The Cinderella Reflex Read Online Free PDF Page B

then her eyes strayed past the map towards the clock on the wall and she gave a gasp of disbelief. She hadn’t realised how long she had been out of the office. Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed her bag and made for the door. It was all very nice and dandy fantasising about travelling the world but the journey she needed to be making right now was the one back to work. Pronto.
    “Best of luck with your new venture,” she called from the door.
    “Thanks.” Matt was already back at his paperwork. “Don’t forget to tell all your friends about the cafe!”
    Helene smiled ruefully. Matt would never have guessed it, but her cast of friends would barely fill one table in this cafe. She needed to add that to her list of problems as soon as she was back at her desk. It would be something else for Tess Morgan to work on when Helene made her Agony Aunt of the Airwaves.

CHAPTER THREE
    Tess sat at her desk, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. She was working her way diligently through the stack of magazines on her desk, desperate for new ideas. But by the time she finished the last magazine, she still hadn’t come up with any new angles. She logged on to her computer, hoping an email might throw up something she could use. She flicked her eyes down the list of mail, ignoring the predictable clutch of correspondence from PR people. If she could just find something a little bit offbeat ... and then her eyes widened as she saw a name from her past.
    Her heart beat a little faster. Chris Conroy. Now why would
he
be getting in touch with her, after all this time? Their relationship had ended badly ten years ago. By text, actually. Chris Conroy was a big part of the reason she had left Ireland in the first place. They had been together for less than a year and she hadn’t seen the break-up coming at all. At the time she’d been busy studying for her finals, so maybe she’d missed the signs but she had never really been able to figure it out. All she knew was she could still remember the gut-wrenching devastation she’d felt in the months after they’d split up.
    She hadn’t heard from him since. But she had sure heard a lot about him. Firstly, because she had kept tabs on him through social media and secondly, because since she’d come home it was hard to avoid him, with his picture byline peering out at her every other day from the pages of national newspapers and even international magazines. He was always turning up on television and radio talk shows too, commentating on the affairs of the day. Politics, business, wars – there appeared to be no end to what Chris Conroy could talk about.
    Tess felt faintly depressed as she compared his glittering career to her decidedly non-glittering one. While he was now a household name, she was just starting out in local radio. She clicked open the email and scanned his message. As her eyes darted down the screen, her mood darkened even further. Despite the fact that he’d typed “Something you’ll be interested in” in the subject line the email was actually a round robin, addressed to all of her old college year and it was about a reunion he was organising.
    “Hi. I can’t believe how the years have flown since we were all at college together. I seem to have lost touch with everybody! I’ve travelled a lot – US elections, embedded in Iraq, covered Afghanistan. I felt privileged to be there. It made all the hard work at college worthwhile. But I’m back for the foreseeable future and I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet up ten years on, to see how we’re all doing.”
    How we’re all doing indeed, Tess thought, as she scrolled down to where Chris suggested they all link up via a special reunion Facebook page. The difference between how she was doing and how Chris Conroy was doing was extreme. They had both travelled the world – separately of course – but Chris had come back with an amazing CV while Tess was going to have to explain to every