The Kathryn Freeman Romcom Collection
Strictly Come Dating
Kathryn Freeman
One More Chapter
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
Copyright © Kathryn Freeman 2020
Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Kathryn Freeman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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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Source ISBN: 9780008365868
Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008365851
Version: 2020-08-28
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
Epilogue
Thank You for Reading…
You Will Also Love…
About the Author
Also by Kathryn Freeman
One More Chapter...
About the Publisher
This one is for Strictly fans everywhere (and that includes you, Charlotte and Bethan – thank you both so much for your invaluable input).
For anyone with connections to Blackpool (hello Shelley, Kath, Karley, Kirsty and Hayley).
It’s also for Mum, who spent many happy hours dancing with Dad in Blackpool Tower ballroom.
Chapter One
Maggie took a look around the room, her mouth curving in an unconscious smile. God, she was blessed. Her daughters, Penny and Tabby, sat cross-legged on the floor, their hands wrapped around slices of pizza, laughing with Hannah, the nanny who’d become a close friend. On the armchair was Alice, Maggie’s closest friend, and the twin sister of Sarah, whose house they were all currently occupying, and who sat next to Maggie on the sofa. Both her friends sported vibrant sequinned tops that put Maggie’s tame black effort to shame. Also with them was Alice’s daughter, Rebecca, who was nine like Penny.
Everyone was waiting in front of the TV for their programme to start.
Some more patiently than others.
‘I’m bored of this.’ Seven-year-old Tabby turned her nose up at the show currently trying its hardest to entertain them. ‘How much longer?’
‘Five minutes.’ Maggie gave her youngest an indulgent smile. ‘Just time for you to demolish that last slice of pizza and wash your hands.’
Tabby frowned. ‘Washing hands is for before you eat.’
That was Tabby. Always ready to argue any point. ‘True. It’s also for after you eat if your hands are covered in pizza goo. It stops the goo ending up on your clothes.’
Her daughter glanced down at the pretty rainbow tutu she was wearing, and gave her a toothy grin. ‘I guess.’
A few minutes later, Penny lunged for the remote control on the coffee table and sent the volume shooting up. ‘It’s about to start!’
Instantly Sarah’s living room was filled with the distinctive toe-tapping, body-wiggling theme tune for Strictly Come Dancing. Yes, tonight, was the now traditional Saturday night Strictly Fest. The only people missing from their usual gang were Jack and Edward, Alice’s husband and eight-year-old son, who’d chosen to go ten-pin bowling, as they did now and again. In Edward’s words, watching dancing was okay, but bowling was better.
As they settled in for an hour of the best entertainment Saturday nights could provide, eyes glued to the sixty-inch-wide screen, the front door opened, then banged closed, and a man walked into the room.
‘Bloody hell, that’s loud. Are you trying to give the neighbours a heart attack?’
All of them turned to look at the intruder. Tall, athletic-looking, with sharp cheekbones, tanned skin and shaggy blonde hair, he wore black tracksuit bottoms and a white T-shirt. On his left wrist were several braided leather wrist straps. Further up his arms were… muscles. Maggie couldn’t help but notice them: the corded muscles of his forearms and the bulge of bicep as he strained to carry the gym bag he’d flung over his shoulder.
His eyes settled on the girls, and he winced. ‘Ah, didn’t see the kids. Sorry for the bad word.’
‘We’re trying to watch television,’ Alice answered him pointedly. ‘So butt out.’
The intruder tutted. ‘That’s not very friendly.’ Then he frowned at the television. ‘Strewth, is that Strictly Come Dancing? I can’t believe it’s still going. Haven’t viewers had enough of watching people prance about in lycra and sequins by now?’
Tabby stood up and placed a finger on her mouth. ‘Shh.’
Maggie bit into her lip to stop herself from laughing. Probably she should reprimand her daughter for being rude, and to a stranger too, but what she really wanted to do was high-five her.
