Never Close Your Eyes by Emma Burstall Read Free Book Online Page B

tones were just an irritation, like a wasp in her ear. The flight would seem interminable. She flicked the iPod off. She was going to have to deal with this on her own.
    When they finally arrived, she switched her BlackBerry back on, logged on to Facebook and reread the message. Her finger hovered over the delete key but she couldn’t press it.
    Her palms felt sweaty. She wiped them on her skirt and hit ‘reply’: ‘Rebecca Goodall has accepted your invitation to become friends.’
    There was no going back now.

Chapter Six

    Nic poked a finger in her mouth and fished out a small piece of plastic. Pah. It had broken off the end of the Biro she’d been chewing. She made a face and dropped it in the bin beside the desk.
    She rubbed her eyes. So, which potty should she ‘highly recommend’? Her panel of testers – three mums from different parts of the country – seemed to like the one that made flushing sounds. It was also splash-proof, musical and there was a pull-out, portable potty underneath. It really was all-singing, all-dancing.
    And to think that Dominic hadn’t ever even used a potty. Hadn’t liked them. Preferred to go on the big loo straightaway. Better keep that to herself.
    She started to tap on the computer. Mums had already commissioned her next piece after this one: kiddies’ toothpaste. She was grateful for the work, really she was. She remembered being obsessed with all this sort of thing when Dominic was small. She could talk for hours to other mothers about cloth versus disposable nappies, teething gels, baby massage and suchlike. It had seemed fascinating back then.
    She should have moved on but she hadn’t the energy to come up with original ideas, to get on the phone to commissioning editors and introduce herself, sell herself. She pushed back her chair, stood up and stretched. Dominic would be home before long. Maybe she should forget the potties feature and do a bit of her novel.
    She scratched her head. She needed coffee first. She wandered downstairs to the kitchen. It was a big, square room at the back of the house with a large rectangular oak table at one end and a squishy cream sofa against one wall. The table was almost completely surrounded by glass walls and looked out over a neat, symmetrical garden. At the other end of the kitchen were the sink, cooker, dishwasher and pale oak worktops. The whole room was painted white and there were various carefully selected modern paintings on display. Nic had picked them up at affordable art fairs. She loved collecting paintings.
    She’d had the kitchen designed by a first-class architect about three years ago. She’d wanted a feeling of space, light and, above all, harmony. She couldn’t bear clutter. She’d been delighted with the result at the time but somehow, now, the room seemed to have lost its lustre. It didn’t give her so much pleasure any more.
    Her eyes fell on the breakfast plates still on the table. She quickly bundled them into the sink. Then she filled the stainless-steel kettle and put two big spoonfuls of dark-brown coffee into a small cafetière. She breathed in and the smell filled her lungs. She really should cut down on caffeine. There again, there were more important things to worry about.
    She glimpsed the open bottle of red wine in the corner beside the sink, next to the jars of rice and pasta, and looked away quickly. She pulled a bottle of Chardonnay from the wine rack below and put it in the American-style stainless-steel fridge. Then she took out a litre of milk and poured some in her favourite pink flowery mug along with the coffee.
    Upstairs again she sat down, closed the potties document and opened up her book. Reading the title, as she had done so often before, still gave her a tickle of excitement:
    THE GIRL FROM NIGER
    by
    NIC QUINTON
    She checked the word count: 30,375 words. Getting on for a third of the way through. Once she reached the