Meet me on platform 3, p.1
Meet Me on Platform 3, page 1
Meet Me On Platform 3
Zara Stoneley
One More Chapter
a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
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Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2022
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Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Cover illustration © Sam Kalda / Folio Art
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Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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Source ISBN: 9780008535667
Ebook Edition © August 2022 ISBN: 9780008535650
Version: 2022-07-13
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading…
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About the Author
Also by Zara Stoneley
One More Chapter...
About the Publisher
For Harry and Tilly.
Without you I would write books faster, and be richer, but my life would be immeasurably poorer.
Chapter One
Millie
Thursday 3rd March
‘You’re on your way home now? But it’s only Thursday!’
‘I know it’s Thursday, Mum, but…’ Oh, shit. The HUGE clock above the entrance to King’s Cross station catches my eye.
Bugger, bugger, bugger. I try and ignore the flutter of panic in my chest. If I miss my train there is another one, but today of all days I need to get there at a reasonable time.
I love this country, I love London, but oh my God this place is a total pain in the neck if the rain is teeming down and I’m in a hurry.
If I hadn’t hung around for a reply to my email, I might have set off ten minutes earlier. But then I’d have been worrying that Carla hated what I’d written, and I wouldn’t have been able to check until I was on the train, and I wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking about what she might have said and if I was about to be demoted to some third-assistant-twice-removed position that she’d just invented specially for me.
I don’t think I’m any more insecure than the next person, but I’m just very aware (as one should be) that speed bumps seem to have been inserted into my smooth career trajectory, and if I’m not careful I will sustain irreparable damage. Like my car suspension did after I weirdly found it impossible to avoid potholes.
When you grew up with the wild Northumberland national park as your playground, not the city, went to the local state not some posh private (and very expensive) school, don’t have an English Lit or Media or journalism degree from Oxbridge, but went to Liverpool Uni and have the hybrid accent to match all of the above, then it can make you hyper-aware of how easily what you’ve worked for can be taken away. You can feel the odds are stacked against you.
I’d always dreamed of escaping the countryside and having a job like mine in the big city. I’d told everybody I was going to do it, and it made me even more determined when my English teacher gently told me not to get my hopes too high and to have an option B, and my boyfriend laughed and told me that ‘people like us don’t do that’.
I worked bloody hard, and I made it. I got here, but just looking at my boss (who has the right accent, the right clothes and the right education) makes me acutely aware that she might have thought I was an intern worth keeping, but I have high expectations to live up to. And I’m partly here because it proves she is ‘woke’. And she’s keeping note of every cock-up I make and can drop me as quickly as she picked me up. There are plenty more desperate, quota-filling individuals in the sea. I was one, after a brief stint on a local rag in Yorkshire which shed all its staff and closed down six months after I joined. Which meant literally no redundancy, no notice period and no experience to add to my C.V.
Looking on the bright side though, it was good for me in a bigger-picture sense. Which is how I sold the disaster to friends, family and doubters. Yorkshire had always been my second choice; my first had been a job in London. Losing my job made me go after what I really wanted. The real dream. Even if ‘it’ was initially working as an unpaid intern. A bloody hardworking one.
When Carla announced that she thought I might have potential and was willing to take a chance on me and offer me a proper paid contract I was excited, proud, a nervous wreck and terrified in turn. In my heart I knew I could do it, but my head kept telling me I had to work harder than ever to prove that I deserve this. No slip-ups. No letting Carla down. No letting myself down.
I can’t fail. I can’t go back and admit that everybody else was right. They’re not. I’ve earned this, and I fully intend to keep it.
So anyway, prioritising my career meant that I left just in time to catch the train. Providing there were no hold-ups.
Then it bloody well started to rain.
The umbrellas came out, normally sane people who marched at high speed in a predictable fashion with a destination in mind started to duck and dive to avoid raindrops and puddles, the traffic went on a go-slow and I got splashed, jostled, stopped and sodden.
I am wet, hot and flustered. And late. Very late. I really, really want to barge through and shove everybody out of my way, but of course I don’t. I can’t, can I? I must be frightfully British and dance about trying to get past people without being rude.
‘Millie?’
