The Great Ex-Scape

Book 0: Destination Love

by Jo Watson

Genres: Friendship; Humor & Satire; Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

From the author of the 100,000 copy-selling rom-com, Love to Hate You! No one makes you laugh like Jo Watson! 'If you want a book that is TRULY "laugh out loud" start here ' Goodreads reviewer Buy Jo's uplifting new rom-com, Truly, Madly, Like Me, now! One reader says, 'if you pick up one read this summer, make it this one'! Just search: 9781472265555 If you love Sophie Ranald, Sophie Kinsella and Paige Toon, you'll LOVE Jo Watson! On the scale of one to worst idea ever, agreeing to give the toast at her best friend's engagement party when she's been in love with him for three years was not Val's finest decision. Nor was accidentally confessing her love to him in front of all their guests, including his fiancee. Boarding a plane that will take her literally anywhere to get away from the humiliation, Val is pleasantly surprised to find herself on the dazzlingly beautiful island of Reunion where she hopes she can heal her wounded pride, broken heart and bruised knees. When a painful face mask experiment leads her to a fellow broken-hearted traveller, Alex, they decide to give each other a helping hand and follow a foolproof ten-step plan to get over their respective exes. And so begins their crazy adventure. What could possibly go wrong? Don't miss Jo's laugh-out-loud rom-coms, Love You, Love You Not, Love to Hate You, Burning Moon, Almost A Bride, Finding You, After the Rain and The Great Ex-scape. Love funny, romantic stories? You don't want to miss Jo Watson: 'The perfect choice for fans of romantic comedies ' Gina's Bookshelf 'It was amazing, it was hilarious ' Rachel's Random Reads 'A brilliant read from beginning to end' Hopeless Romantics

Release date: October 9, 2018

Publisher: Headline Eternal

Print pages: 345

Sample

Crappiest, crap day of my entire effing life!

I’d been perching on the closed toilet seat for so long that parts of my body had gone dead. It had started in my feet, worked its way up into my ankles and was slowly numbing my calves. Maybe if I stayed here for long enough, everything would go numb? (Wishful thinking.)

My new—and ludicrously overpriced—pink cardigan was officially ruined from the mixture of mascara-stained tears and snot bubbles I’d been pouring into it for the last hour. But it was all I could use to stifle the undignified sounds of my uncontrollable sobs. This was a public restroom, after all!

I had a headache from hell; possibly from tear-induced dehydration, possibly from the half-empty bottle of wine I’d been sipping on for the last hour. But I knew I had to leave at some point. I couldn’t hide in a toilet cubicle forever, as much as I wanted to. People would start to wonder where I was. He would start to wonder.

This had been one of those monumentally bad ideas from the start. No, what was I saying? This wasn’t just a “bad idea,” this was the worst idea ever conceived of. On a scale of one to “worst idea ever,” this would be right up there with DIY open heart surgery (something I was seriously considering, since the pain of it breaking was almost too much to bear).

Going to my best friend’s engagement party.

Sounds perfectly benign.

Making a speech at my best friend’s engagement party.

Totally normal.

Toasting my best friend and his beautiful new fiancée.

Absolutely acceptable.

That is until you replace the words “best friend” with “the man I’ve been hopelessly, devotedly and excruciatingly in love with for the past three years.”

I glanced at my watch; ten minutes before I needed to make the speech. Ten minutes until I was due to take up position in front of friends and families and deliver the old “thrilled and couldn’t be happier for them” platitudes.

I gulped down another more-than-mouthful of anesthetizing wine as my phone beeped. I rolled my eyes when I saw whose name was lighting up the screen. It was my friend Lilly. She’d been on my case for the last week, insisting that this was my last chance to tell him how I felt, even if he didn’t feel the same way. I needed to get it off my chest, she said. It would be cathartic, she said. I would finally get closure, she said. I wished to God she would shut the hell up. But then she’d said that other thing too, the one that kept that ember of hope burning: What if he does feel the same way too?

But I’d been here so many times before too. Hopes up, only for them to later be dashed, and downright shattered in the flaming pits of friend-zoned hell. I glanced at my phone again; another one of those dreaded phrases was splashed across it.

