The House Swap

by Jo Lovett

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

An utterly heart-warming love story that will make you laugh and cry, fans of The Flatshare, The Hating Game and movies like The Holiday will fall head over heels for The House Swap.
When Cassie and James find each other on a home swap website, it feels meant to be. City hotshot James needs a bolthole after a relationship goes sour and Cassie needs to leave the comfort of her little island to research her new book. Soon, James is living in Cassie's cute but ramshackle beachside cottage, and Cassie's living in James's London apartment. It's the perfect solution. Except James didn't imagine he'd be sharing his home with eleven chickens and three alpacas. And Cassie is less than impressed when James's ex-girlfriend turns up at his door, demanding to know where he's gone. The more Cassie and James talk, the more the tension between them mounts. But as the insults fly so do the sparks, and when the time finally comes to swap back, Cassie and James find they aren't quite ready to give each other up.

Release date: April 19, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

‘I understand that James has a very special gift for Emily and a very special question for her.’ Emily’s mother directed a coy smile at James, replaced the mic in its stand, stepped back and ushered James forward.

James frowned. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. What did she mean by ‘special’?

He looked at the mic on the stage in front of him, and at the sea of expectant faces below. There had to be a good hundred and fifty people down there.

He glanced upwards. There were helium balloons bumping against the ballroom’s high ceiling. They weren’t three- and zero-shaped, as you might expect for a thirtieth birthday party; they were heart-shaped.

Special. Hearts.

Was he expected to ask Emily to move in with him or something?

Surely not. That would be ridiculous; they both knew their relationship wasn’t that serious.

How long had they been together now? Maybe nine months? But only loosely together. They didn’t talk a lot. They went out sometimes, they slept together; that was about it. They barely knew each other’s friends, and they were light years away from anything like exchanging an I-love-you. Except, what else would ‘special’ mean?

James looked sideways at Emily, standing just to his right. She was wearing a floor-length, shimmery-green, silky dress, very tight all the way from the strapless top down to around shin level, where it flared out at the back. Kicking room. Her hair was mainly up, with a few strands down round the sides. She was wearing a pearl choker and diamond earrings. She looked stunning.

His gaze moved back to her mother, standing just beyond her, holding a glass of champagne and beaming. What was the woman’s name? Nope, he couldn’t recall it; that was how close he and Emily were.

Like everyone else in the room, Emily’s mother was looking at him.

People were starting to murmur.

He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced down. Emily had inched her left hand towards him, with her ring finger proffered.

What? No. Couldn’t be. Was she expecting him to propose?

Emily’s mother’s words replayed in his mind. Special. No. He really hoped not. Surely not.

He took another look at Emily. She actually looked quite bridal, in a green way. And her mother’s outfit looked pretty mother-of-the-bride.

Unbelievable.

Maybe if he hadn’t been running late and preoccupied by the god-awful day he’d had at work, he might have registered some of these details when he arrived. And run for the hills.

Emily, still with the proffered finger, raised her eyebrows and jerked her head slightly in the direction of the microphone.

James didn’t move.

‘It’s probably time to make the announcement.’ The acoustics of the room were terrible. Emily’s words were still bouncing off the walls whole seconds after she’d said them.

And everyone was still waiting for James to speak.

Except there was nothing that he wanted to say, other than Goodbye. And maybe Help. Clearly, Emily had completely mistaken where they were at in their relationship. Getting married was in no way part of James’s life plan. He was pretty sure that he was a good friend, godfather and uncle. He didn’t want any commitment beyond that, and he always made that clear to girlfriends from the word go; there was no point upsetting people unnecessarily. He’d definitely made it clear to Emily. Surely.

She’d cooed over babies in buggies when they’d walked through the park a couple of weeks ago. She might have talked recently about selling her Central London flat and wanting to buy a house with several bedrooms out in Wimbledon. He also had a vague memory of her saying something about getting a dog. But, really? Should he have extrapolated from that to this? It was a big leap from there to here.

‘James?’ Emily’s voice had a nasty edge to it now.

The guests had upped the decibel level of their murmuring.

He’d better do something.

He gave a small smile around the room, reached into his pocket, pulled out Emily’s present and held it out to her.

She didn’t immediately take it, probably something to do with the fact that it was long and thin, rather than a square, Tiffany ring-shaped box.

