A Thousand Small Explosions Read Online Free PDF

warning shots every time she had an inkling the press was up to no good. Then after half a dozen successful libel cases, she became too costly to lie about so they lost interest in her. Her media team became the go-to guys for all press inquiries, and she turned off her Google alerts and Facebook and Twitter accounts so as to remove any temptation to discover what people were writing about her. Only when absolutely necessary would she step out publicly as the company’s figurehead.
    Ellie gave a frustrated groan, threw her sheets to one side, turned on the bedside lamp and made her way to the en-suite bathroom to pee. Suddenly she recalled the email she’d received hours earlier, confirming a DNA Match had been identified. She’d signed up some ten years earlier when the company was still in its infancy and as its popularity slowly began to increase, she had assumed it’d just be a matter of time before she found her Match.
    But when the number of registered users had powered through the one billion mark, Ellie was beginning to give up hope. Her Match was either in a happy relationship with somebody else, he was living in a developing country with no access to or knowledge of the test, or he was just not interest in taking it.
    So Ellie had grown accustomed to spending her life alone and in recent years, had become too consumed with work to even care. She didn’t need a relationship to make her content or a better person; she could do all that for herself. What could a Match add to her life that she wasn’t capable of finding on her own? Nevertheless, she had to acknowledge that a tiny part of her was interested as to who this person was and what made them tick.
    ‘Sod it,’ she said out loud, and marched back into the bedroom, opened her email, paid £9.99 for her Match’s details and waited. Two minutes later, an automated response landed in her box.
    “Name: Timothy Kelly,” she read. “Age: 38. Location: Leighton Buzzard, UK. Occupation: Systems Analyst. Eyes: Hazel. Hair: Black. Height: 5ft 9in. Contact: (0774) 8620900.”
    His description accounted for almost half the men in the Western world, she thought and found herself needing to know more.
    “Ula”, she began to type in an email to her PA. “Discover what you can about a Timothy Kelly, a systems analyst from Leighton Buzzard. His email address is [email protected] . Email me what you find out tomorrow. Thanks.”
    To her surprise, Ula emailed her back immediately. “Does she ever bloody sleep?” Ellie wondered. ‘Has he a job interview with us? I can’t see him on my list,’ Ula asked.
    ‘Sort of,’ Ellie replied. ‘And make sure you find a photograph of him. Hire outside help if you need it.’
    Ellie placed her phone back on her nightstand and climbed back into bed. She turned to lie on her other side and stared at the vacant half of her bed, the sheet just as crisp and unwrinkled as when her housekeeper had laid it that morning.
    And for the first time in a handful of years, she allowed herself to imagine what it might feel like to share the space with somebody else.

CHAPTER 11
     
    AMANDA
     
    Amanda hovered outside the perimeter of the stone wall surrounding the building until everyone ahead escaped the drizzle and walked towards their shared destination.
    Although she was generally a confident person in most social situations, when it came to large groups of unfamiliar faces, she was prone to shyly clamming up or becoming tongue-tied when she spoke. She already knew she’d have no idea what to say if anyone attempted a conversation with her once she was inside, so she decided to keep a low profile and be one of the last to enter. And it wouldn’t matter if she were a few minutes late as nobody knew her or expected her to be there.
    She took a packet of mints from her handbag and popped a sugar-free Polo into her mouth, then removed a make-up mirror and angled it from her face to her feet to check that she still resembled something