Looking more amused than annoyed, the man flashed Tabby a grin. ‘Hello, I’m Seb. What’s your name?’
Tabby huffed, raising her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I’m Tabby. But you’re not allowed to talk while we’re watching the dancing.’
‘Oh, okay.’ He nodded towards the double doors that divided the sitting room from the kitchen. ‘Am I allowed to get myself a drink?’
‘I suppose. If you’re quiet.’
His lips twitched. ‘Yes ma’am.’
Seb. Maggie ran the name around in her head, and realised who the guy was. ‘Your brother’s staying with you?’ she whispered to Sarah.
Sarah nodded, eyes fixed on the television where Tess Daly was coming into view. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
A loud crash from the kitchen made them all jump.
‘What the hell?’ Sarah let out a strangled noise of sheer exasperation.
‘Oops.’ Seb’s face appeared, framed by the double doors, looking anything but sorry. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, no need to leap up and check on me. I haven’t hurt myself.’
Alice stood, grabbed the remote control and pressed pause. ‘For God’s sake, Seb. What have you broken?’
‘Hey, relax. It was just a glass. I’ll clean it up. You guys can get back to your programme.’
‘Well, as you’ve already disturbed us, I guess I might as well make the introductions. Everyone, if you haven’t guessed already, this is Seb, our annoying baby brother.’ Alice swung her eyes over to Seb. ‘And brother dear, the people whose evening you keep interrupting are Maggie, our friend from uni days, her children, Tabby and Penny, their nanny, Hannah. And I assume you recognise your niece.’
Seb winked at Rebecca before skimming his gaze over the rest of them. When it connected with Maggie’s, she experienced an unexpected jolt. Wow, even from this distance, she could see his eyes were a vivid blue. Together with the tan, the sun-bleached hair and the laid-back appearance, it gave him a sexy surfer vibe. If he hadn’t come across as such a dick, she might have been tempted to try and set him up with Hannah. The girl could do with a bit of excitement in her life.
‘Ladies.’ Seb bowed his head. ‘And my sisters. I apologise for interrupting what is clearly an… absorbing evening of entertainment. From now on I promise to keep the noise down. I wouldn’t want you to miss anything… crucial.’
Sarcastic bugger. Maggie swallowed her words. After all, he was Alice and Sarah’s brother.
‘Oh, bugger off.’ Alice, as usual, said what others were thinking. ‘Just because it isn’t twenty men running around a field getting sweaty doesn’t mean it isn’t entertainment.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s twenty-two men, though I suppose you could argue the goalie doesn’t run, so—’
‘Seb.’ Alice ground out the word.
‘Shut up. Got it.’ He waved a hand at the television. ‘Carry on. I’ll be quiet as a monk in here.’
Maggie had to bite into her lip again. There was nothing about the six-foot-plus, brash male that suggested he could mimic a monk in any way.
‘God, he’s annoying,’ Sarah muttered as he closed the doors.
‘Hey, I heard that,’ came a shout from the kitchen. ‘You guys missed me really though. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.’
Sarah rolled her eyes, but Maggie didn’t miss the smiles she and Alice tried to hide. Seb might be the annoying younger brother, but he was clearly loved.
Holy fuck, how many pieces could a glass shatter into? Seb brushed yet another shard into the dustpan, his eyes searching the floor for stragglers. He didn’t want to be responsible for any of the party in the living room getting cut feet. Especially not the cute little firecracker sat on the floor with his niece who’d told him to shush.
He’d not expected to find a house full of women when he’d come back from his workout. Not that he was against the idea – he was all for the other sex. No, it was more that, after only three days being back in his home town, crashing in Sarah’s spare room, he felt the life slowly being strangled out of him. And coming home to a house of females watching dancing on the television only reinforced the direness of his situation. He ached for the sea, the surf, the freedom he’d left behind.
