Katy Carter Wants a Hero by Ruth Saberton Page A

been sent to lead me to my doom?’
    ‘Because I love you!’ she sobbed, sinking in grief to the tips of his riding boots.
    Above her tightly laced corset, Millandra’s pert breasts heaved with passion. In spite of his anger, Jake felt his desire stir. Reaching down, he took her small hand and pulled her against him,
    ‘Oh God,’ he groaned into her soft hair. ‘You drive me wild.’
    That’s
what’s supposed to happen between a romantic hero and heroine after their major falling-out. I should know because I’ve read just about every bloody romantic novel there is, from the Brontës right through to Jilly Cooper, and I think I can be forgiven for feeling cheated. I don’t remember the bit where Mr Darcy threw a cactus at Elizabeth Bennet, and I’ve never taught the scene where Romeo chucks Juliet out of the Montagues’ pad.
    This isn’t supposed to happen! James is supposed to be
my
romantic hero.
    James is slowing down, presumably running out of things to launch into orbit, so I peek out from behind the wheelie bin. An impressive collection of my belongings clutters up the pavement and my handbag has burst open, the contents spewing out like tatty entrails. Thank goodness my phone’s survived its fall from grace. The pink casing is cracked but the screen’s still working and tells me I have six missed calls. I can never resist my phone, and even though I’m in the middle of a relationship meltdown, I simply
have
to check. Ollie has called me five times and left five messages, which I delete without listening, and Maddy, my best friend from uni, has called me once. I feel a twinge of guilt. I haven’t called her for weeks. Not because I haven’t wanted to, but I’ve just been so busy. I love Mads. Totally and utterly adore her. She’s zany and impulsive and a law unto herself, and from the moment we both arrived as terrified freshers to settle into our small rooms in a truly gruesome 1960s’ tower block, I knew that I’d found a kindred spirit.
    I won’t call her right now because Maddy can talk for England and I’ll need a lovely gossipy rant a bit later on. Failing that, I may have to hotfoot it over to Lewisham and plead for a bed for the night, because it doesn’t look like James is about to change his mind.
    There’s only one problem with this option, though. I get the feeling Maddy’s husband, Richard, isn’t desperately keen on me.
    OK. I’ll be honest. I don’t get Richard and Richard certainly doesn’t get me. We trust each other about as much as Tom and Jerry. Richard thinks I’m a bad influence on Mads and I just don’t know how to deal with him. At uni Maddy was wild. She snogged our lecturers, stayed up all night to produce a term’s worth of essays and even kidnapped the Dean for rag week. She drank like a fish, baked exquisite space cakes and dated a string of totally unsuitable but wildly exciting men. For three years life was a crazy whirl of parties, snogging, sobbing over useless men and attending the occasional lecture when we managed to tear ourselves away from
This Morning
. Whereas I just scuttled in her wake, Mads was the original party animal, always up for a laugh and always thinking of crazy things to do.
    Which is why I was gobsmacked when she married a vicar.
    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with religion or church particularly. Mads loves Richard to bits so I don’t have a problem with that either. It’s just that the vicar’s wife thing was never what I thought she’d do. Richard is ten years older than us and really committed to his job, which means Mads has to be too. She has to cook dinners, teach Sunday school and be nice to the bizarre parishioners who knock on the rectory door at all hours. Richard doesn’t party, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t swear and has the unfortunate habit of asking me how I stand with God, a question that’s pretty hard to answer for a girl who doesn’t even know how she stands with her bank