He didn’t actually know exactly what was inside it. Presumably a necklace, given its shape. He’d given Dee, from the concierge company that he used, what had felt like a pretty generous budget – although obviously, because he wasn’t getting engaged, nowhere near what you’d spend on an engagement ring – and had asked her to buy jewellery. Dee did all his present shopping and people were always pleased with what she chose.

Emily finally took the gift. James stood staring at the wall opposite. He could hear her tearing at the ribbon and paper and clunking the box open.

‘Is this a joke?’ she hissed in his ear.

Nope. Hadn’t been. Dee had told him that Kate Middleton owned the same piece of whatever jewellery it was and had been photographed wearing it to polo matches. That had sounded ideal for Emily.

Some of the guests were sniggering. He took a sideways look at Emily. Her mouth was pinched and her cheeks were scarlet. Still beautiful, but angry-beautiful.

Her mother’s Botoxed forehead was creasing a little.

The guests were all talking quite loudly now.

Okay. James needed to wrap this up and go home. He wanted to be inside his flat, with the door closed on the rest of the world, so that he could forget that this day had ever happened. There seemed to be only one obvious way to do that.

He leaned into the mic, gave it a little ‘check the sound’s working’ tap, cleared his throat, nodded at the band, made a big conducting motion with his hands in the direction of the guests, and started to sing, ‘Happy birthday to you…’

The band obligingly struck up the tune and a lot of the guests joined in.

‘You bastard.’ Emily spat the words.

James carried on singing, staring straight ahead. There didn’t seem to be any alternative. He’d apologise and make his escape as soon as the song finished.

Emily slapped his face on the ‘dear’ of ‘dear Emily’ and, while he was still reeling – the woman had some serious strength in that arm – dug her nails into his cheek and scratched, hard, on the ‘ly’ of ‘Emily’. Impressive; he saw stars briefly.

James moved out of her reach while Emily’s mother put her arm round her daughter’s rigid shoulders and said, voice brittle and high, ‘You were supposed to be proposing.’

‘There must have been a misunderstanding,’ James said, which was extremely polite considering that Emily had just assaulted him.

The mic was obviously still on. Someone at the back of the room started cat-calling and cheering, and a fair few people joined in. Some of the other guests started booing.

In retrospect, he should have left immediately after Emily’s mother asked him onto the stage.

‘Good evening,’ he said into the mic, and walked off the stage and out of the room, to what sounded like a pretty fifty-fifty mix of cheering and booing.

Home. Thank God.

James really needed a whisky. He rarely drank by himself – in his experience, when you grew up around an alcoholic you either went that way yourself, or you were very careful to do the opposite – but today had been a shockingly bad day, this evening the icing on the crappy cake.

He sank into his favourite armchair with a glass, cradled it in his hands for a moment, then took a large sip, leaned his head back and rolled his shoulders while the fire of the alcohol spread through his body.

He looked out of the long windows over the end of Campden Hill and into Holland Park. He loved this view at night, the streetlights and sometimes the moon illuminating the park’s majestic trees, their outline sharp tonight against the black sky. Today had been one of those crisp, cloudless April days that reminded you that summer was just round the corner and how great this part of London was during those summer months.

He also loved his gloriously tidy and orderly flat – a long way from the chaos of his childhood. And he loved living alone. Just one of the many reasons that he wasn’t planning to get married.

He definitely hadn’t said anything to lead Emily to expect that he was going to propose. Or even that he was in love with her. He was certain he hadn’t. And was she really in love with him? Surely she didn’t know him well enough. It had to be his flat and his lifestyle that she’d fallen for.

He took another sip. Yes, this was good. He could hunker down for the weekend and re-group. Thank God for peace and quiet.

Right. Some TV and then bed.

A clicking sound from behind him punctured the silence. What? It sounded very similar to a key turning in a lock. And a door opening. Again, what?

‘James.’ It was Emily. In his flat.

He stood up so fast his whisky spilled onto the floor.

‘What are you doing here?’

She walked across the room towards him, smiling. ‘I came to apologise. I overreacted. I just thought that now would be the perfect time to get engaged, being our one-year anniversary.’ One year? Really? That long? ‘When we met in the club last year it was my birthday party.’ Her smile and voice had both hardened.

James shook his head. ‘How do you have a key?’ There were four spare keys to the apartment. He kept one in a drawer in the kitchen, and the other three were with his cleaner, the concierge company and his best friend, Matt.

‘You gave me one at the weekend, remember.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘James. You did. When I left the restaurant.’

