I hate surprises. So much so that when Ben rang me at work on Monday and told me to keep the weekend free because he was going to surprise me, I almost ended the call. Instead I pretended to be thrilled.

‘You okay?’ he asks now. ‘You don’t get travel-sick do you?’

If I look pale it’s got nothing to do with the fact that we are rocketing down the A2 in Ben’s battered VW Golf.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘But I wish you’d tell me where we’re going.’

He taps a finger against the side of his nose and smiles. ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

Ben was never meant to be more than a one-night stand. I figured he’d be straight out of my bed, and my life, the moment our sweat-slicked bodies cooled. But he stuck around. He stayed all night and then insisted on taking me out for breakfast the next day. I said yes, partly because it was less awkward than saying no. Mostly because I was hungry and I didn’t have any food in the house. We ended up staying in the café for over two hours. I learnt that he was a self-employed graphic artist, he’d never been to a gig, and his dad was a massive hypochondriac. He learnt that I was an only child, a project manager for an eLearning company and that my dad had recently died. Ben immediately reached across the table, squeezed my hand and said how sorry he was. When he asked if we’d been close I changed the subject.

I need to go back there at some point, to my childhood home in the rolling green Worcestershire countryside, to clear and clean the farmhouse and put it on the market, but there’s a good reason why I haven’t been back in eighteen years.

‘Not long now,’ Ben says as a sign to Dover/Channel Tunnel/Canterbury/Chatham flashes past us. ‘Any idea where we’re going yet?’

My stomach tightens but I keep my tone light. ‘Canterbury has a nice cathedral. You’re not planning on marrying me, are you? I haven’t packed a dress.’

If Ben knew me well, he’d realise that my voice is half an octave too high and my smile is pulled too tightly over my teeth. He’d ask if I was okay instead of laughing and making a quip about Gretna Green. But Ben and I have only been seeing each other for a month. He barely knows me.

I try to quell my anxiety, first by singing along to Ben’s Artic Monkeys CD, then by talking crap. As the miles speed by we discuss the DVD boxed set we’ve been binge-watching for the last week, the latest celebrity scandal that’s been splashed all over the broadsheets and where we watched the lunar eclipse. Logically I know that I have nothing to fear. I’m thirty-two, not fourteen. And Ben didn’t ask me to pack my passport. But the knot in my stomach remains.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ I ask, as Ben presses a bottle of water to his lips.

He laughs, spraying the steering wheel with a fine mist. ‘Are you five?’

‘No, just impatient.’

‘I knew I should have blindfolded you. No,’ he nudges me lightly. ‘Gagged you.’

I tense but force a laugh. ‘Please tell me

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Chapter 1 Lou

Chapter 1

Lou