Breakfast Under a Cornish Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

first?’ She shrugged.
    â€˜Time isn’t on my side! I’ve got precisely four weeks to not only meet a bed-haired, sexy-eyed guy with looks as rugged at Cornish scenery, but then convince him to accompany me to a wedding under the name of Ross.’ I covered my face with my hands. ‘Ludicrous, isn’t it? Listen to me. Perhaps I should give up before I start.’ I parted my fingers slightly to see Izzy’s face.
    She took my hands away and stared for a moment. ‘Is it really important to you to impress this woman?’
    I swallowed, wishing it wasn’t. ‘Yes.’
    â€˜Then go for it, even though you are super-impressive just the way you are. After dinner, I’ll help select other suitable men to contact.’
    My hands fell away and I gave her the biggest of hugs.
    â€˜Let me breathe,’ she squeaked eventually and, as she leant back, I grinned.
    Whilst Izzy finished off the stir-fry, I tapped a message to Marcus, having carefully selected my profile picture. Tempting as it was to use one of my airbrushed, Instagram snaps, I chose an un-Photoshopped head shot of me after a gig where I’d sung fifties and sixites music. I wore one of my smarter black bop dresses, with a slim belt around the waist, and updo hair à la Audrey Hepburn.
    I pressed send, just as Izzy called me to the breakfast bar. Mmm. Sliced chicken fried with veggies, ginger and garlic. I was just about to top up our Prosecco tumblers when I heard a ping and hurried over to my laptop.
    â€˜Aarghh! He’s replied already!’ I said and unexpectedly my hands shook.’ I clicked on the message. ‘He wants to meet tomorrow night. Eight o’clock at a pub called the Dog and Duck, in Winbury.’
    I ran back to Izzy and held her hands as, laughing, we jumped up and down on the spot (that was our thing, and agreed, totally inappropriate for our age group).
    â€˜You are one crazy woman,’ she said, face split into a smile. She shook her head. ‘I think I’ve seen that pub when I visit one of our suppliers. It’s about forty minutes away.’ She stared at me for a few seconds. ‘OK. Fine.’
    â€˜Um, excuse me, I wasn’t asking your permission!’
    â€˜Meet your Poldark,’ she continued. ‘And who knows, despite … despite what you think, you may be ready to … He could be a lovely guy.’
    I fiddled with my bead bracelet.
    â€˜But either way,’ she said brightly, ‘I’ll be lurking in the background, just in case your romantic hero turns up wielding a machete instead of a scythe.’
    But he wouldn’t be wielding a heart wind spinner, so however much charmed he oozed, it would be lost on me.

CHAPTER 3
    Deep breaths. In and out. And again. Anyone would think I was about to give birth. Well, Saffron would, seeing as my waist measurement was more than twenty-four inches. I smiled. Dear Johnny had well and truly extinguished any teenage insecurities I might have still harboured about not being a size zero. Curves were his thing—on the hips, on the lips—so I always said it would be rude not to maintain my womanly look—code he understood for always giving me the last slice of a pizza.
    I took one last breath and headed across the car park into the Dog and Duck. Not that I was anti-slim women. That was the difference between Saffron and me. I didn’t care what anyone looked like as long as they were kind. It was hard to think of Saffron as a teacher now. I grimaced, just imagining her having class favourites, all the popular kids with the best phones, coolest rucksacks and doting hangers-on.
    I stopped in front of wooden swing doors. It was an olde worlde Tudor pub, the slightly wonky white-and-black front somehow inviting me in. I’d managed to convince Izzy not to come—that at the grand old age of twenty-seven I didn’t need a chaperone. As a compromise, she’d insisted on ringing one