An Eligible Bachelor by Veronica Henry Read Free Book Online Page A

clients were glamorous and interesting and she picked up lots of tips on what to wear and how to look good. Soon she blossomed. Shehad a figure to die for, her hair was done for free and she spent carefully on bargains that she accessorized cleverly so she always looked bang up to date; a proper girl about town. Eventually, she was promoted to receptionist, which gave her a little more money. And to supplement her income, she did a stint as a tequila girl at a Mexican restaurant near Leicester Square, scarcely dressed but for a belt studded with shot glasses slung round her body, flogging slugs of eye-watering liquor to tourists who were already too far gone to know any better.
    Two years later, she was offered her own room and bathroom in a wealthy client’s house in Islington – not so very far away from where she and her mother had once lived – in return for help with the housework and children. It was a very carefree time: the family were noisy and loving, the children boisterous but affectionate, the parents overworked but very fair to her. And, to her surprise, they were interested in her as well. When they discovered that she had a burning desire to go to drama school that she feared would never be realized, they sent her off to evening classes to get some qualifications, pushed her to join the local drama group, took her out to the theatre, introduced her to friends of theirs who were involved in film and television. For the first time she saw that people didn’t always have their own interests at heart. She stayed with them for four years. They were as close to a real family as she’d ever got. The day she left to join the Central School of Speech and Drama, she sobbed.
    At drama school, she thrived. She emerged as one of the most promising students of her year, and straightaway walked into a minor role as a nurse on a long-running hospital drama. She soon gained notoriety when a disc jockey on national radio began fantasizing about her on air during his afternoon show, stirring up a storm. Delighted by the publicity, the producers responded by giving her a storyline of her own. That Christmas she played Cinderella in a panto and legions of fans turned up. All the while she networked, smiled, gave polite interviews and waited for the plum role. Meanwhile, her character in the hospital drama embarked on a sizzling affair with a consultant and viewing figures rose.
    The press called her the ice queen, but she didn’t mind. Better to remain an enigma than embark on a string of failed showbiz relationships. Cleverly, she supported her leading man through his marriage break-up, using the old adage ‘we’re just good friends’ to heighten media speculation. When he turned out to have been screwing another member of the cast, Richenda came out smelling of roses, and the press surmised that she might have been disappointed in love. She landed the role of Lady Jane not long afterwards.
    She trod a fine line between maximizing her coverage, but not wanting anyone to dig too deep, to ferret about in her past for skeletons. She certainly didn’t want Sally and Mick tumbling out of the woodwork. They would never watch TV or read the sort of magazines she appeared in. They lived in their own little self-indulgent bubble; a parallel universe that wasn’t inhabited by TV stars. Anyway, she was certain they wouldn’t recognize her.
    For gone was the skin sallow from undernourishmentand fatigue. Now it was suffused with a glow that came from a healthy diet, several litres of water a day, daily exfoliation, moisturizing and regular skin peels. The long mousy hair with its frizzy cloud of split ends was a lustrous, gleaming chestnut brown. Her lips were plumped up with the minutest injection of collagen once every three months. And, courtesy of contact lenses, her once pale, insipid blue eyes were now a vivid green.
    She’d invented an anodyne, uninteresting past for herself, a past that hopefully no journalist would want