A life where he hadn’t been introduced as ‘our annoying baby brother’. Where nobody asked him when he was going to ‘grow up, knuckle down and get a proper job’. Yep, those were the very words his father had said to him this morning. Thanks, Pop, way to make me glad I’ve given up my life in sunny Oz and moved back to the dreary UK.
It hadn’t helped that his dad had looked so terribly ill. Always on the chubby side, he’d lost weight since the heart attack that had nearly killed him a week ago. Now he looked unwell, his skin a horrible grey colour. A man on borrowed time.
Seb pulled himself up short. Nope, he wasn’t going to wallow. What he needed was a distraction. He glanced towards the closed double doors, smirking at the sound of Bruno Tonioli giving his usual flamboyant feedback. Jeeze, how old was the guy now? He’d been a judge on the programme back when Seb had been forced to endure it at boarding school.
Decision made, Seb tucked the dustpan and brush back under the sink, opened the doors and squeezed himself on the sofa between Sarah and the fair-haired woman he clearly remembered Alice saying was Maggie.
‘Excuse me, ladies.’ He shuffled his backside further back.
Sarah narrowed her eyes. ‘Really?’ she hissed. ‘You’re going to watch this with us?’
He gave her a sunny smile. ‘Well, you obviously enjoy it. Thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.’ He glanced at the television. ‘Where’s the old guy?’
The girls on the floor turned their heads towards him, Tabby giving him that evil eye again.
‘You’re meant to be quiet, Uncle Seb.’ His niece did at least smile when she said it.
‘Sorry, Beccs.’
‘Rebecca,’ Alice muttered.
He smirked, knowing Alice hated it when he shortened his niece and nephew’s names. ‘Look, just put me out of my misery and tell me what happened to the old dude. You know who I mean. He was the funny one.’
‘Bruce Forsyth passed away.’ Maggie angled her head and gave him a rather cool look.
‘And a great loss he was, too.’ See, he wanted to add, I knew that. ‘I always had a soft spot for him. But I was talking about the other dude, the one who used to say seeevvvvveeeeerrrrn!’
‘Len Goodman left in 2016.’ This time Maggie didn’t bother to look at him, and maybe he was still the immature kid his family had him down as, because her polite formality made him want to wind her up. Ruffle her feathers a bit.
‘That’s a real shame,’ he replied, ignoring the deep sigh from Sarah on his other side. ‘I seem to remember he was quite a character.’
‘You used to watch it then?’ He had Maggie’s attention again, and had to admit the way she arched her brow, the wintry grey of her eyes, the subtle beauty of her face… she was quite intimidating.
‘I had no choice. At boarding school, it was watch that, or watch nothing.’ Immediately he regretted the words. It wasn’t bad enough his sisters calling him baby brother, now he was making himself sound like a schoolboy still. ‘Of course, that was a long time ago,’ he added, which, yes, on reflection, just made the whole kid vibe Alice had started even more obvious.
‘I suppose it depends how you define long.’ Maggie gave him a small smile before turning her attention back to the TV screen.
It left Seb to sigh inwardly and decide to keep his mouth closed for a bit.
‘She looks like a fairy princess,’ Tabby piped up five minutes later.
Seb wondered what her dad was like, because she certainly didn’t get her chatty genes from her mum. They shared hair colour, and the same eye shape, only Tabby’s were a pretty hazel, not a wintry grey. ‘I thought we weren’t allowed to talk?’ he couldn’t resist saying.
She rolled her eyes in that way kids have of making adults feel two feet small. ‘You can if it’s about Strictly.’
‘Right. So I can say she might look like a princess, but he looks like a…’ Dick, prat – he wasn’t sure what was appropriate for a kid of Tabby’s age. ‘He looks like a turkey wrapped in tin foil.’
Tabby, bless her, started to giggle, and Seb felt a rush of warmth, and of gratitude towards her. One bright spot in an otherwise pretty shitty day. Her eyes sought out her mother’s. ‘Can he say that?’