You have to tell him how you feel before it’s too late. What if you’re meant to be together and he just doesn’t know it yet?

Meant to be? Yeah, that’s what I’d thought too. All that hanging out together. Pizza and beer evenings. Staying up all night chatting on the phone. We’d even gone to a friend’s wedding together, for heaven’s sake. Surely that was date-y? My friends had all agreed . . . it was date-y!

I’d certainly interpreted those as very clear signs. We were meant to be together! It was only a matter of time before he confessed his true feelings to me. But as time passed . . . and passed . . . and passed, nothing happened. And then she came along. And everything changed.

I needed to snap out of this. I needed to get a grip. I needed to go outside and pretend that everything was totally fine. More than fine. I needed to pretend that I couldn’t be more thrilled for my BFF. I’d written a speech drenched in a smorgasbord of hideous, romantic clichés that I’d plucked directly from the internet. As it turns out, cheesy one-liners are just a Google search away. But now, I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage to say them out loud.

Why had I agreed to this in the first place? But this was only the appetizer; the real main course was yet to come . . .

And let me tell you, it is a turducken of tragedy. One horrific idea rolled into another equally dreadful one and then stuffed into the mother of shitty ideas. Grilled, basted, tenderized and deboned!

Agreeing to help him pick out his wedding suit.

Agreeing to emcee his wedding.

Agreeing to help him choose his romantic honeymoon destination—where they’d have lots of romantic honeymoon sex.

Clearly, I was a sadomasochist hell-bent on torturing myself. But I had to do this. I had no other option.

So I stood up . . .

Pins and needles in feet. Kneecaps crunching. Dead legs. Stomach lurching. General revolting creeping feeling.

I took my first step, but as I did . . . Whoosh! It hit me all at once. The alcohol raced through my body, spiking the blood in my veins and making me buzz. I took another step and the buzz gave way to a much more unpleasant feeling.

Suddenly, I felt woozy. Very woozy. And this wasn’t the kind of establishment for wooziness. The engagement party was being held at her parents’ restaurant on their award-winning wine farm in the beautiful Cape Wine lands; no expenses spared. Very fancy. It was the kind of super-upper-crusty party that people with surnames beginning with Vander and ending in Child went to. Many of the guests had been flown up from Jo’burg to be here, including me.

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, holding onto the sink for added support. I looked hideous. What was my mother’s favorite saying again? “I look like the wreck of the Hesperus.” I’d never known what a Hesperus was, but for some reason, the word seemed to describe perfectly how I looked and felt right now.

“Hesss Perrr Russs.” I hissed it out loudly as I leaned towards the mirror and then almost laugh-cried out loud.

I splashed some water on my face to counteract the wooze—it worked a little—and then I grabbed some paper towels and attempted to wipe my tears away. I blew my nose quickly when I realized it was making a disgusting “squeeeeeee, squeeeeeee, squeeeeeee” sound on every out breath.

I reapplied my foundation, popped on a bit of mascara and smooshed on some lip-plumping lip-gloss. I’d bought the lip-gloss for him. I’d stupidly thought that if my lips were more Jolie, and less me, that he might take notice. I’d been wrong. And now I was 250 rand poorer.

The lobby outside was abuzz with a crowd of overdressed people. She and her crowd were of the super-skinny, pearl-wearing, overdressed ilk. Which meant that I always felt somewhat inferior in their presence, and a great deal larger than I knew I really was. She and her crowd were the kind of people that gave normal women body dysmorphia and made us all feel like large, beached marine animals.

At least eighty people were bustling about in the massive lobby, excessive for an engagement party, if you ask me.

I smiled at everyone as I walked past, trying to do my best impersonation of a happy, non-tipsy person. Soon we were all ushered into the restaurant and instructed to take our seats. I was sitting across from my so-called BFF, Matt. He smiled at me and I melted into my chair. I always melted when he smiled. I always got butterflies when he called and I got downright dizzy when we spent time together. I glanced to his left, and there she was . . .

