Free The Heart Whisperer by Ella Griffin

sofa.’
    The room was tiny and chaotic. The dressing table wascluttered with make-up bottles, empty paper cups and plates containing half-eaten snacks. Oonagh was sitting on the arm of the sofa, eating Ladurée macaroons out of a box. She was biting each one in half then dropping the other half into the bin.
    â€˜New diet,’ she mumbled in her off-screen accent. ‘Half the calories. Half the fat. Sit!’
    Owen’s suit was thrown over the only chair so Nick had no choice but to sit on the sofa beside her. He lowered himself down gingerly.
    â€˜I’m not going to bullshit you,’ Oonagh said through a mouthful of macaroon. ‘The bad news is you can forget about your slot turning into a regular thing.’
    Nick’s heart sank.
    â€˜It’s not you. It’s the whole show.’ Oonagh sighed. ‘The station budgets are about to take another hammering and I don’t think we’re going to escape. The good news is,’ she picked out a pistachio macaroon and smiled at it, ‘I’ve got a parachute. I’ve been talking to a UK production company about a really exciting new project. It’s a reality TV show franchise that’s going to roll out on Channel 5 next spring and, if it gets the ratings, it’ll go to the States.’
    Nick felt a prickle of irritation. He liked Oonagh but she was self-obsessed. It was just like her to ramble on about how great her own career prospects looked when he was about to be fired.
    â€˜The working title is Relationship Rescue .’ Oonagh peeled off a strip of fake eyelashes from one eye and stuck it to the macaroon box. ‘The idea is to reunite couples who have split and hook them up with counsellors and coaches to try to resolve their problems. At the end, they get to decide whether to make a go of it again. They approached me and Owen to co-present but the producers have gone off him big time. Would you be interested in coming on board?’
    It took a second to sink in. Oonagh wasn’t firing him. He thought she might be offering him a job. ‘Wow! As what?’
    â€˜Co-presenter and lead coach? I won’t have the final say but I’d like to put you forward to Clingfilms.’
    He stared at her. Clingfilms was a huge UK production company. ‘But I don’t have any real TV experience—’
    â€˜You’re a natural, Nick. People love you. We had three hundred emails after your slot last week. Our previous record was two hundred the time Owen got his back waxed live on air.’ She peeled the eyelashes off her other eye. ‘And most of those were complaints. What do you say?’
    Nick was still struggling to take it in. ‘I need to think about it.’
    Oonagh laughed, expelling a cloud of tiny green crumbs. ‘About what? The chance of getting the We-Fit message out to millions of people instead of the pathetic little OO show audience?’
    Nick’s mind was racing. A UK profile would give him an amazing platform for a series of We-Fit seminars. He could write a book. ‘But what about Owen?’
    â€˜Oh, he’ll go thermonuclear.’ Oonagh sighed. ‘But the truth is, he never really had a chance. He’s sixty-three and, as you might have already noticed, he thinks any kind of therapy is,’ she impersonated Owen’s booming baritone, ‘a pile of shite.’
    â€˜I thought he was fifty-five?’
    â€˜You haven’t seen him naked,’ Oonagh said, dryly. ‘Are you interested or not?’
    â€˜I’ll have to discuss it with Kelly—’
    â€˜You can’t discuss it with anyone. I’m breaking my nondisclosure agreement even mentioning this to you.’
    â€˜I can’t do that—’ Nick began.
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Kelly and I don’t have any secrets from one another.’
    Oonagh bit into a raspberry macaroon. ‘It would only be for a couple of weeks.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t