Maggie smiled at her daughter – not the watered-down version she’d given him, but a really lovely smile. ‘He can say it.’ When she turned to him, the smile dimmed though the grey of her eyes was less frosty. ‘But we don’t have to agree with him.’
Alice, lounging on what Seb liked to think of as his armchair, even though he’d only lived at Sarah’s for three days, snorted. ‘People rarely agree with Seb. Usually because he enjoys being deliberately provocative.’
‘Hey, it’s not my fault you’re so easy to wind up.’ Intrigued, he glanced back at Maggie. ‘You really think the silver get-up looks good on him?’
‘I think,’ she replied in that slow, careful way she seemed to have, ‘for a man to carry off a suit like that, he has to be really confident in who he is. And that is highly attractive.’
So, she fancied the pro dancer, did she? Seb instinctively looked down at her hand – slender and graceful, much like the rest of her – and noted the absence of a wedding ring. ‘I guess you could see it that way.’ What was so special about being sure of who you were, though? Couldn’t a guy be attractive while he was still trying to find himself? ‘Or maybe he was just too chicken to say no to the costume department. Hang on, make that too turkey.’
‘Seb.’ Sarah’s sharp tone had him swivelling his attention to the woman on his other side. ‘Don’t you have some place else to go? Somewhere your conversation and schoolboy humour might be appreciated?’
Usually he’d shrug the comment off. He wasn’t by nature insecure; he was a reasonably good-looking guy who had no problem getting on with people. So yeah, normally, he’d laugh that snide comment off and say something like sure I have, but tonight I’m generously sharing myself with you. After all, it’s what Sarah was expecting, because that’s what they did. Needle each other.
Tonight though? Yeah, tonight he wasn’t in the mood.
Rising to his feet, he gave Sarah a mock salute and strode out of the room. He’d take a shower and head back out to the pub. A place where he didn’t feel judged. Where he could talk to guys about offside rules and penalty shootouts, rather than costumes, posture and hip movements.
Chapter Two
The show was over, the girls fast asleep on Sarah’s bed upstairs. Sarah had opened a bottle of wine, which Hannah and Alice were helping her drink. Maggie was tonight’s designated driver.
‘Do you think I upset Seb earlier?’ Sarah turned to her sister. ‘He’s been a bit, I don’t know, gloomy since he’s come back.’
‘You’d be gloomy if you’d been forced to ditch life in the Whitsunday Islands to come back here.’ Alice took a large swallow of wine. ‘He’ll soon settle down. And he’s an impossible guy to upset, you know that. Far too chilled to take offence at being told to get lost.’
Maggie was intrigued by the man who’d parked himself on the sofa between her and Sarah and gone on to both annoy and entertain them all for a while. ‘Why is he back? Because of your dad?’
‘Yes.’ Alice glanced down at her glass, her face taking on a sombre expression. ‘His MI.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling when Sarah coughed. ‘Sorry, for the non-medics, the heart attack was a major one. When I told Seb about it, I expected him to plan a visit. Didn’t realise he’d drop everything and jump on the next plane.’
‘That’s our brother for you. Impulsive. He’s never been afraid to up sticks and leave a place.’ Sarah gave them a wry smile. ‘Far more afraid of putting down roots.’
‘He seems nice.’ Hannah, who’d been quiet up till now, started to giggle. ‘Okay, what I mean is, he’s seriously hot.’
‘You think so, huh?’ Alice grinned at her. ‘You know what, he’s a pain in the arse but he is a good guy. You’re what, twenty-six?’ When Hannah nodded, Alice beamed. ‘He’s twenty-seven, so that works. As long as you don’t want anything heavy, mind you, because one thing’s for certain, he won’t be sticking around for long.’
Hannah shrugged. ‘I just want a bit of fun. I mean, is it too much to ask for a guy who’s more interested in me than in taking moody selfies for his Instagram followers?’
Maggie gaped. ‘Is that seriously what Giles did?’ Giles was the boyfriend Hannah had ditched two months ago.