Samantha. Doctor Samantha, I might add. Pediatric oncologist Samantha, to be specific! She saved sick children’s lives for a living, for heaven’s bloody sake! How the hell could a mere mortal such as myself compete with that?

Samantha caught me looking at her and I quickly shot her a smiley thumbs-up. I’ve always wondered if she knows how I really feel about him. Aren’t women supposed to have a sixth sense about these kinds of things? Unless she did have her suspicions but felt that unthreatened by me. I wasn’t sure which was worse, and I suddenly imagined her and Matt’s late-night conversations about me . . .

“You know she’s in love with you, right?” she says, lying in bed, silk sheets tussled, body glistening with beads of sweat from post-coital workout.

“I know,” he says, equally sweaty and naked from mind-blowing sexcapades. “Don’t worry, though,” he turns and kisses her softly, “she’s no competition for you.”

“I know, baby. I know,” she says, and I want to imaginary-punch her.

I tried to shake the image from my head and looked down at the handwritten speech in my hands. But my fingers were shaking uncontrollably and the wooziness was hitting me in steady waves that seemed to be building in momentum.

A large pair of invisible hands suddenly reached out and wrapped themselves around my throat. Squeezing. Throttling. I swallowed, but it got stuck. The tightening feeling was growing by the second as Samantha’s father was nearing the end of his speech.

“And now we’ll hear from Matt’s best friend, Val,” he said.

I froze. A deathly pause followed as people turned and looked for me.

“Val!” He said it a bit louder this time. “Val?”

What the hell was I going to do?

Three Years Ago

14 Feb.

Dear Diary,

Something amazing just happened. Genuinely amazing. No, it was not the insights I gained while writing my latest article about why “Dairy is the New Gluten.” It was the amazing thing that happened in the lift, precisely 7 minutes ago. As you can see, I’m writing this soon afterwards, while the amazing thing is still fresh in my mind, because I don’t want to forget any of it.

I’d just come back from my “romantic” Valentine’s date with Stormy-Rain, in which she’d spoken all evening about how Valentine’s Day was yet another example of the evil consumerist-capitalist agenda. (I still have no idea what she means, and the irony is that she actually does have a boyfriend!) Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly in the most “hearts and chocolates” kind of mood when I got home at precisely 2:30 a.m. . . . that is, until I got into the lift and saw him!

Gorgeous. Pitch-black hair. Maldivian-blue eyes that make you want to peel your clothes off and go swimming in, naked. Dark, sexy stubble dotted across seriously sculptured jaw—not in a Ridge Forrester way, though. Tall, broad shoulders, seriously sexy ass and smelling like heaven. In a word, H. O. T.

So, naturally, I tried to exude that cool nonchalance that is always preferable in these kinds of situations. I made momentary eye contact, gave wildly noncommittal nod of acknowledgment, placed hand on hip, and looked in opposite direction. And, it worked! Because HE started a conversation with ME. I reiterate, this is important, he opened his mouth first . . .

He asked, “Are you coming back from a Valentine’s date?”

I replied, “No.” (Still exuding cool, aloof nonchalance, although terribly uncool inside.)

And then he said, and I quote, “I find that hard to believe. Someone that looks like you, dateless on Valentine’s Day?” And then he locked eyes with me and smiled.

Bam! I melted. Swooned. Felt explosions around us and butterflies inside. Mainly because he was just soooo good-looking. If he’d had a big, shiny bald patch and those gross white sticky patches in the corners of his mouth . . . it would have just been creepy!

For the purpose of this entry, it’s probably also worth noting that by this stage, 2:30 a.m., I was pretty well lubricated. I had hit the cocktails, hard. I could tell he was tipsy too—he had that slightly dreamy, dopey look of someone who was buzzing.

And then, fueled with uncharacteristic courage, mainly due to vodka, I asked, in my most flirty voice, “And you? Where’s your Valentine’s date?”

He replied, “I don’t have one.”

He took a step forward. Another step. Another. Until he was right next to me. And that’s when the truly amazing thing happened.

We looked at each other and then I swear I heard him say—with his mind—that he wanted to kiss me. So, I said it back, using the powers of telepathy that I didn’t even know I had. “Kiss me! Kiss me! Kiss me!”

