CHAPTER ONE
THE TRAIN BURST out of the tunnel into the fading light. Frankie Fox flinched as the carriage jerked sideways.
It had taken just over two years of persistence and hard work, but finally it had happened. Two days ago her social media profile—@StoneColdRedHotFox—had reached the milestone of a million followers.
Better still, the man of her dreams had invited her to spend the weekend at Hadfield Hall, his family’s home in Northumberland.
She should have been feeling on cloud nine, but instead she was staring morosely through the grimy window at a darkening landscape.
It was her fault she was feeling this way.
For the first time in two years she had let herself dream, let herself hope that she might be given a second chance to belong. That maybe she had done enough to earn a place in someone’s life.
And the day had started so promisingly...
After weeks of rain, she had woken up to a pale March sun in a sky of clear harebell-blue.
Miraculously, she had got to the station with time to spare and, best of all, Johnny had been waiting beneath the clock, just as he’d said he would be.
They’d met just shy of three months ago at a product launch. Technically, she had been working, but that had been quickly forgotten because for her it had been love at first sight.
Johnny Milburn was an actor—the kind described as ‘hot’ and ‘up-and-coming’. He certainly looked like a leading man, with that lean body and clean-cut superhero features, the floppy blond hair, a smile that could power the National Grid, and the most beautiful meltingly soft chocolate-coloured eyes.
She had been the one melting when he’d taken her hands last Saturday and told her that she was working too hard. That somebody had to tell her she needed a break, and that person was him.
She breathed out unsteadily, remembering how his eyes had been fixed on her face as if there was nobody in the world but her. He hadn’t kissed her, but incredibly—unbelievably—he had invited her to spend the weekend with him at Hadfield Hall, his family’s estate on a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. It had all sounded swooningly romantic. Like something out of a Georgette Heyer novel...
She glanced across the table to where Johnny should have been sitting.
Except romantic novels needed a hero and a heroine, and right now her hero was somewhere over the Atlantic on his way to an audition in Los Angeles, and she was on her way to Northumberland alone.
Slumping back in her seat, she sighed.
She’d tried telling Johnny that she couldn’t possibly just turn up at his family’s house on her own, but he wouldn’t listen to her.
‘Please, Frankie. It’s bad enough that I can’t go, but if you don’t go either then I might as well call off the trip to LA, because I won’t be able to stop thinking about how I messed everything up for you.’
‘But what am I supposed to say to your brother?’ she’d asked.
Remembering how Johnny’s expression had changed from pleading to relief, she let her head fall against the train window. She’d been trying to make him see the impracticality of what he was suggesting, but instead she had simply given him the means to make refusing impossible.