‘Yep.’ She eyed Alice and Sarah. ‘Please tell me Seb doesn’t have an obsession with selfies?’
The sisters burst out laughing.
‘Seb’s not even on social media, as far as we know. He’s more your outdoors type. Scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, trekking through jungles, parachuting out of planes, that kind of thing.’
Hannah’s eyes lit up. ‘He sounds way cooler than Giles.’
‘Anyone sounds cooler than Giles,’ Maggie countered. ‘You need to set your standards far higher than Instagram man.’
Slowly Alice swivelled her focus towards Maggie. Her heart sank when she saw the glint in her friend’s eye. ‘Sound advice, yet don’t fall into the trap of Maggie here, who seems to have set the bar so high, nobody can ever hope to reach it.’
‘I told you before, I’ve got enough going on in my life with work and the girls. Why don’t you give Sarah a hard time, instead?’
‘I do, often, but she keeps telling me—’
‘I love my job more than I could ever love a guy,’ Sarah interrupted.
‘Exactly, and I respect that. Owning your own company, well, I guess it’s like being married.’ Alice’s eyes swivelled back to Maggie. ‘But you, dear Maggie, have been married for real, so you know how it feels to be in love. Don’t you miss that? Miss sharing your life with someone special?’
Inside her chest, Maggie’s heart ached, just a little, at the memory of the life she and Paul had once had together. Before he’d decided he didn’t want to be her husband any more. ‘I miss someone to share the girls with,’ she admitted. ‘The pride in their successes, but also the constant worries. Am I doing the right thing by them? I also miss someone to share that precious time after they’ve gone to bed, and the house is quiet.’ Her mind filled with an image of her and Paul snuggled together on the sofa, glass of wine in hand, talking about everything, and nothing. But that had been before things had changed. ‘I don’t miss being berated for being late home from the surgery because my last patient needed to talk. I don’t miss being told I’m too anal and pedantic just because I like things done a certain way, or that I make too many lists.’ Fearing she was going down a depressing road, she forced a smile. ‘And I certainly don’t miss having to watch stupid action or comedy films on a Saturday night because,’ she used her fingers to mimic quotation marks, ‘“Strictly isn’t a programme a red-blooded male wants to watch.”’
They all laughed, and Maggie hoped that was the end of the conversation, but no. Alice was like a bloody dog with a bone. ‘You know what you should do.’ Her friend didn’t give her the chance to reply. ‘You should go dancing again. I remember at uni you used to go to ballroom dancing classes, and even though we took the piss out of you, we were secretly envious because you’d come back all flushed and bright-eyed. You loved dancing.’
‘I did. God, that feeling of floating across the floor, of all the crap from the day ebbing away until there was nothing left in my head but the music.’ Even now, more than ten years since she’d last stepped onto a dance floor, tingles rippled down her spine at the memory. Dance lessons had been the highlight of her week. Protected time when, for a couple of hours, she forgot the seriousness of the career she’d chosen, the hard hours of study, and lost herself in something beautiful. ‘But Paul didn’t share the same passion, so…’ she trailed off, shrugging to hide the knot of emotion in her throat.
‘So what?’ Sarah’s expression turned fierce. ‘He shouldn’t have made you give up something you loved.’
‘He didn’t make me,’ she countered, then immediately wondered why she’d defended him. It was a habit, one she should have broken by now. ‘He let it be known he didn’t like me going.’
‘Which made it hard for you to carry on.’ Alice reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘We’re not blaming you for stopping. We just think it’s sad he couldn’t support you, instead.’
And that kind of summed up her marriage, Maggie thought bitterly. Paul hadn’t been someone she could lean on, a partner who would look out for her best interests. He’d looked out for himself.
‘But don’t you see, the fact that you used to love dancing, and that you still love watching it, means you should definitely take it up again.’ Hannah almost bounced in her chair. ‘I can totally look after Tabby and Penny if you want to.’