‘Yes, Mum.’ I must also not sigh or be impatient with my mother when I am talking to her on the phone. I love her and I really am trying my best to carve out more time to be with her. But there just aren’t enough hours in the week. I can at least be positive and upbeat when we do chat. She needs my support, not my bad mood. ‘We talked about this! I said I wou—’ My mobile phone nearly shoots out of my hand as I hit the brakes and swerve to avoid slamming into the back of some dork who has stopped abruptly in front of me, just inside the entrance to the station.
I tighten my grip round my phone, trying not to swear.
Then I get a face full of freezing water.
I stare up open-mouthed at the umbrella that has snapped closed inches from my nose. Droplets of water settle on my eyelashes, teeter on the tip of my nose. I’m about to sneeze, I need to sneeze.
Then, ‘Bloody hell!’, he gives his umbrella a couple of violent shakes and I’m showered again, this time with a fine spray that splatters the bits of my face he missed first time as he whacks it open again.
Oh my God. I cannot believe this! The yell bursts out through my gritted teeth before I can stop myself. ‘Oi!’ I doubt the sound has even got through his thick skull, but I needed to do it. I’m soaked and I’ve got to sit on a train for hours. How can this be happening to me?
‘Millie!’ Mum doesn’t like me shouting, or swearing. ‘Millie, what’s happening?’
‘Hang on. I’ll call you back…’ I’m about to say, when I’ve finished glaring at this arse, but then the ‘arse’ spins round, snapping his umbrella shut and sending a final splash my way. Straight into my eye.
‘What the—’ I flinch, reaching up automatically to wipe the water away.
‘Oh shit. Oh hell, I am so sorry. I didn’t realise anybody was behind me.’
‘You didn’t look!’
‘You were pretty close.’ I swear there’s laughter in those eyes. If his mouth as much as twitches he is so dead.
I glare.
The umbrella
He is just the right amount tanned. His dark hair short on the sides, slightly longer and slicked back on the top. But sun-kissed in that slightly metro but still totally all-man way. I want to run my fingers through it as I snog him.
Snog him? Where did that come from? The closest I’ve got to a snog recently is blotting my lipstick on a tissue.
I do not have room in my life for snogging. Because that leads to drinks, and meals and nights out, and nights in. And sex. I definitely don’t have time for sex.
Or extra washing of sheets, and towels on the bathroom floor, and having my books moved to make way for his guitar.
‘Are you okay?’ He is staring at me. One eyebrow is slightly lifted. The corner of his mouth quirked as though he is really tempted to laugh at this.
‘Yes, sure, yes. In shock.’ Or going a bit crazy. How can the thought of a snog leave me thinking about my shelving arrangements? I’m losing the plot. And, okay, I admit it, a part of me does wish I was here for snogging. He’s seriously hot. Just a snog though.
No crumpled sheets or fabulous sex.
‘Sure?’ That single word is making me feel a bit gooey inside. How ridiculous. But I can’t seem to drag myself away from those eyes.
‘Millie!’
I blink. Spell broken. Okay it wasn’t that hard after all. ‘Sorry Mum, I’ll call you in a bit,’ I whisper and automatically press the end call button with my thumb, but the rest of me is paralysed. Even if my vision and vocal cords aren’t. I can’t move.
Oh my God, talk about ‘across a crowded room’, or in this case the crowded entrance to a railway station. It’s weird, I feel like I know him, I need to know him. That I can’t breathe properly because it’s too important a moment to waste to do anything but stare.
The world fades into the background, there is just the two of us. Those intent dark eyes were always supposed to be looking straight into mine.
‘No way!’ There’s a bellow inches from my ear as a noisy group push through the small gap between us forcing me away from him. ‘She didn’t? You have to be kidding, mate!’
‘Bloody hell, you’re soaked. I’m so sorry.’ His gaze travels over my body as he closes the gap between us. He’s not smiling now; he’s just looking straight at me. Serious. Sexy. Making me hotter and more bothered than I was before.
His eyes are actually not dark, they’re blue-grey. Intent. But still slightly twinkly.
‘I’m such a jerk.’
