperiously, leaving Kayla to pay. Mark made a mental note to remind Kerry that it wasn't done to flirt with the clientele, before calling his next patient.

      Great. It was Mrs O'Leary, or Granny O'Leary as the girls had christened her: an ancient crone and toothless wonder who steadfastly clung to the ill-fitting dentures that her original butcher of a dentist had given her eons ago.

      Mark reflected that he must have done something really bad in a previous life to deserve Jasmine and Granny O'Leary on the same day. But he couldn't for the life of him think what.

       Chapter Three

      ‘You're late,’ Katie said as Charlie came through the door. She didn't mean to sound accusing, but she was worn down by a hard day coping with the kids. The boys had been really naughty at bedtime and Molly had only just gone to sleep. The kitchen was still in chaos from tea, and she hadn't even managed to get into the lounge yet to tidy up. She could feel all her good intentions to rekindle their spark leaching out of her. Her plan to cook a candlelit dinner had gone completely to pot.

      ‘What's for tea?’ Charlie asked, ignoring her. She hated it when he did that.

      ‘Beans on toast.’ Katie felt wrong-footed.

      ‘You used to love cooking. You'd always have dinner ready for me,’ said Charlie.

      ‘Well, that was before we had Molly,’ snapped Katie.

      Katie would be the first to admit she was a control freak extraordinaire who wanted everything to be so perfect she made Anthea Turner look positively sluttish. She was the sort of woman who rose at six to clean out her kitchen cupboards, or iron and fold laundry. Charlie always teased her that her favourite room in the house was the large walk-in airing cupboard on the landing, where sheets, pillow cases, towels and blankets all sat neatly side by side in carefully orchestrated rows. White single sheets next to white doubles, coloured singles next to coloured doubles. Everything in its place, and everything easy to find.

      It always smelled fresh and wholesome, and Katie would never admit to anyone the illicit pleasure she felt in running her hand over the smooth surfaces of freshly ironed sheets. But it was hard work maintaining such high standards with children in the house, although, by and large, till Molly had come along she had managed. Of late, Katie could feel those standards slipping. She had been so desperate for a third baby, despite Charlie's reservations. Now there were days when even she wondered why.

      Charlie had touched a nerve, damn him. In the