He worked back through Saturday evening in his mind. Oh yes. They’d been at a dinner in nearby Notting Hill with a group of Emily’s friends, and Emily had told him that she’d left something in the flat. He’d offered to return himself for it, in fact he’d tried to insist, but she’d insisted harder, saying that she also wanted to pop to the loo and didn’t like the ones in the restaurant, and was more than happy to come back by herself.

‘You borrowed my key to pick something up,’ he said. ‘And then you gave it back. How do you still have it?’

‘I got one cut,’ she said, like he was stupid.

Right. Twenty-four-hour London. Normally a good thing, but not in this instance.

‘I’d like you to give me the key.’ He put his hand out. Emily put it inside her dress, down her cleavage.

‘Come and get it.’ She lowered her head and looked up at him from under her eyelashes. Really? Did she seriously think that she could set him up to propose to her, hit him and reveal that she’d obtained a key to his flat by deception, and then flirt for two seconds and they’d have sex?

‘I’m sorry, but it seems that we have different ideas about what we wanted from this relationship. It’s over. Could I have my key, please?’

The remainder of Emily’s smile dropped from her face and she launched herself at him. This time James was more prepared. She got in one – again impressively hard – slap to his temple before he caught her arms, spun her round and marched her to the door. He had the door closed and the deadlock on before she’d managed to get the key back into the lock.

She stayed outside, smacking the door and screaming like a banshee. Very disturbing. She hadn’t seemed drunk, but maybe she was. Hard to explain this otherwise.

Despite the way she’d ambushed him, it was hard not to feel sorry for her, but he couldn’t really see how he could help her; better to keep the door firmly shut and hope that she’d calm down soon.

‘So we’re agreed that you’re going to come over to London for a week or two. Soon.’ Jennifer had a very piercing voice. Strident. Cassie winced and turned the volume on her phone down. ‘And then we can finalise where you’re going to set the books. And finally meet.’

‘I’m not sure.’ Cassie looked at the beautiful, calm, shimmery sea through the trees at the end of her garden. What would that shade be called? Cerulean? Azure? If she could get rid of Jennifer quickly, she could get a swim in before lunch. ‘I’m really sorry but I don’t think I can set any books in London. I don’t know it at all.’

‘Really? I thought all Brits knew London.’

‘No. I’ve only ever been about three times and the last time was about ten years ago.’

‘But you were a lawyer.’

‘Yes, but all my clients were in Scotland.’

‘And you never lived in London. Ever?’

‘Nope. Before I moved here I spent my entire life in Glasgow and Edinburgh.’

‘How did I not know that?’ Probably because Jennifer didn’t ever do touchy-feely small talk. ‘Well, not a problem. Maybe you don’t have to know London to set your books here. You can use the internet and your imagination.’

‘I really don’t think I can. I know Glasgow, Edinburgh and Boston very well.’ Cassie had rented an apartment in Boston for a few months after she left Glasgow, while builders made her new home on Hawk Egg Island, Maine, habitable. ‘That’s how I’ve been able to write about them. If I wrote about London, my readers would spot my mistakes. I mean, the books are supposed to be semi-educational.’

‘Cassie. This is a fantastic deal. Six more books in your series. Huge. TV rights guaranteed. Huger. And a mega advance to match. If you need to get to know London, you’re just going to have to spend some time here. Move here for six months.’

‘Right.’ Cassie remembered too late that sarcasm was usually wasted on Jennifer.

‘Great. So you’re going to come soon? Next couple weeks?’

Seriously? Of course not. No-one decided at the drop of a hat to go and live on the other side of the world for any period of time. And Cassie didn’t want to go and live in London. She didn’t want to go to London for even just a few days. What she wanted was to stay on the island and go for a swim this morning. The weather forecasters had stated with great confidence that today was going to be the last day of this once-in-a-decade April heatwave. Snow was a lot more usual than sunbathing weather at this time of year in Maine. It probably wouldn’t be warm enough again for weeks.

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe definitely?’ Ouch. Near-perforated eardrum. Jennifer was getting more excited and her voice was getting shriller.

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Think fast. We don’t want to let this opportunity go.’

‘Okay. I’ll think soon and I’ll call you back.’ Obviously she should consider it properly. From a personal perspective, it really didn’t appeal, but from a professional perspective, she couldn’t ask for better.

‘Today?’ Honestly. Always so demanding. ‘This is going to be even bigger than your Scottish books. Edinburgh and Glasgow are great, but this is London we’re talking about. Think film rights, even more merch. That’s going to be a lot of money.’ Jennifer was big on exaggeration, but it was good money and it would be a very exciting project, if it didn’t involve an enormous and unpalatable lifestyle change for the next few months. ‘So we’ll speak later? You know what? Why don’t I call you? This afternoon. Four p.m.?’

