Free The One You Really Want by Jill Mansell Page A

And look at her now, taller than ever, wearing distressed black jeans, pointy black boots and a black and yellow striped mohair sweater that made her look like a bee on stilts. Her shoulder-length streaky blond hair was tied back with a pink band and the only make-up she wore was mascara.
    Mia, his beautiful daughter. She was the most important person in his life, yet discovering her existence had caused him untold pain. Anger too. Was it any wonder that Mia was strong-willed, when she had Laura as her mother?
    Laura had been running one of those hippy shops in Dublin when Connor first met her. He was seventeen, still at school and working part-time in the bakery next door to Laura’s shop. With her waist-length blond hair, embroidered cheesecloth dresses and bewitching smile he had naturally been attracted to her. Well, let’s face it, as a hormone-fuelled seventeen-year-old, he’d have been pushed to find a woman he didn’t find attractive.
    But Laura had bewitched him. Fascinated by her beliefs in crystals, her air of mystery and, OK, her glorious figure, Connor had taken to dropping into her joss-stick-scented shop on a regular basis. He bought his mother a china unicorn with luminous sapphire eyes for her birthday, which had alarmed her no end as she was more accustomed to Yardley gift packs of soap and talc.
    When Laura had started inviting him upstairs to her tiny flat above the shop, he had felt as if he’d won the lottery. Sex was a revelation, better than he’d ever imagined, possibly because Laura, at twenty-seven, was an experienced woman of the world. In her bedroom, which smelled of patchouli and jasmine, she introduced him to the joys of love-making and taught him how to give pleasure as well as to receive it.
    Their clandestine relationship had lasted three months. Connor was dumbstruck when Laura calmly announced one day, out of the blue, that she was leaving Dublin, giving up the lease on the shop and moving to a smallholding in Donegal.
    He felt as if his air supply had been cut off.
    â€˜What? But . . . why?’
    â€˜I want to be self-sufficient.’ Laura affectionately stroked his chest; they were in bed together at the time.
    â€˜But I don’t want you to go!’
    â€˜Connor, you’re seventeen, you’re a fine handsome lad. Trust me, you’ll find someone else in no time at all.’
    â€˜I love you,’ he blurted out, and Laura smiled.
    â€˜You don’t. You love having sex with me. I’m ten years older than you are. I know what I want to do with my life, and now I’m moving on to the next stage. I’ll be growing my own vegetables, tending sheep and goats, spinning my own wool - it’s going to be fantastic.’
    Already bereft, Connor said, ‘Can I come and visit you, at least?’
    â€˜I don’t think so. There wouldn’t be a lot of point. Hey, we’ve had fun.’ Reaching over, Laura planted a warm kiss on his mouth. ‘Life’s a journey, right? And now it’s time we went our separate ways. I don’t have any regrets, Connor. I’ll always be glad we had this time together. You’re a wonderful person.’
    Resignedly, Connor said, ‘But not quite wonderful enough.’
    Of course, Laura had been right. He’d missed her to begin with, but life went on and he turned out to be less heartbroken than he’d imagined. After a while he started seeing someone else, a pretty eighteen-year-old called Niamh, who was studying law at Trinity. Memories of Laura had gradually faded from his mind, just as she had promised.
    He was still only seventeen after all.
    And that would have been that, had it not been for a chance meeting almost five years later.
    Connor’s girlfriend at the time, a beautician by the name of Clodagh, had been invited to the wedding of an old school friend. Unwillingly, Connor had found himself forced to go along with her. It wasn’t what he wanted to