And he did. It was hungry and desperate and loud and messy and full of arms and legs and backs being flung against walls. A m a z i n g. Best kiss of my entire life. Sparks, fireworks, lightning bolts and atomic fucking bombs went off. And then the lift doors opened and it stopped.

I thought that was going to be the end of it. I thought this was going to become like those crazy movie moments where you land up kissing a stranger under some equally strange circumstances and then part ways—but it wasn’t.

He asked, “Do you live here?”

I replied that I did, “number seventeen” (just so he knew exactly where).

And then, lo and behold (I’m taking this as a sign, btw), he said, apartment 18—he’d just moved in! He walked me to the door and then kissed me again. Soft, slow, sexy and delicious. Then he stopped, ran his thumb over my lips and said, “Good night, neighbor. See you soon.” I repeat, “See you soon.”

Now, do you see why I needed to write this down immediately! Hottest guy I’ve ever seen before kissed me passionately in lift (and at door) and it was electric. Earth moved. Mountains shook. Skies opened to choirs of little white-haired angels. I can still taste him. My lips are tingling, and I want more. Perhaps I’ll stage a walk-past by his apartment tomorrow . . .

More tomorrow . . .



All the guests were staring at me, but I was frozen.

Matt gestured at me and gave an encouraging little nod. Samantha’s father cleared his throat loudly. A general murmur spread through the room.

I can do this. I can fucking do this!

“Maybe she’s got a bit of stage fright. Let’s give her a round of applause,” Samantha’s dad called out.

The room erupted into enthusiastic applause. It only made the whole thing worse.

I got up slowly and made my way to the raised platform where a mic was pinned to my dress. I took my place behind the podium and put the paper down on it, smoothing it with my sweaty palms. Hundreds of expectant eyes stared at me. I could feel them boring holes into my face, even though I hadn’t dared to look up yet. If I just stuck to my pre-planned speech, it would be fine . . .

“Hi, everyone. For those who don’t know me, I’m Val.” At that, a few claps and whistles filled the room.

“Well, what can I say about Matt and Sam really?” I continued. “They’re perfect for each other.” I forced a massive smile before launching into the next part. “In fact, I’ve known how perfect these two were from the moment I met Sam and saw how happy she made Matt and how very, very, very in love he was with her . . .”

I could feel the thoughts in my brain distancing themselves from me. They floated further and further from my grasp and disappeared into the woozy, mucky sludge that had filled my cranium. Suddenly, everything was very jumbled.

“They are just soooooooo in love. Like, a lot . . . I mean, you should see them sometimes, it’s like ‘Hey, guys, get a room.’ ” I heard a strange chuckle escape my mouth. A few other people chuckled, but most looked downright shocked.

Things went pretty pear-shaped after that. Why do they say pear-shaped, btw? A pear has such a lovely shape. So smooth and curvy. And nothing about this was even vaguely smooth, or curvy.

“Sometimes, they just hang onto each other so much, that I want to just pry them apart with my little claws . . . hahahah!” I laughed maniacally. A tiny moment of sanity prevailed, and I realized what I’d just said. I took a deep breath—Get it together, Val—and exhaled . . .

“Sqeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” The nasal squeak reverberated around the whole room and people recoiled.

“Sorry, sorry! My nose, it’s um . . . never mind. What I meant to say is that they are very in love . . . Wait, I’ve already said that . . . sorry, hang on. What I’m trying to say is . . . is . . . uuuhhhh . . .”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I looked down at the paper. The letters I’d written were swimming on the page. The words were blurring, and a feeling was rising. I looked up from the paper and into Samantha’s angry face. She had her arm draped around a very concerned-looking Matt. I didn’t blame him. I was concerned.

My eyes swept the crowd. A few people were snickering. Some were whispering to each other and that feeling inside me was growing steadily. Getting bigger, and bigger, and . . . suddenly, the feeling was too damn big to be contained anymore. It felt like a massive balloon was being inflated inside me and at any moment it was just going to burst uncontrollabl—

“SORRY!” I shouted. “Sorry! I can’t do this. I’m so sorry, I just . . . I can’t . . . I can’t.”

