The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club Read online

  Contents

  Praise for Chrissie Manby

  Also by Chrissie Manby

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Praise for Chrissie Manby

  ‘Hilarious … I loved it. Six stars, hurrah!’

  Daily Mail

  ‘Manby’s novels are made for holidays’

  Glamour

  ‘Touching and funny in equal parts, this book will stay with you long after you close the final page. ****’

  Heat

  ‘This sassy and addictive read will make you laugh – a lot!’

  Closer

  ‘Nothing short of brilliant’

  Marie Claire

  ‘Funny and inventive’

  Company

  ‘Destined to keep you up until the small hours’

  Daily Mirror

  ‘A gloriously delicious read! … Packed with warm characters and hilarious situations’

  handwrittengirl.com

  ‘A lovely, warm read … highly, highly recommended!’

  Onmybookshelf

  ‘I just couldn’t put it down’

  www.chicklitreviewsandnews.com

  Also by Chrissie Manby

  Flatmates

  Second Prize

  Deep Heat

  Lizzie Jordan’s Secret Life

  Running Away From Richard

  Getting Personal

  Seven Sunny Days

  Girl Meets Ape

  Ready Or Not?

  The Matchbreaker

  Marrying for Money

  Spa Wars

  Crazy in Love

  Getting Over Mr Right

  Kate’s Wedding

  What I Did On My Holidays

  Writing for Love (ebook only)

  A Proper Family Holiday

  A Proper Family Christmas

  A Proper Family Adventure

  A Wedding at Christmas

  A Fairy Tale for Christmas

  About the author

  Chrissie Manby is the author of twenty-three romantic comedy novels and a guide for aspiring writers, Writing for Love. She was nominated for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance in 2011 for Getting Over Mr Right.

  Raised in Gloucester, Chrissie now lives in London.

  You can follow her on Twitter @chrissiemanby

  or visit her website to find out more:

  www.chrissiemanby.com

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Chrissie Manby 2017

  The right of Chrissie Manby to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 473 63976 8

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Chapter One

  15th September

  www.brittneysbites.com

  New blog post. Status update!

  Good morning, dear readers! I hope the blessings of the universe are pouring down on your head like gentle rain today. They’re certainly raining down on me. Dearest readers, I am more blessed than I could ever have imagined and I’m itching to tell you why.

  Those of you who have been following my little blog since I started it last September will understand what a fantastic journey I’ve been on. Healthy eating has always been my number-one interest and to be able to share it with you has been a privilege, but, as you all know, finding someone to share my passions away from the internet has been more of a challenge. Though I’ve always worked hard on my inner and my outer self, my essential beauty kept going unnoticed. I began to wonder what the universe had planned for me. Was I stuck in my single state because I was destined to serve the many rather than The One? Like the Dalai Lama?

  Well, today all that changes. I can finally announce to you that I am changing my status (watch my Facebook page)! I am no longer single. It’s no longer complicated. I am in a relationship and it’s time to tell the world!

  Dear readers, it’s been such a whirlwind. When I met my darling BF for the first time at the beginning of the summer, I knew at once there was something between us. When I looked into his eyes, I understood I was seeing into his soul and he was looking straight back into mine. It was as though we had known each other for centuries. Do you remember that past lives reading I did in January, which revealed I was an Egyptian high priestess who gave her life for the man she loved? Well, I had no doubt that my darling BF was the reincarnation of that man. He is handsome, kind and intelligent. He’s my soulmate for sure. Unfortunately, just as in my Ancient Egyptian life, the course of true love was not destined to run smooth.

  Evil, small-minded people have put obstacles in our way. Society itself has tried to keep us apart with its petty rules and regulations. There have been times in the last thr
ee months when I thought I was losing my mind. I was so unhappy! But we all know that true love conquers everything and the people the universe intends to be together will be together, no matter what the ordinary world tries to throw at them. I always knew my Darling BF would eventually shake himself free of his doubts and the ugly chains of convention and be ready to embrace our joint destiny. I believed.

  So, I’m going to be spending this morning doing a sage brush smudging cleanse of my apartment to ensure that every last bit of the negative energy that’s been holding us back has finally been wafted off. I’m also going to be checking the Feng Shui alignment of my new double bed. You can find the most amazing allergy-friendly beds and mattresses via the link at the end of this blog post.

