One Way Ticket to Paris: An emotional, feel-good romantic comedy
One Way Ticket to Paris
An emotional, feel-good romantic comedy
Emma Robinson
Also by Emma Robinson
The Undercover Mother
Happily Never After
One Way Ticket to Paris
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
The Undercover Mother
Emma’s Email Sign-Up
Also by Emma Robinson
A Letter from Emma
Happily Never After
Acknowledgements
For William
I love you as much as the gravity of a neutron star
Prologue
When I was a kid and I’d lost something, my dad always said, ‘Go back to the place you last had it.’ That’s why, when I found myself (aged forty-one, married with kids, a house and an unreliable Renault Clio) missing something, I decided to take his words literally.
The problem was that what I’d lost was… me.
Chapter One
Kate
Insomnia at three a.m. is not the ideal time to purchase an unplanned train ticket to Paris. Without telling your husband. Or having any clue who will look after your two children while you were away.
It was now 7.30 a.m. and Kate was in the bathroom, cleaning her teeth whilst undertaking covert surveillance on four-year-old Thomas doing a stand-up-wee-like-daddy. There weren’t enough bottles of bleach in the world to keep up with that boy. She spat toothpaste into the sink. ‘Thomas, please at least try to point your willy somewhere near the toilet.’
Luke shouted up the stairs. ‘Love, do you know where my car keys are?’
She gritted her newly-brushed teeth. Of course she knew where they were; she was the only person in this house who put things where they should actually be. ‘Look by the side of the kettle!’
Kate had woken at the usual three a.m. and, between her stowaway daughter’s determination to sleep like a star fish and her husband’s snoring, she hadn’t had a snowball in hell’s chance of going back to sleep. Then her brain had started its night-time cycle: shopping lists, upcoming birthday parties, school events, missed dentist appointments, things she’d forgotten, or might forget, or… Somehow, she’d wriggled caterpillar-like from under the duvet without waking either of them and had gone downstairs for a glass of water. Which is when she’d found Luke’s keys.
Alice wandered into the bathroom. ‘What do you think of my hair, Mummy?’
Kate’s six-year-old daughter was adorned with the entire contents of the box of hair accessories. ‘You look beautiful, darling, but I think it might be better to save that look for the weekend.’ Or a Boy George lookalike convention.
Alice flounced off to her bedroom and Kate turned her attention back to the boy child. ‘Pants up, Tom-Tom. Let’s give those hands a good scrub.’
The glass of water hadn’t really cut it last night, so she’d stepped it up to a cup of camomile tea. So rock and roll. The keys had been by the side of the kettle on top of the Eiffel Tower postcard. When they’d bought the house in Kent, Luke had waxed lyrical about the fact they would be so close to the Eurostar station at Ebbsfleet. But they hadn’t been to Paris since their honeymoon. Moving the keys, Kate had flipped the postcard over to reread the familiar handwriting:
When are you coming?
Luke stuck his head into the bathroom. His thick, blond hair was still tousled from bed. He winked at her. ‘Found the keys, thanks. Are you done in here? Can I get in to take a shower?’
He disappeared into the bedroom before she had a chance to say anything. But what was she going to say? Kate put a hand up to her own, dark hair and looked in the bathroom mirror. She still missed having hair which reached past her shoulders. But it had been the right decision to have it cut shorter. So much easier now she had the children to worry about. Practical.
Whether she stayed or went, the kids would still need lunch.
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