Champagne Kisses Read Online Free PDF Page A

spoke the truth. Just for the night, that’s all he wanted me for, like I was some disposable object. One use only, not needed ever again.
    How could I have been so indiscreet? Well, I suppose alcohol was a major factor. That and sheer loneliness and frustration. He made me feel like I had butterflies in my belly; well, at least until it all went pear-shaped.
    But of course, for all my lectures to Maddie and Lisa, I’m the one who messes up and breaks the rules with an attached bloke. And not just any bloke: I had to tangle with a fella with a public profile.
    He may not be an A-list celebrity, but this guy is forever in the Sunday papers and glossy mags with or without his glamorous missus. A circulated e-mail is bound to make column inches in the gossipmongers’ pages. Let’s hope he has his celebrity solicitor Alfred whatshisname on speed-dial to get the story quashed.
    Then again, what am I worried about? I’m single. I wasn’t the one who did the chasing with classic cheesy lines like ‘I love your work. It’s edgy, young, and very much of the moment.
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could really benefit from a vibrant talent like yours.’
    Desperate for a few compliments I sadly believed his bull.
    Just then I noticed next door’s blaring out ‘Stupid Girls’ by Pink. Why is it that music always seems to fit your mood? A stupid girl was exactly how I felt.
    Yes, Eva Valentine, ace showbiz hack, was soon to be rebranded a marriage-wrecker. Forget all my years of cutting-edge interviews with celebrities and politicians, forget the features I’d written on Romanian orphanages, or the time I’d spent in Calcutta doing aid work, I was surely destined to become known as the Whore from the Sewer.
    I’ve got a feeling Mr Barron was my worst mistake of the year. It’s just depressing, it’s only January and it’ll probably haunt me for at least the next twelve months.
    So much for my New Year’s resolution, I must be a good girl.
    Men might enjoy playing with bad girls like me. But they only ever marry the annoyingly sweet ones.
    Maybe Barron’s wife is just as painful as Lisa’s sister Joy? Maybe that’s why he was playing offside with me? Or maybe he’s just a serial cheat like half the married men in Dublin.
    A shiver went down my spine as I remembered my confrontation with Caroline Higgins. Oh God. Will that woman just ever disappear? She’s like a bad smell that won’t go away. She so brings out my worst emotions.
    Minutes passed which seemed like hours. I contemplated getting up and then thought better of it. I thought about reaching to the floor to retrieve the TV remote which had got flung there on my tumble on to the bed, but my body couldn’t manage the stretch.
    Right now I needed a cure. I needed two Solpadeine and the giant Tupperware stash of homemade ice-cream which I prep for special hangover days like these.
    I discovered the recipe not so long ago, on one of those highly informative satellite cookery programmes. The pitch was ‘How to make luxury brown bread ice-cream for a tenth of the price of shop-bought brands’. I fell in love instantly. I was wooed by the fact that it contained a healthy dose of Bacardi, on top of lashings of double cream and as much castor and icing sugar as you can get your hands on. Simply toast some breadcrumbs with the castor sugar, mix it all together – and Bob’s somebody’s uncle.
    I personally think it’s been my sweetest romance yet. After much soul-searching, head-pounding and tummy-rumbling from the thought of my scrummy yummy feast, I finally raised myself from the bed with my head gently tilted to the right, trying to ease the pain of the ascent. Before I stumble to the bathroom to assess the damage in the mirror, I notice a far from holy shroud on my pillow, and decide a bucket of tea is needed before I brave such a scary vision.
    Still obviously smashed I trip over my prized Canal Street Gucci handbag on the way to the door, and kick out its matching purse