Nothing New for Sophie Drew: a heart-warming romantic comedy - Katey Lovell (best english novels for beginners .txt) 📗

leaving, Mum thrust two A5 envelopes into my hand. My stomach lurched at their familiar ditchwater brown shade.

“I thought I’d brought all your post to the party, but we were in such a rush that I must have left these on the dining room table. Never mind though, eh? They can’t be that important if they’re still coming here after all this time.”

“Thanks, Mum,” I mumbled, shoving the envelopes deep into my bag. “And try not to be too upset about Anna returning to Austria. She’ll be back in a few months’ time.”

“I know, love. But it still pains me to have to say goodbye. You’ll understand if you ever have children yourself. Children are always babies to their parents.”

“I’m almost thirty,” I reminded her glumly.

“This time thirty years ago I was in labour and it was agony. Two weeks overdue and I was the size of a house! I was so fed up by that point. It was such a relief when Anna arrived a week early. I couldn’t have gone through that waiting a second time. It was awful.”

So even my arrival had been a disappointment…

“I’d better get going. That work won’t do itself,” I said, as chirpily as I could.

“Don’t work too hard. And don’t forget the finale of the drama we’ve been watching is on tomorrow. I’ll call you when it finishes.”

“Okay, Mum. Chat then.”

My shoulders were quaking with nerves at the thought of the letters in my bag, no doubt more of the same from the credit card company. I was being hounded. The question was, now they were on my tail, how much longer could I hide from my debts?

Chapter 3

A day, that’s how much longer.

I should never have answered the phone, because like Finley, I rarely answer calls from numbers I don’t know. But for some reason I’d allowed myself to accept both the call and the onslaught from the woman from the credit card company which followed. Who knew a phone conversation with someone you’d never met could make you feel so utterly deflated?

She’d caught me off guard, because what kind of reputable company rings at eight o’clock on a Sunday night? I’d assumed it was Mum ringing to remind me the drama we’d been glued to for the past month was about to start on BBC One. Didn’t these people know that weekends were sacred?

I’d opened the envelopes they’d sent to Mum and Dad’s house when I’d got back the previous night; two statements with payment demands in an angry red typeface, as though by typing in colour rather than monochrome I’d be able to magic up the money I owed.

It was enough to make me wish I’d switched to online statements when the credit card company had prompted me to. Maybe my debts wouldn’t have spiralled out of control if I had. Perhaps I’d have been one of those people who regularly checked their balance online and curbed their spending appropriately. I knew the reality of that was unlikely; “Spend first, worry later” had been my motto for so long that I rarely even looked at the price of anything before heading to the checkout. If I wanted it, I bought it, simple as that.

Even so, the letters hadn’t prepared me for the phone call. The woman who’d rung had been snarky, her southern accent clipped as she informed me my cards were being cancelled until I brought my debts back into my agreed credit limit. I doubt she’d ever lived beyond her means, because if she had she wouldn’t have been so rude and devoid of basic sympathy. She’d made me cry, tears streaming down my cheeks and snot bubbles hanging from my nostrils, as I’d tried to explain that it wouldn’t be possible for me to make the payment she was demanding immediately – there simply weren’t the funds in my current account.

In the end, after more remarks that made me feel like something unpleasant that she’d trodden in, she’d put me through to a softly spoken man – Guy, he’d said his name was – who’d gently questioned me on my spending habits, my income and asked would I like some guidance to help learn to manage my outgoings? I’d liked Guy. Guy actually listened, and although my out-of-control blubbering probably made him uncomfortable, he’d seemed to realise I was a human being who was in financial bother, unlike Snarkster Woman who’d made out I belonged on a Most Wanted poster.

I’d told him everything, all the things I’d been too embarrassed to admit to anyone else, even those closest to me. How I’d never budgeted in my life, but that it had been okay until Tawna, Eve and I had met Johnny and Darius on a night out and two of our trio fell madly in love with these slightly older, sophisticated businessmen. Johnny and Darius spent money without a thought, flashing the cash at fancy restaurants and exclusive bars in the Savile Row suits they’d buy on business trips to the capital. And of course, the women in these high-end venues were groomed to within an inch of their lives.

I’d taken to dressing in designer clothes rather than my old favourite H&M to head to the latest hotspots in the city, and being regularly primped and preened, and by regularly, I mean multiple times a week. My savings had soon run out, keeping up with the Joneses being an expensive business, so I’d applied for a credit card and upped the limit whenever I’d needed to. The company had let me do it, time and time again. Only when my debt nudged into five figures did they stamp down on my spending habit.

By the time I put the phone down it felt as though I’d been stamped on too. When Guy asked how much I could afford to pay back each month I’d been embarrassed, the amount I’d agreed to pitiful in comparison with what I owed, but he’d made a note on the system