How Not to Shop Read Online Free PDF

cost: no idea
     
'It's my turn to bring in the biscuits.'
     
'So when you say you don't know what to wear, what do you mean exactly?'
     
Ed was still lying in bed, although the alarm clock had gone off exactly seven minutes ago.
     
Annie was already up. She'd slept restlessly and woken early. She'd spent a whole forty minutes in the bathroom, twiddling with make-up and tweezers and re-doing her ponytail about twenty-seven times until it was satisfactory.
     
Because today was the first day of her new life. Today, at 9 a.m. sharp, a car was arriving to whisk her off to the studio where she would meet the rest of the production team and make the very first steps towards filming.
     
The night before, Annie had thought it was all sorted, her crucially important first outfit of the first day. She'd laid it out so carefully: the new Chloé blouse, a tight red skirt, purple tights and the black patent shoe-boots which had looked just so sexy, so slinky and so perfect then. But now, as she held the boots and the skirt up in front of the full-length bedroom mirror, she wasn't so sure. Was this outfit not a bit over the top? A bit too much for day one? There wasn't going to be any actual filming today, it was 'team talk' and 'getting to know each other' sort of stuff. That's what Finn had told her.
     
'You're not wavering, are you?' Ed asked, propping himself up on his elbow to get a better look at her, 'You've spent hours and hours over the past few days organizing your TV wardrobe haven't you? And weren't some very expensive purchases involved?'
     
'I'll be taking some of those back,' she reminded him.
     
'Yeah . . . might be an idea,' he agreed.
     
The night she'd returned from Svetlana's house with news about the TV deal and her slim salary, she'd needed to pour them both a generous glass of wine.
     
At first Ed had been even more shocked and disappointed than she had.
     
'Do you still want to do this?' he'd asked, but then answered the question himself: 'Of course you do. You've left The Store and it's a great chance for you.'
     
'Can we manage?' she'd wondered. 'It's just three months and I'll try and sell some stuff on eBay . . . at least make a few pounds that way. But we still have the mortgage and school fees and . . .'
     
'You have to give TV a try. We'll manage,' he'd assured her. 'I've got some savings that will help tide us over.'
     
'You have savings?' she was astonished.
     
As a woman who lived on the very extreme edges of her budget, whose credit card bills were a source of monthly concern, the idea of savings was just so alien. But then this was Ed, a different kind of person altogether.
     
'Why do I know nothing about your savings?' she'd asked.
     
'I wonder!' he'd answered with a smile. 'Maybe because I don't want my savings to be translated into "really great investments" like Miu Miu shoes or Hermès handbags.'
     
'Oh Hermès!' she'd informed him, 'Hermès is so over, only corporate lawyers carry those things.'
     
Facing the mirror now, with her tight orangey-red skirt in one hand and her ankle boots in the other, Annie had to confess, 'I'm having a last-minute panic. It's not so unusual, you know.'
     
'No,' Ed agreed. He pushed back the duvet, and went through his endearing morning ritual of yawning, stretching his arms up, then running a hand through his tangled mop of brown, curly hair before coming over to stand naked behind her.
     
He put his arms around her waist, kissed her neck, then they looked at each other via the mirror in front of them.
     
'Please stop fussing,' he told her, 'you're going to look great, because you always look great.'
     
'But that's because I fuss!' she told him.
     
'Well, I know, but try not to worry. You're going to be brilliant at this. I just know it,' he assured her, 'you're really, really good with people and you'll be a natural on TV.'
     
With Ed's warm hands on her stomach, Annie's churning nerves calmed. With Ed's warm hands holding her, she could