Read Online MILLIE'S FLING by Jill Mansell - Free Book Online Page A

salute. Can’t imagine he’d be much of a one for the opera.’
    Millie had grinned, because she knew her dad was teasing her mother.
    ‘Pathetic, completely pathetic,’ Adele had hissed back, not getting it at all. ‘I could do so much better than you.’
    ‘Jolly good.’ Lloyd wasn’t bothered; he was too used to his wife's endless criticisms. At first, the fact that he and Adele were polar opposites had been a huge novelty. But after twenty years, it had well and truly worn off.
    ‘I’m going to be happy,’ Adele had declared with utter confidence.
    ‘What, with this Harvey Nichols chap?’ There was a mischievous twinkle in Lloyd's eyes. ‘Quite sure about that, are you? Because you need to watch these horsey-types, you know. They’re known to have a bit of a thing about pointy spurs and a whip.’
    ‘A whole new life for myself.’ Adele had gazed at him with contempt. ‘A glorious new life and a glorious new man to share it with.’
    ‘Ah well, each to his own,’ Lloyd had said good-naturedly. ‘Women? I give up on them. From now on, it's a bachelor's life for me.’
    Famous last words.
    For Adele, as well as for Lloyd.
    Adele had spent the last five years racketing around London in astate of increasing desperation. She was a fifty-five-year-old Bridget Jones in Burberry silk-knits, constantly complaining that there were no decent men anywhere and that the only males who enjoyed opera were all homosexuals. In cravats.
    Lloyd, meanwhile, had settled quite happily into his newfound bachelor lifestyle for all of three and a half months. Then, quite by accident, he had met Judy.
    At a petrol station on the outskirts of Padstow, of all the exotic locations imaginable.
    Lloyd had been about to pay for his petrol at the till when a female voice behind him in the queue had declared, ‘Bugger!’
    Lloyd, swiveling round to see who the Bugger belonged to, had smiled broadly at Judy.
    Flapping her hand in half-hearted apology, Judy had pulled a face then grinned back.
    And that, basically, had been that.
    ‘I’ve just stuck twenty quid's worth of petrol in my car.’ Judy showed him the contents of her well-worn handbag: a Mars bar, several dog biscuits, one lipstick, and a wrinkled Dick Francis paperback that looked as if it had been read in the bath. ‘And I’ve come out without my sodding purse.’
    A single lipstick. And no hairbrush. Lloyd was instantly enchanted.
    ‘No problem, I’ll lend you the money.’
    He liked the way she didn’t launch into a flurry of Oh-no-I-couldn’t-possiblys.
    ‘I might be a con-artist.’
    ‘A con-artist,’ Lloyd gravely informed her, ‘would never say that.’
    ‘Okay, you’re on.’ Judy nodded, accepting his offer and jangling her car keys. ‘And I only live a mile down the road, so if you aren’t in a tearing hurry you can follow me home and I’ll pay you back.’
    ‘I might be an axe murderer.’
    ‘I’ve got my dogs at home,’ Judy confided. ‘Axe murderers don’t scare me.’
    Without meaning it to happen, Lloyd realized before the afternoon was out that he’d met his soulmate, the woman with whom he wanted—no, not wanted, with whom he had —to spend the rest of his life.
    Judy Forbes-Adams had been widowed three years earlier. At fifty-three and with her children grown up, she too was satisfied with her life just the way it was. She loved horses and dogs and the Cornish countryside with a passion. On special occasions, she dashed on a bit of Yardley lipstick and remembered to brush her hair. She wouldn’t have recognized a designer outfit if it leapt out at her screaming Chanel, although she had both the means and the figure to wear anything that took her fancy. And, best of all, she couldn’t be doing with opera. Judy's idea of a good time involved listening to The Archers on Radio 4 while she planted out her pelargoniums.
    It drove Adele insane that the good fairy had had the nerve to grant Lloyd the happy ending.
    ‘It's so unfair,’