The Cinderella Reflex Read Online Free PDF Page B

travellers of all sorts, really – will use this place when they are planning or living their big adventure. They can have breakfast or lunch, drink coffee, use the internet, buy their maps and guidebooks and travel journals all under one roof. I’ve just come back from travelling myself and so I can offer first-hand advice.” His enthusiasm was catching, and Helene found herself looking around the dusty, run-down room through Matt’s eyes.
    She saw now that he had pinned an enormous map of the world onto one wall, with yellow pins stuck on various locations from South America to Africa to Australia. He followed her gaze.
    “They’re all the places I’ve been,” he said a bit wistfully.
    “Really?” Helene was impressed. She’d only ever been abroad on holidays and never further than Europe. “So what on earth brought you to Killty?”
    If she’d gone to the bother of travelling to the four corners of the earth it would be an anti-climax of quite stunning dimensions to end up in Killty.
    “Ah, you can’t keep moving forever. And my folks live around here,” he said easily.
    Helene stared at the map, trying to picture Matt arriving at all those places, and then, just like that, leaving them again in a few weeks or months or whenever the fancy took him. And just for a moment, sitting there in the dilapidated café, she felt her own world expand. To somewhere beyond Atlantic 1FM and the constant worry about Ollie Andrews and his flop radio show and Richard and his complicated family set-up and his two children with the Peter Pan Syndrome. The small yellow pins seemed to be shining at her, offering her a way out, whispering that her life might hold possibilities she had never thought of before.
    And 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’d 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 café!”
    Helene smiled ruefully. Matt would never have guessed it, but her cast of friends would barely fill one table in this café. 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