Four Christmases and a Secret. Zara Stoneley

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      Four Christmases and a Secret

      ZARA STONELEY

      One More Chapter

      a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

      Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2019

      Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Cover images © Shutterstock.com

      Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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.

      Source ISBN: 9780008363161

      Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008363154

      Version: 2019-09-11

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Prologue – Mistletoe Kisses

      Act 1 – Must Try Harder

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Act 2 – New Year, New Me

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Act 3 – Nothing’s Going to Stop Me Now

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Acknowledgements

       Also by Zara Stoneley

       About the Author

       About the Publisher

      For everybody who has felt at some time in their lives ‘not good enough’.

      Believe me, you are!

       PROLOGUE – MISTLETOE KISSES

       24 December 2004

      ‘I flung open the curtains and shouted look at my hedgehogs!’

      Oh my God, I knew it. My mother is going to totally embarrass me. Here, at Uncle Terence’s Christmas Eve party, in front of everybody.

      Want to be able to embarrass your kids as they get older? Get your own back for every little slip up? Well, bring them up in a village where everybody will know them, and nobody will forget anything they have ever done. And never ever move house.

      I am eighteen years old, for heaven’s sake. I need to stop coming to family and friends’ parties so that I can avoid total embarrassment.

      Nine months, that’s all. I just have to stick it out for nine more months and then I’ll be free.

      I love my parents to bits, I sometimes even like them, but I cannot wait to go to university. My own place, nobody watching my every move and I will be able to snog who I like, when I like, where I like. I will be able to leave crumbs in my bed, read until 4 a.m., spend the weekend in my pyjamas.

      I straighten my antlers self-consciously, set my jumper to ‘flashing’ mode as a distraction and glance at Dad, who just shrugs apologetically, because we both know that mother in full flow is unstoppable.

      ‘Wendy, darling?’ He does try, but like I say, she’s unstoppable.

      ‘And Stuart switched the patio light on and there they were!’

      ‘Hedgehogs?’ I hear somebody say, hopefully.

      I edge back, try to sidle behind a bookcase before anybody notices me. One more step and I’m heading towards the ‘Narnia’ display. Another step and I’ll be safely hidden behind a giant White Witch.

      ‘Oh no, no! Our Daisy and a boy. Horizontal on the lawn, searching for slugs they said! I didn’t even know Joshua the postman’s son was interested in hedgehogs. I never even realised that Daisy knew the boy, she’d definitely not introduced him, had you dear? Daisy?’

      I lean back against the bookcase and close my eyes. I am mortified. I mean, wouldn’t you think that when your parents are holding a dinner party, you’d be safe having a quick snog in the back garden?

      If Josh had had his way, we would have been naked and have more in common with rabbits than hedgehogs, but the full moon, dew sodden grass and nip in the air had dampened my ardour (as well as my best jeans) a bit. I mean he’s okay, he’s quite a lot of fun actually but I’m not about to marry him. And