  Did I tell you that I called love into my life with the power of Feng Shui? If you’re single, get two model ducks and put them in your relationships corner. You will also need to make sure you’ve got space for someone to step into. Literal space in your home represents the space in your heart that you’re saving for The One. I cleared out the bedside table on the left of my bed and put three empty coat hangers in my wardrobe to make clear my intention. It’s definitely worked.

  Yes! My Darling BF is moving in today. Thank you, Goddess. Thank you, Universe. Thank you, dear readers, for being with me every step of the way as I walk my chosen path through this wonderful world. I am blessed and I am ready! Let the rest of my life begin!

  Comments:

  Joolzlovesquinoa: 4 hours ago

  Oh wow, Brittney. This is fantastic. Blessings really are upon you. You deserve it, sweetie! Much love.

  hunnybunnydrinxgreentea: 3.5 hours ago

  Grate news hun so proud of U

  Yogachick45765860: 3 hours ago

  Darling BF sounds like a peach. Can’t wait to hear more about him! Will you be making your gluten and dairy free nut roast to welcome him into your home?

  Liz Chandler: 2 hours ago

  Dear Brittney, just thought your readers might like to know that your Darling BF is still my husband. Yours sincerely, Liz.

  Chapter Two

  Toast

  Oh come on. Nobody needs a recipe for that … All right, if you insist.

  Take one slice of bread. Cut away any green bits. Stick it in the Dualit. Remove before the smoke alarm goes off.

  Liz Chandler did not need reminding that it had been twelve whole months since her husband Ian moved out of the family home to live with award-winning clean food and fashion blogger Brittney Blaine. She got that reminder anyway. She knew she should stop checking Brittney’s blog first thing in the morning and last thing at night (and around eight to ten times in between) but it was as though she was compelled. And now she only had to type the letter ‘b’ into her iPhone for Safari to fill in the rest: www.brittneysbites.com. Ugh.

  At least she had stopped commenting. That was surely a sign that Liz was coming to terms with the way things were. At first, Liz had bombarded Brittney’s blog with messages via the comments section to remind her and her clueless readers that the life of physical and spiritual purity Brittney espoused was a sham. No amount of colonic cleansing could erase the stains on Brittney’s record as far as the sisterhood was concerned. She was a husband-stealing trollop and Liz wanted the world to know it.

  Not only had Brittney stolen a husband, she had broken up a happy family. At the time the affair was uncovered, Liz and Ian’s daughter Saskia was still not quite fifteen and they had a six-year-old border terrier called Ted. What were they supposed to do without their daddy?

  The break-up came completely out of the blue for poor Liz. On the night it happened, when she saw Ian’s car pull into the drive at four o’clock, a whole three hours earlier than usual, she’d briefly allowed herself to think he’d been planning a wonderful surprise. Their daughter Saskia was on a sleepover with her best friend Georgia. It wasn’t often that Ian and Liz had the place to themselves. As Ian let himself into the house and Ted the dog rushed to greet him – even though Ian always pushed the dog away – Liz’s mind was already racing with the possibilities. A bottle of wine? A takeaway? Sex? No, hang on. She hadn’t had her bikini line done in six months. Sex with the lights off?

  Ian hadn’t put his car into the garage.

  Maybe they were going out!

  Well. Ian certainly was.

  ‘I’m just going to come out with it,’ he said when he walked into the kitchen. ‘I’ve met someone else. I didn’t go looking for it but I found it and I’ve been struggling with what to do for months but now I finally know.’

  ‘What?’ Liz managed.

  ‘Her name is Brittney and I’m leaving you to be with her.’

  ‘Brittney?’

  Ian nodded.

  ‘Not the food blogger?’

  Ian nodded again.

  ‘Of Brittney’s Bites.com? But you said …’

  ‘I know what I said, Liz. But that was before I had the chance to meet her. In person she’s got far more depth than you can tell from Instagram.’

  ‘The food blogger?’ Liz was having trouble finding the words.

  Liz knew all about Brittney’s Bites. She and Ian had laughed when they first heard about his boss’s plan to do a tie-in promotion with Brittney’s website. Ian worked for a company that provided dentists with tooth-whitening supplies. They were branching out into ‘at home’ whitening kits. Brittney’s blog was the perfect place to flog them and as the nearest rep to Brittney’s hometown of Exeter, Ian was charged with taking the kit to her and explaining how it worked.