I shake my head, because I can’t get my words out. Oh my. This guy is the complete package. Even his voice is knee-tremblingly good. And his eyes are definitely twinkling.
‘I’d offer my handkerchief for you to wipe your face with, if I was the type of guy who had one.’
I can’t help myself; I grin. Swallow. Manage to find my voice. ‘Which you’re not.’
‘’Fraid not.’ The corner of his mouth twitches. This guy really is dying to laugh. ‘Best I can offer is…’ He holds up the end of his red scarf.
Something flutters deep inside me. ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s fine. I was already wet. Sky, rain, you know. Not all your fault.’ I wave a hand above my head and shrug, but I want to smile; I want to laugh with him.
‘But I didn’t help! Seriously though, I didn’t catch you with the umbrella? I know I’m a big, clumsy, oaf…’ His hand lightly brushes my upper arm and a shiver rockets through my body. Bloody hell. ‘Sorry.’ He backs off and looks worried. I’m not surprised, because I am staring at him, in a daze and acting like he’s just given me an electric shock.
This kind of thing never happens to me though.
Bumping into gorgeous guys. Guys who send a sizzle straight to my erogenous zones.
We could go off and do some baby-making practice while I’m in the mood. I’ve not felt in the mood like this for, like, well, for ever. I shouldn’t waste it. I might never feel it again. I get it now, why people do stupid, impulsive things.
Oh my God, what am I thinking? He’s a stranger. With a life. He could be anybody.
And we’re standing in the entrance of King’s Cross bloody train station!
And sheets, mess, arguments, must concentrate on the yukky side of relationships and how I’m such a disaster at them.
‘I’m fine. Right as rain.’ Did I really say that? ‘Ha ha.’
He chuckles. ‘Wet as…’
I grin back.
Is it really so long since I had a proper boyfriend and actually shagged, that one touch from a man and I turn into a wanton hussy?
I need to get a life, or at least get back on the dating scene.
No, I don’t. No, no, no.
My life is complicated enough, relationships take up time, energy. Men don’t like you working overtime, weekends. Well, the last guy didn’t. They don’t want you to spend time with your mother.
I decided a long time ago that I would concentrate on my career.
When I was younger, I was naïve. I did think I could have it all. The fab job, the friends, the wonderful man and maybe even the family. But being given an ‘it’s the job or me’ type ultimatum the day you apply for your dream job in the city, being dumped by text by the boyfriend you’d thought you’d be with for ever as you walk up the office steps for your interview, well, that’s one helluva reality check. His parting line had been that ‘I’d never find a guy who’d put up with me’. That’s one challenge I refuse to rise to. I mean, what if he’s right?
So, one thing at a time. Being heartbroken wrecks your concentration, as well as your make-up. Now is not the time to be thinking about men, seriously dating. Sex.
He shakes his head, smiles ruefully as he smooths his hair back out of his eyes as somebody pushes past, jostling his elbow. Oh my God, that hair is made for the tousled look. For fingers. ‘We-ll—’ it’s long and drawn out, he’s probably worried about my mental state ‘—I guess we should move, we’re a bit in the way.’ He hesitates, but I know that any second now he’s going to go, leave my life. For ever. I need a few more minutes. Another touch would be nice.
I don’t care if I’m now the obstacle in everybody else’s way. I’ve done enough dodging about today to earn this.
I also can’t blame him for wanting to get away. I’m standing here looking like a drowned rat. I wasn’t looking that good before he gave me an extra shower. Now I’m pretty sure my hair is actually dripping. Why do I never meet hot men when I’m looking good? Or even halfway normal.
My timing is so crap.
‘Guess so.” I manage to force out, against my will. “I’ve got a train to catch.’
‘Sure. Great. Me too, funnily enough!’ He grins properly this time, dimples at the sides of his mouth, a fan of wrinkles by his eyes. ‘We’ve got something in common!’ He reaches out again as though he’s as reluctant as me to break this up, touches my elbow ever so lightly, and it sends another shiver through my body. His gaze never leaves mine. ‘Right, better not hold you up. And I’d better go and sort my ticket. I need to change it and... Too much info, I know!’ He shrugs slightly self-consciously. It makes him even cuter.