Cassie closed her eyes. This was why Jennifer was a very successful agent. She was also, occasionally, a nice person. Cassie should remember both those things and not judge her. ‘Okay. Great.’ Wonderful. Well, she’d think about it. Actually, maybe they could compromise. Set the new books in a different big city, like New York.

Jennifer hadn’t finished. ‘And don’t tell me that we could set them in your backyard. It has to be London. Your Scottish ones sold a lot better than the Boston ones. They want British. That’s the deal.’ Mind reader as well as super-bossy. Irritating. ‘Later.’

Cassie pressed red on her phone and looked out of the kitchen window at the sea again. Realistically there was going to be no time for a swim now.

Right. It was too early for wine. She needed chocolate and she needed a list.

Pros:

Cons:

It was a lot easier to think without Jennifer shouting on the other end of the phone. Writing all your points down showed you what you needed to focus on. And that was the beauty of a list.

She stood up and opened a cupboard to grab a bar of raisin and almond chocolate.

Clearly, if she wanted to, she could sort the logistics of a move. She might get homesick and she didn’t fancy having difficult memories triggered by being back in the UK. But actually, she should probably just give herself a mental slap and do it. Four years was a long time not to have been back.

The book deal was very tempting. It would be a dream to add another six books to her MacDuff Twins series.

And being close to fertility clinics was also very tempting. It would be so much easier to be staying down the road for the duration than to be on the island and having to take numerous trips to Boston, some of them overnighters and at short notice. What if she needed to go to the clinic but there was no ferry? Plus, if she did it in London she wouldn’t have to tell anyone about it. If the whole experience reminded her of losing the baby four years ago and she started to fall apart, she’d have space to get herself back together.

God, now she was welling up. Pathetic. She put two squares of chocolate in her mouth and stood up again, to get a glass of water.

She’d just turned thirty-seven and she’d love to have children. Given the absence of attractive men beating down her door, it was looking like IVF with donated sperm was her best option. If she wasn’t spurred into beginning treatment this year, she’d no doubt faff around for the next few months, like she had last year, and then tell herself that it was silly to start it during a snowy winter.

She took the water and chocolate out into the garden to go and see the animals. The bloodroot blossom smelled amazing. And her fruit and veg were shaping up to be fantastic this year. But they’d be great next year too.

Fred, the youngest alpaca, nudged her shoulder with his face and tried to snaffle the chocolate from her hand.

‘Cheeky,’ she told him.

She was going to miss the animals.

Oh, okay, wow, so apparently she was going to do it. It felt a bit mind-boggling, but it did also feel like the right decision – the career opportunity combined with how much easier it would be to do IVF in London than here.

Jennifer’s shrill levels were going to be through the roof.

Cassie needed to start googling rentals. Good ones. The last time she’d been to London, she’d stayed in a very cheap hotel in Streatham, which had had an infestation – either large beetle or small cockroach, it had been hard to tell – round the radiator in the bathroom, a few stray short, curly hairs on the sheets, and some grim brown stains on the ceiling above the bed. In an ideal world, she’d rent a very nice and very clean flat in an appealing area of London, except that would presumably cost a fortune, and it would seem a waste not to end up with greater financial security after agreeing a lucrative deal, because writing wasn’t exactly a consistent source of income. Maybe she should let out the house here and use that money to help pay for somewhere swanky in London. And as a bonus, if she got a good tenant, that would take care of a lot of the worry about the house and garden.

Cassie gave Fred another hug, went back inside, opened up three tabs on her laptop and typed in London fertility clinics, Sperm donation UK and London leafy neighbourhoods.

And… it was the middle of the day so the Wi-Fi was down. She’d have to google later.

‘Cassie.’ Three fifty-nine on the dot.

‘Jennifer.’

‘Made your decision?’ So loud.

‘Yes, I actually have. I think I’m going to do it.’ It was as though Cassie had entered some kind of parallel reality. It still felt unbelievable that she was planning to move to London for the entire summer and hopefully start IVF. ‘I’m googling rentals as we speak.’ The Wi-Fi had sprung into action suddenly.

‘Fantastic.’ Woah. That sound. Cassie’s ear. ‘How soon can you be here? Next week?’

