Strictly Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

Callum out of her life. She knew he was bad for her, but he was pure escapism. Maybe she needed that right now. Perhaps it was worth it to avoid the pain of thinking about Dad, though it never felt worth it when the downside was being late for work.
    Emily's nerves were jangling as she walked through the door. Mel didn't tolerate slackers on her team, as she put it.
    Luckily, Mel was late too this morning, which allowed Emily enough time to get herself a latte and calm down before she started work. She sat down to a pile of paperwork and opened her emails, to find there were still hundreds she hadn't responded to from last week, including one from an ex soap star whose efforts to revive her career by applying for the next series of
Love Shack
looked doomed since she'd got into a racism row with another would-be contestant. Emily groaned loudly. She could feel another late one coming on. It was too bad they were so short-staffed and the secretary she had shared with her colleague had left, but at least working long hours kept her from thinking too much about everything. It was another form of escapism, she supposed, but not quite as satisfactory as shagging an unsuitable boyfriend.
    ‘So that tooth we root-treated last time is still giving you gyp?’ Mark asked once Jasmine was ensconced on his dental chair. Her crop top was hitched halfway over her stomach and her hipster jeans sagged below it. She had less of a muffin top and more of a meringue mountain … God, it amazed him that someone so foul-mouthed, foully dressed and generally appalling as Jasmine could be deemed worthy of being in the public eye. Once upon a time people actually did something
worthwhile
to be famous. Not any more.
    ‘Too right it is,’ whined Jasmine. ‘It's bloody painful all the time. Those antibiotics were useless.’
    ‘You do realise that if I can't sort it out this time, I shall have to take the tooth out,’ Mark said.
    ‘No way!’ Jasmine was horrified.
    ‘I'm sorry,’ said Mark, a little nonplussed. ‘I did warn you.’
    ‘You can't mess with my teeth,’ shrieked Jasmine. ‘I've got a contract which says my teeth are all me own.’
    ‘She's got a contract,’ growled Jasmine's mother from the sofa. Kayla followed Jasmine everywhere and, Rottweiler-like, was always on hand to defend her daughter's interests.
    ‘Well, if you want a second opinion …’ This was Mark's get-out clause for all his difficult patients. Sadly, Jasmine had never yet taken him up on the offer, and she wasn't about to now.
    ‘Oh go on then,’ she said sulkily.
    Mark felt his way round Jasmine's mouth. Despite her brilliant white smile, her teeth were shot to pieces. The dazzling grin covered a multitude of sins to all except her dentist. The rate Jasmine was carrying on, it wouldn't be too long before he provided her with dentures. He prodded around for a while. Jasmine responded when he poked the molar two doors down, but the tooth she was moaning about didn't evince a single response. Which meant it was as dead as a doornail.
    ‘I'm really sorry,’ he said. ‘Your tooth's died. I'm going to have to pull it out.’
    ‘You can't!’ Jasmine shrieked.
    ‘What about her contract?’ Kayla demanded. ‘You must be able to do something.’
    ‘I'm touched by your faith in me,’ said Mark, knowing that sarcasm was completely wasted on these two, ‘but even I can't work miracles.’
    Jasmine winced dramatically as he gave her the strongest injection he could. Her pain threshold was notoriously low, and this was a back tooth which would take a fair amount of work to get out. Mark toyed with asking Sasha for the right instruments, but as she leaned back against the sink, looking bored and playing with her nails in between taking text messages (even though he had asked her hundreds of times not to), he figured that in the time it would take to explain what he needed, he could have got it all himself. One day, God would take pity on him and send him a