Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn Read Online Free PDF Page A

meet the man of her dreams. Not that she’d register on his potential partner radar, even if she did get to go. A thirty-five-year-old mother of one teenage nemesis getting together with one of the country’s most sought after young bachelors? It was about as likely as finding a real pea in a Pot Noodle.
    If Henri hadn’t left her and Paige in the lurch, Bonnie wouldn’t be thinking about such a ridiculous scenario. They had been happy; at least, Bonnie had thought they were happy. Henri might not have been the most reliable or caring man in the world, but at least he was always there. Until one day he decided he wasn’t going to be, of course. And Bonnie still had no idea what she’d done wrong; he’d just gone off in that enigmatic Gallic way of his.
    She picked up the phone from her bedside table and looked at the display again. Three o’clock. Surely more than ten minutes had passed since she’d last looked at it? There was wine still left in the bottle downstairs. Middle of the night or not, this seemed like as good a time as any to go and finish it.
    ***
    ‘Did you send that text, Mum?’ Paige said as she sat down at the kitchen table where Bonnie was already nursing her second cup of coffee of the morning.
    ‘Good morning to you too, Paige.’
    ‘Yeah, I meant that, but did you send it?’
    ‘Yes, I sent it. It’ll go in the pot with the million other texts that will never be chosen but I sent it anyway.’
    ‘Last night you said that we had as good a chance as anyone else.’
    ‘Last night I wasn’t feeling quite as rough as I do now.’
    ‘Too much booze?’
    ‘Cheek!’
    ‘Just asking.’
    ‘If you must know, I didn’t get to sleep till the early hours, which is why I’m up this late but still knackered.’
    ‘Right. But you still had a drink last night, I saw the bottle in the recycling.’ Paige reached for some toast from Bonnie’s plate.
    ‘Oi, make your own!’
    ‘That’s what you’re for,’ Paige grinned before biting into the stolen slice.
    Bonnie sighed. ‘Here,’ she shoved her plate over, ‘I’m not that hungry anyway.’
    ‘That’s because you have a hangover.’
    ‘I do not have a hangover. I’m tired, that’s all.’
    As she munched her toast, Paige’s face had that faraway look that used to make Bonnie’s heart leap when she saw it on Henri. Seeing it now on her daughter made Bonnie feel very alone.
    ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
    ‘Imagine,’ Paige said showing a barely contained excitement that Bonnie knew only too well, ‘that we did win that competition and we met the band and Holden actually fancied me!’
    ‘You’re a little too young for him, aren’t you?’
    ‘He might wait,’ Paige replied defensively.
    ‘Ok, he might,’ Bonnie soothed.
    ‘You think I’m being stupid.’
    ‘I didn’t say that.’
    ‘But you think it.’
    ‘No, but –’
    Paige leapt up from the table. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’
    She slammed the door as she left the room.
    Bonnie sighed. That was another of Henri’s traits that Paige had inherited, one that she wasn’t quite so fond of. She wondered if, just once, she could have a pleasant conversation with her daughter that didn’t end up with her flouncing off in a temper. Jeanie would say that it was Paige’s age, but Bonnie was pretty sure that wasn’t theonly reason. She felt that on some level, Paige was still blaming her for Henri’s departure. And Bonnie could see why: sometimes, she blamed herself too.
    ***
    Bonnie had just flicked the kettle on when Linda came in shaking rain from her umbrella.
    ‘Cats and dogs out there,’ she grumbled. ‘Good weekend, Bon?’
    ‘Weekend? You mean that one day I had yesterday cooped up with Paige and her prickly temper?’
    Linda raised an eyebrow. ‘That good, eh?’
    ‘Yep. Want a brew?’ Bonnie asked, fetching another cup from the cupboard without waiting for a reply.
    ‘Does a bear poo in the woods?’ Linda hung her coat and nodded her