‘Next week? Er, no? I have a lot to organise. I think I’m going to rent my house out, and I need to work out what area of London I want to be in and then find somewhere to live. Google tells me that the world’s moved on since I last got involved in renting property.’

‘You know what you should consider?’ Jennifer’s voice was down to just moderately hideous levels of shrillness. ‘SwapBnB.’

‘SwapBnB?’

‘As it sounds.’

Cassie took a big, calming breath, and a big, calming slurp of her wine. She was nowhere near the end of a very long and very frustrating day.

Working out which things she ‘required’ in the swap she was looking for and which were ‘desirable’ had been difficult and boringly time-consuming, a lot less enjoyable than choosing an actual holiday. Cassie was fairly sure that she wanted to set her books in Hampstead and around the heath there, so she should probably rent there. Although Sod’s Law she’d arrive in London, do a bit of sightseeing and discover that she wanted to set the stories around Wimbledon Common or Blackheath or who knew where – maybe somewhere she’d never heard of – and have a one hour-plus schlep every day to check places out. So maybe she should go for somewhere central. Also, she wanted to be at least reasonably close to the clinic or hospital she was going to go to for her treatment. Did she want to be in a modern block or a period mansion? Would she rather have access to a garden or be closer to the nearest Tube station? There were a lot of variables to consider.

Writing the one-sentence blurb for the SwapBnB ad had taken the three of them over an hour, which would have been ridiculous if it had been done by some semi-literate children, and was beyond ludicrous given that Cassie was a writer and Laura a retired headmistress, and Dina, another neighbour and very close friend, ran the most successful independent dolls-house business in the world from her attic.

‘Okay. Read it to me again.’ Cassie closed her eyes to help herself focus. The ad needed to scream The perfect house swap for a luxurious London flat.

Dina cleared her throat. ‘Island house off coast of Maine with private beach, panoramic sea and headland views, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, state-of-the-art kitchen.’

‘Do we definitely think it’s okay that I just included the animals in the photos and didn’t mention them specifically in the description? Do we think it definitely isn’t mis-selling if I’ve alluded to them visually?’

‘Again, yes.’ Dina’s glossy black retro-style glamour waves haircut remained firmly in place as she nodded her head emphatically. ‘I think it’s totally fine. I mean, it isn’t like the swapper’s going to have to look after them unless they want to. And people with land often have animals like deer or moose wandering around. So, if you pay someone else to feed them, they’ll just be similar to wild deer or moose at the end of your large garden. For example.’

‘True. And you’d think everyone would love alpacas and chickens. What about the state-of-the-art thing, though? Is that pushing it?’

‘It’s a wonderful kitchen,’ Laura said. ‘My mom always wanted a kitchen like this.’ Maybe not the best indicator of modernity given that Laura was pushing eighty and had mentioned recently that it was the twenty-year anniversary of her mother’s passing at the age of eighty-five.

‘Well, thank you—’ Cassie smiled at Laura ‘—but I think it’s maybe just nice rather than state of the art. I can’t say “nice” in the description, though. This is so hard. I could literally have written an entire chapter in the time it’s taken to draft this.’

‘I think just go with it.’ Dina reached for the wine bottle and topped up their glasses. ‘I mean, it says what we want. The photos and the location will be what really sell it.’

‘And are we happy with the photos?’ Cassie asked. Taking the photos for the website had been a nightmare, because, obviously, you wanted to make your house look as alluring as possible while not mis-selling it, but, also, she didn’t want anyone other than the eventual swappee to be able to work out exactly where her house was or find out anything about her.

Simon, her ex, was a classic case of wanting what he couldn’t have, and still tried to track her down occasionally via her cousins and friends, and she didn’t want to speak to him. And fans of her MacDuff books and TV series were also sometimes keen to track her down, and Cassie didn’t want to be famous.

‘We totally are,’ Dina said.

‘Yes, I think we’re done on photography for now, sweetie,’ Laura said.

Yep. None of them had come out of the photo shoot happy. It had been fun at first but it had gone on for a long time. Laura had had to go home next door for a nap halfway through. Dina had had her nails shellacked during a trip to the mainland last week for her thirty-sixth birthday, and had broken four of them climbing up a tree for an ‘aerial view’ of the beach, and then one of the alpacas had pooed on her flip-flopped foot while she was herding it out of the way of a blueberry bush for a garden shot. And Cassie had got no work done all day and had ruined one of her favourite tops while crawling along the roof for another aerial shot. She should have got changed first.

‘Okay. I’m doing it.’ Cassie pr. . .