Free Coco Pinchard, the Consequences of Love and Sex: A Funny, Feel-Good, Romantic Comedy by Robert Bryndza Page A

from home: you only need to get dressed up when it’s something important.’
    I wiped my feet and gave her a look.
    ‘Of course love, you’re important. But you’re a mate too,’ she said.
    She gave me a tour of the finished house. The basement has been excavated, and she now has a home cinema, underground parking, and her own spa with a jacuzzi. We finished the tour at the swimming pool. The huge expanse of water rippled softy under a vaulted sandstone ceiling. The bottom of the pool was tiled with a mosaic of her family.
    ‘I didn’t bank on the rippling water making me look so fat,’ she said, as we peered down at the bizarre Disney-esque cartoon mosaic of Angie, her fifth husband Mark, and her kids.
    ‘Course the kids all wanted to include their fathers in the mosaic, but why would I want to go for a swim with those bastards every morning?’ Angie is a proud four-by-four-er. Four kids by four different fathers. I often wonder if it’s her skill as a literary agent that has landed her this luxurious lifestyle, or her skill at negotiating a divorce settlement.
    We came up to Angie’s office via a sweeping staircase. The walls were adorned with photos of her kids, every Madonna concert she’s been to and, I was flattered to see, a big poster of my proudest triumph, ‘Chasing Diana Spencer: The Musical’ , which was adapted from my novel of the same name.
    Angie’s new office was lined with bookshelves containing the work of all her authors. I spied Recherche Lady Di, the best-selling French edition of Chasing Diana Spencer. It gave me a thrill to be getting back to work again after a few months away from it all. I took a squashy chair in front of her desk. Angie lit a cigarette and sat opposite. Behind her was a beautiful view of rooftops and the Thames in the distance.  
    ‘What happened to your old assistant?’ I asked.
    ‘Brenda took me to a tribunal,’ said Angie.
    ‘That’s a shame, what happened?’
    ‘You know when they dug out my basement, they found that Roman settlement and the plague pit?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Brenda started taking tea down to the builders, but the daft cow didn’t wear a facemask. She caught the bubonic plague.’
    ‘That’s terrible.’
    ‘Oh, it’s nothing these days, Cokes. She had to take a course of antibiotics, and she was fine. But the cow got greedy and wanted more than statutory sick pay. I said to her, ‘Did they get statutory sick pay in 1665? No they bloody didn’t. They all died.’’
    ‘And what did she say?’
    ‘Well she repeated that at the tribunal, and it cost me a bloody fortune. So for now Chloe is working for me.’ Angie’s daughter Chloe came in with two coffees.  
    ‘Thanks love, hold all my calls, unless of course it’s uh, Regina Battenberg.’ Chloe nodded and left us alone.
    ‘Regina Battenberg?’ I said.
    ‘Yeah. I signed her to the agency last week. She’s gonna make me a fortune, Cokes.’
    ‘What about her other agent?’
    ‘She fired him. He was mean about her dog, Pippin, said it was mangy.’
    ‘And that’s a good reason to fire him?’
    ‘She’s a multi-million selling author now Coco. She can do what she wants.’
    ‘I’m just shocked you signed her.’
    ‘What Coco? Because you hate her? Because she’s always rude to you? Because she’s fucking barking like her horrible little dog?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Coco this is business. And having her business will take this agency to the next level. I’m in talks to put her on cable in the USA.’
    ‘On the end of a cable, a noose?’ I asked hopefully.
    ‘No. The FX Network want to do a wine tasting show with her. It’s going to be mega bucks. Which reminds me.’ Angie pressed a button on her desk.
    ‘Chloe can you bring through the book for Coco.’
    Chloe came back in with a copy of Regina Battenberg’s latest bestseller, Winetime . Regina was pictured on the cover, sitting at a table in a square in Venice, drinking wine and laughing with some elderly Italian