  ‘She’s already got teeth like Tic Tacs,’ Liz pointed out as she brought up Brittney’s blog on her phone for the very first time. ‘Veneers, I might add. They won’t bleach anyway.’

  But Brittney jumped at the chance to do the tie-in with White Up Your Life. Ian was her ‘liaison’. And three months after Ian first drove over to Brittney’s place with her personalised bleaching trays it seemed they were having one.

  ‘You described her as looking like a chipmunk’s head on a lolly stick,’ Liz protested.

  ‘She’s much better looking in real life,’ said Ian.

  ‘What about Saskia?’

  Ian at least had the grace to look slightly embarrassed when Liz brought up their daughter, who right then was having a wonderful time with her friend, oblivious to the fact that her family was being rent asunder by her father’s mid-life crisis. For what else but a mid-life crisis could explain Ian’s decision to throw himself at a twenty-something who made a living from Snapchat videos of her lunch?

  ‘We’ll sort something out. I’ll take her as often as I can,’ he said.

  Liz could already see poor Saskia standing at the school gates, scanning the horizon for her absent father, who’d been delayed at the launch of a new dairy-free nut butter.

  ‘I’m sorry, Liz. I really am. But we only get one life and we’ve got to make the most of it. When you fall in love, you fall in love. You can’t deny the plans of the universe. The French call it a coup de foudre.’

  He pronounced it a ‘coop de food’.

  ‘I know it must hurt right now,’ Ian continued, ‘but we haven’t been happy for a very long time and I think that by Christmas, you’ll be glad I made this decision for us both.’

  Christmas? Liz saw herself sitting alone in front of a turkey ready-meal.

  Ian tried to put his arm around her in a comforting sort of way that didn’t work at all. Liz shook him off.

  ‘If you’re going, go now,’ she said, mustering every last bit of courage she had. ‘But don’t blame me if Saskia doesn’t want to come anywhere near you and your gluten-free girlfriend in your new bachelor pad.’

  He went.

  Not knowing quite what to do with herself, Liz made some toast. The ultimate comfort food. She didn’t eat it.

  The early months after that awful night were difficult, to say the least. Saskia was understandably distraught to hear her dad had moved out. She refused to go to school for a week, even thoug
h she was starting an especially important year. Meanwhile, Ted the dog watched the front door for hours on end. When Ian came to pick up a few forgotten things, both Saskia and Ted clung to his legs and cried and whined when he left again.

  It was terrible. Liz had to watch their pain and try to ease it, while pushing her own distress into the background in order to be able to do so. To add to that, she had to take the blame for the whole debacle.

  ‘What did you do to make him go?’ Saskia wailed at regular intervals. Even Ted seemed sniffy with his mistress.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Liz protested. But inside her head the reasons came thick and fast. I got too old. I got too familiar. I knew him much too well.

  Liz had seen it happen to plenty of her friends. A husband approaching middle age, dissatisfied with the way life’s worked out, seeks a second roll of the dice with a much younger woman. Not that the familiarity of the tale helped Liz to absolve herself of too much blame. She was world class when it came to self-chastisement. She asked herself ten times a day what she might have done differently. Lost weight? Dressed more sexily? Stopped asking when he was planning to repaint the hallway he’d wrecked by insisting his mountain bike lived indoors?

  ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Liz’s girlfriends all told her but she couldn’t help it. Not when Saskia and Ted were both so very unhappy. Liz’s pain at Ian’s betrayal was nothing compared to the anger she felt on their behalf. If Liz couldn’t protect them from sadness, who could?

  One year on, Brittney reported on the anniversary of her stealing Ian away from his family on her blog.

  ‘Darling Readers, blessings be upon you today! What a glorious day it is and it’s only eight o’clock. When I woke up at seven this morning to do my chants and my asanas, my Darling BF had already left for work. But not without remembering what a special day it is for us both. Here’s what I found on the kitchen table!’

  There followed a photograph of a stumpy-stemmed rose in a bud vase and a card with a puppy on the front.

  ‘I can’t show you the secret message Darling BF wrote inside my card – this is a family blog (winky emoticon) – but I can tell you that it reaffirmed our goddess-made connection. I love my Darling BF every day of the year but tonight, on the anniversary of the night he moved in and we made our relationship official, I am going to make sure he really knows it. My gluten-free nut roast is definitely on the menu! How will you honour your connection to the people you love today?’