I launched myself off the platform. My feet hit the wooden floor with a surprisingly loud thud. And then I ran from the room as fast as my jelly legs would carry me. I wanted to be cocooned in my safe little cubicle again, but a bloody butler holding the biggest silver platter I’d ever seen before was blocking my path to the restroom. I turned around and ran back up the passage, ducked into one of the many lounges and slammed the door behind me.

What the hell had I just done?

I needed to lean against something quickly before I collapsed. My whole body was shaking. Dizzy. Nauseous. Hot. Cold. Sweaty. Woozy and then—

“Val. Are you okay?” It was Matt! “What’s wrong? You don’t look well.” I tried to look away but he reached out and took my face between his hands, tilting it up for him to see.

And that was the moment!

That was it. It was all just too much. Too much to keep bottled up inside for a second longer. I’d been locking it away, trapping it and squashing it down for so many years. And now, it was on the verge of escaping and there was nothing in the world that could stop it.

“NO! No, I am NOT okay . . . okay?” I burst into loud sobs.

“For God’s sake, tell me what’s wrong. You’re worrying me.” Matt looked genuinely concerned. Friend concerned. My heart snapped and then so did I.

“Don’t you see?” I wailed through loud and very messy sobs. “Have you still not got it, Matt?” My sobs grew louder still.

“See what? Got what?” He seemed genuinely confused. Was he really that blind?

Have you ever watched a TV program where they show a time-lapse video of a plant bursting out of a tiny seed? It grows bigger, and bigger, until you wonder how the hell something so big could have come out of something so small. It seems to defy all the laws of nature. That’s what it was like when I finally opened my mouth. The words and feelings that had been locked away for so long were enormous and endless. They burst into the space between us and filled the entire room.

“I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU! OKAY? IN LOVE WITH YOU. I’ve been in love with you from the second I saw you, and you kissed me and I haven’t stopped loving you every second of every day since then. And now you’re getting married to Samantha who is perfect and beautiful and I hate her for it! I hate her because you love her and not me. And we’re so perfect for each other. We spend all our free time together, but you still don’t see it. Why can’t you love me? Love me—”

I stopped when I heard it. It sounded like my voice was echoing through the rooms. Bouncing back and forth. Clearly, I was hearing things. I let out a loud, frustrated wail and it came straight back to me.

“What the . . .?” I looked up to see where the sound was coming from. Something was very, very wrong here.

“Hello?” I asked tentatively, and my voice answered right back with the same Hello.

I opened the door and stepped out into the passage again, trying to ascertain where the hell the sound was coming from.

“Ssshhhhh,” I whispered and heard it immediately. It was as if the voice of God was repeating every single word that I was saying . . .

Holy crap!

In one earth-shattering moment, I realized what was going on. I looked down at my dress, and there it was . . . the mic. Still pinned to me.

My breath started coming out in short, sharp, ragged spurts, and I followed the sound of it up the passage and into a room.

The room.

Everyone swung around and glared at me in absolute horror. Their faces were smeared with shock and utter disbelief. I felt the hot flames start at my feet, sweeping up my legs, my torso and finally my face. Suddenly, I was as sober as hell. I tried to open my mouth to speak, “I . . . I . . . I . . . Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

16 Feb.

Dear Diary,

I’m confused. And mildly alarmed. I staged several walk-bys past apartment 18 in the last two days, but no sign of him. Am starting to wonder if he’s one of these moochers that doesn’t have a job? Like from the Dr. Phil show, “My 35-year-old moocher son is living on my couch and now he’s also hearing voices” kind of thing.

I drew the line at knocking on the door, didn’t want him to think I was crazy . . . says the girl who staged multiple walk-bys. I can’t help it, though. Have not been able to stop thinking about that kiss. Something happened during it. I can’t quite explain it. But I’ve never felt anything like it before, and I’m desperate to see him again.

Anyhoo . . . I need to finish an article about the A-Spot. Yes, that is an actual thing. And did you know, only 11% of all woman have found it? (I’m in that 11%, btw.) Got to run, need to help the other 89% navigate their way in the new sexual, alphabet soup.

