Falling in Love in New York Read Online Free PDF Page B

sounded excited. “Myself, Miriam and Rebecca were out for a few drinks last night. ”
    Miriam and Rebecca were two more friends Abby hadn’t spoken to in ages. It wasn’t that she’d been avoiding them on purpose or anything; she just knew that nobody in their right mind wanted to be around her with the way she was at the moment. Chances were, the girls would be appalled by the fact that she hadn’t managed to get over her broken relationship and move on with her life the way everyone else did. They were all strong, hugely independent girls who wouldn’t dream of letting a man get them down like this.
    But no matter how hard she’d tried over the last few months, Abby couldn’t get over Kieran, and couldn’t move on, not when she continually felt like one of her arms had been hacked off. Who would want to be around a misery guts like that? No, much better to just keep to herself for a while, and try and get over this in her own time, rather than trying to force herself to go on the tear with the girls and end up embarrassing herself and them by bawling into her drink at the end of the night.
    Erin was still talking, “So we came up with an idea for a long weekend away–girls only. What do you think about Dubai?”
    “What do I think?” Abby knew little about the place, other than it was supposed to be baking hot and was very far away.
    “None of us have been there before, and it’s supposed to be gorgeous–lovely warm sunshine, great shopping, and the four of us could have a good giggle, what do you reckon?”
    “The four of us … you mean for me to go too?”
    “Of course!” Erin said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. “We were thinking maybe next month–around Halloween, so none of us would have to take too much time off work.”
    Abby panicked. They’d have to fly to a place like that wouldn’t they? And seeing as the very notion terrified her…
    When she gave this excuse to Erin, her friend groaned.
    “For God’s sake Abby, you got on a plane once –well twice I suppose when you count the return journey.”
    That was true, but as far as she was concerned, twice had been more than enough. She and Kieran had taken their first (and last) foreign holiday together two years before. They’d gone to Spain for a week, somewhere that wasn’t a particularly inspired choice, as he detested the heat, and wouldn’t touch the food. To top it all off, the flight over had been fraught with turbulence, something Kieran–who also hated flying –had predicted beforehand.
    “Most of these so-called pilots haven’t a clue what they’re doing, they’re only glorified bus drivers,” he’d gruffly informed Abby during take-off. “And considering the prices they charge for these flights …”
    Abby had thought the plane tickets were actually quite reasonable considering, but if Kieran was right about the pilot’s lack of training, then she could understand why. Either way, it hadn’t given her a whole lot of confidence in the journey, and when they’d hit some turbulence throughout the flight and things got a little bumpy, his detailed knowledge of aeroplanes made things even worse.
    “Tin cans is all these things are,” he told her, while Abby, her knuckles white, tightly clutched the armrest, and prayed it would soon be over. “I don’t know why they even bother with all that safety procedure bullshit. Sure, if we take a dive it’s all over either way.”
    After that, there wasn’t a hope in hell of her relaxing during the so-called ‘holiday’; she was so worried about the flight back home. While there, the heat had made Kieran bad-tempered and irritable, so much so that on the very first day he’d got into a huge argument with a nice Spanish waiter about the ice in his drink.
    “Full of bloody germs, ice is,” he insisted to Abby, before demanding the waiter get him a replacement Coke. She’d spent the rest of the holiday drinking warm beer, and was afraid to brush