MILLIE'S FLING Read Online Free PDF

from ’ead to toe in warm chocolate and I’d be ever so grateful if you’d just lick it all off.”’
    Hester had an inexplicable crush on Jim Davidson. The Generation Game was the highlight of her TV viewing week.
    ‘Wrong,’ said Hester. But with the merest tinge of regret.
    ‘Okay then, I give up.’
    ‘He's back.’
    Who? Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator?
    The next moment, Millie guessed. The slight but unmistakable emphasis on the word He gave it away. She looked at Hester, who was all but jigging up and down on the spot.
    ‘Oh God.’ Millie's heart sank; she couldn’t help it. ‘It's Lucas, isn’t it? Lucas Kemp.’
    When it came to serious crushes, Lucas left Jim Davidson in the shade. In the shade with a droopy mesh tank top on. During Hester's hectically hormonal growing-up years, Lucas Kemp had been the big love of her life. Most of the time he had treated Hester with amused disinterest. But occasionally, when the mood took him and he was between girlfriends, he would pay her a bit of attention, dance with her at parties, walk her home afterwards, and snog her senseless, that kind of thing.
    This, of course, had only made Hester love him more. The very fact that Lucas could treat her so casually proved beyond all doubt that he was better than she was and that she didn’t deserve to be with someone so fabulous.
    Lucas Kemp was wild and charismatic, with laughing green eyes and a provocative tilt to his mouth. In those days he had worn his wavy dark hair long and his jeans tight. The aura of danger about him had been—as far as Hester was concerned—impossible to resist.
    Then again, Millie thought, that had been a good while ago now. It was six years since Lucas had left Cornwall for the more glittery lights of London. He could be paunchy and thinning on top these days, he might work in a bank and play shuffleboard in his spare time, and possess all the charisma of a tub of Vaseline.
    Well he might , thought Millie.
    Although it was unlikely.
    ‘You are allowed to speak.’ Hester was sounding miffed. ‘Some kind of reaction would be nice.’
    Fine.
    Millie gave her a long look.
    ‘What about Nat?’
    ‘Oh!’ Hester exclaimed in disgust. ‘I might have known you’d say something like that. You just have to drag him into it, don’t you?’
    Being sensible didn’t come naturally to Millie, but she knew she had to be the voice of reason here. Hester had plainly lost control of the reins.
    ‘Come on, sit down.’ She patted the battered sofa next to her. Hester, still jigging from one foot to the other like a toddler in need of the loo, wasn’t a restful sight. ‘Nat's lovely, you know he is. You waited years for someone like him to come along. Don’t mess it up now.’
    Hester stared at her.
    ‘Who says I’m going to?’
    ‘Hess, just look at the state of you.’
    They had been friends for too long, that was the trouble. Millie knew her inside out. Hester, sitting down with a bump, sighed and said, ‘Okay, okay, I know it's stupid, but I can’t help the way I feel.’
    ‘Nat's so nice,’ Millie reminded her. ‘He's good for you.’
    ‘Ha. You mean like salad and steamed chicken and a glass of fizzy mineral water? But you can’t live on that stuff, can you? Sometimes you just have to have something wicked and gorgeous like a bucket of crème brûlée.’
    What with Nat working as a chef this was apt, even if it was also unfair. Then again, the fact that he was so ambitious didn’t help matters. Leaping at the chance to work as a commis chef at L’Amazon in Glasgow hadn’t exactly smoothed the path of true love.
    In theory, Hester had understood why he’d needed to go, agreeing that it was necessary for Nat's CV and a fabulous chance to gain experience working at one of Scotland's finest restaurants with its two Michelin stars and dazzlingly arrogant head chef.
    Oh yes, she’d been absolutely fine about it, really. In principle.
    But Hester's principles had begun to take a