More later . . .



My foot hit the perfectly manicured lawn, and my heel immediately dug into the fresh, wet soil. I felt my body falling forward and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from falling on my . . .

Face. Dammit!

The feeling of cold soil smearing across the side of my cheek was actually a welcome relief to the feeling of nauseating embarrassment that had been surging through me in waves since I’d run from the room. Run away from all of those eyes. Judging eyes, appalled eyes and, worst of all, amused ones. The shock and horror I could (almost) handle—I could certainly understand it—however, it was the amused looks that made me feel the worst.

But clearly, my speedy getaway wasn’t exactly going as planned. I crawled onto my hands and knees, trying to pull my shoe free, but it was in too deep. I slipped my foot out of the shoe and took my other one off too, cursing the fact that I’d departed from my usual flats in the first place. I stood up and looked back at the building to make sure that no one had witnessed my fall, only, they had. My stomach plummeted when I saw some familiar eyes staring at me from behind the glass.

I turned as quickly as possible and continued my now shoeless escape. I ran across the lawn to where my rental car was parked.

I needed to get out of there.

I found my tiny red Kia sandwiched between a huge, shiny Lexus with a number plate that read “DIVORCED” and a Porsche 911 with a number plate that read “THE BOSS.” Had I been myself, I would have rolled my eyes and made a note to write an article about what personalized number plates really said about you. But I wasn’t myself. My little Kia and I needed out of there . . . and if I were to choose a license plate right now, it would have to have been FML.

I put my shoes on the bonnet of the car and frantically dug through my handbag for the set of unfamiliar car keys, but couldn’t find them.

Shit! Please, please, please don’t let me have left them back inside. I begged and pleaded with whatever benevolent force was out there—someone, anyone—although I seriously doubted benevolent forces were listening to me tonight. Oh no! ’Twas the night of dark, malevolent forces. ’Twas the night that hell cracked open the Earth and sucked me into its fiery, flaming pits. ’Twas messed up AF!

Without thinking it through, I tipped the contents of my handbag onto the bonnet of the car, and as predicted—had I been in the right state of mind for such logical deductions—everything, including my shoes, slid languidly down the curved bonnet and bounced to the floor below like dropped marbles.

“Fuck it!” I cursed again and dropped to my hands and knees, trying to reclaim the contents of my bag. But the stuff had spread so far and wide that it would have taken me ages to get it all. So I prioritized; wallet, make-up bag, tampons and shoes . . . Wait, where the hell was my other shoe?

I scanned the floor. Good news, I could now see the car keys. Bad news, I had to flatten myself like a pancake and slither under the car to retrieve them, scraping my body on the rough gravel as I went. I looked around one last time for my other shoe, but when I realized that it was truly nowhere to be seen, I climbed into the car as fast as I could and turned the engine on. I would love to say that the beast roared to life with a sense of urgency, but it didn’t. It kind of flickered on like a little one-watt light bulb.

I tossed my shoe over my shoulder and heard it thud against the backseat, and that’s when I felt the first punch in my stomach and tightening in my throat. No! I willed it away as hard as I could and started reversing, but as soon as I did . . .

“Shit!”

DIVORCED had parked so close to me that I was barely able to inch my way back. I ground the car into first, I hadn’t driven a manual in years. I swung the steering wheel as hard and far as I could—no power steering either—and started inching forward.

“Double shit!”

THE BOSS was also too close. I stared back at the restaurant. I had three options: One, go back inside and find out whose cars these were and ask them to move, not going to happen; two, I could abandon the car here, catch an Uber and come back for it in the morning; or three, I could somehow yoga-move my way out of this.

And so I did. I began the tiring near-ten-point turn that I was forced to make in order to extricate myself from the clutches of these cars. I was finally almost out, and maybe it was because I was so desperate to go and so excited that I almost was free, that I collided with it.

The sound of my little car scraping against DIVORCED’s rear bumper was ear-splitting and made my teeth tingle, as if I’d just bitten into an unripe banana.

“No! NO! No!” I looked around to see if anyone had seen me—the. . .