Chick-Lit Stole My Life

Chick-Lit Stole My Life

By Maureen Reil

Copyright ©2012 Maureen Reil

Updated Edition 2021

This book is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Maureen Reil asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Also by the author Maureen Reil

Chick-Lit By Any Other Name (Chick-Lit Collection)

Chick-Lit By Any Other Name 2 (Chick-Lit Collection)

Lily Loves To Love

Sleepyhead Shares A Secret

I Did Write What I Know

I Hate Me, Who Do You Hate?

Chick-Lit Saved My Life (Chick-Lit Trilogy book 1)

Chick-Lit Staged My Life (Chick-Lit Trilogy book 3)

Chick-Lit Collection

Chick-Lit Trilogy

Mistletoe And Wine (Christmas Comedy Trilogy)

Mistletoe And Wine 2 (Christmas Comedy Trilogy)

Mistletoe And Wine 3 (Christmas Comedy Trilogy)

Christmas Comedy Trilogy

Let’s Get Married (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Together (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get It Started (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Serious (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Ready To Rumble (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

Let’s Get Physical (Let’s Get Funny Fiction)

The Finch Family Short Break (Comical Vacations Book 0)

The Finch Family Holiday (Comical Vacations Book 1)

The Finch Family Holiday 2 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 3 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 4 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Holiday 5 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Easter Holiday 6 (Comical Vacations)

The Finch Family Bank Holiday 7 (Comical Vacations)

A Granny Is For Life, Not Just Christmas

Let’s Get Funny Fiction 1 (Three-Book Bundle)

Let’s Get Funny Fiction 2 (Three-Book Bundle)

Let’s Get Funny Fiction (Six-Book Box Set)

Comical Vacations 1 (Three-Book Bundle)

Comical Vacations 2 (Three-Book Bundle)

Comical Vacations 3 (Three-Book Bundle)

Wed To The Wrong Wayne

Christmas Crackers

The Desperate Dater’s Intervention

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Things Can Only Get Better

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Luck Had Nothing To Do With It

Dedicated to Scotty

Table of Contents

Week One (Saturday)

Week Two (Monday and Tuesday)

Week Three (Wednesday and Friday)

Week Four (Thursday and Sunday)

Week One

(Saturday)

Have you ever slowly raised your head up from minding the step in case you trip and looked down the lens of a big black camera? I do not mean on the telly but in real life it is one of the most obtrusive things that will ever happen to you. Well, I know it was for me and I suspect that the people around me are feeling pretty much the same thing. It is embarrassing to know that a single mishap right here, right now could end up in me having the pictures plastered across the world in minutes and I have not even had that much to drink. Oh, please do not let me give them anything to get excited about as more paparazzi rush over to greet us. Therefore, I force myself to shy away from their attention, by lifting my favourite (sparkly pink) clutch bag up to my face in a bid to shield my eyes and totally block them out. It isn’t easy let me tell you, as you’re sort of hypnotised by the flashing lights and blinded into giving them the shot whether you want to or not.

‘Show us your tits, love . . . come on, get them out for the lads,’ shouts one person in a dark blue baseball cap from up his stepladder.

‘If you want to see more, you’ll have to pay for it,’ responds Mel as she lifts her flimsy top up to show off her boobs which are happily swinging in their makeshift hammocks, otherwise known as her bra.

‘I think he means me, not you,’ I whisper to Mel but she is not listening, since she is busy basking in the limelight and enjoying every minute of it. She always was a, ‘centre-of-attention-or-nothing’ kind of girl.

‘Just ignore them and carry on walking,’ insists Cara and being the voice of reason, when all around us people are losing theirs through shouting numerous orders and questions and requests at me.

‘I’m trying to, but they won’t move out of the way,’ I reply as we struggle to get away from the old church nightclub. Who exactly thought that it was a good idea to make the effort to have a girly get-together, via an evening out on the town? Oh yeah, it was Tonya’s suggestion since she had wanted us to go out and celebrate the paperback launch of her book. I then question, who told the media? Tonya I suspect.

‘Speak to her agent,’ said Tonya but I do not have one, unlike her.

‘Has he got a big dick?’ enquires a woman reporter and trust her to ask that, since she works for one of the less scrupulous magazines.

‘No comment,’ I replied, copying what I had seen other people say in such situations. When surrounded by a pack of wolves (journalists) that are hungry for blood and guts (information) to feed to their young (readers) whilst impressing their alpha males (bosses) back at the den (office). What is the world coming to, when it is interested in the likes of little old me? Do they not have anything better to do?

‘Do you think you’ll be queen of England one day?’ enquires another male reporter and thrusting a furry microphone under my bag to frighten me. It looks like next door’s cat with a broom up its arse and the hair on it is just as grey and just as matted. I bet it smells too.

‘She’s queen of our hearts,’ answers Tonya and I wonder why she’s bothering to give them anything in return, for I’d thought that we’d agreed to just ignore them and not say anything that they could make a quote out of. Mind you, she does have a book to promote.

‘Aren’t you the author of the novel, The Prince and the Shop Girl?’ asks that guy in the dark blue baseball cap from up his stepladder.

‘Yeah, yes I am and if you haven’t read it yet. Come and purchase a signed copy next week, when I hold my debut book signing in the place where I first found my inspiration. Details are on my website,’ replies Tonya and to be truthful, I am glad that she is taking some of the attention away from me. Shame it did not last long though.

‘Mind the next step,’ says Cara by way of warning me.

‘What step? I can’t see where I’m going . . . whoa . . . whoa . . .’ I reply, just as I lose my footing for I did not realise it was right in front of us. All I could make out was the furry microphone and the continuing glare of the flashing lights. It was not all that was flashing.

I had only gone and done the very thing that I expressly did not want to do and I have given them here, everything they had wanted all in one silly move. When I had fallen down and fallen out of my low cut dress, having definitely fallen out of love with the press. I will never read another newspaper or magazine as long as I live and do not get me started on Chick-Lit books, since I now feature in one. Be it one bestseller, which I did not need to read because it tells my story.

It focuses on my short but all consuming dalliance with a real prince (that is a one-night stand to you and me) but I never suspected that when I had told Tonya about it. She would then write it all down and flesh it out completely to make one hell of a raunchy, romantic comedy novel. I am over the initial shock of her betrayal. I have agreed to forgive the fact that she did not for a second, think that anyone would know who the players were in real life. I mean, who would have guessed that Kelly Stanford became Kelsey Stoppard and Prince Arthur became Alexander? While my place of work called, Plato Ltd became Socrates Ltd. Hello; it did not take a genius to figure it out or indeed, ‘put two and two together’ to get right the four clues when also having the author of said work as my former flatmate.

Mel is simply relishing everything about this scenario. Me on the other hand, well, I had rather enjoyed my privacy and peaceful existence before all this happened and now look at my world. It is upside down and I never asked for any of this. It just sort of escalated, whereas, this word only serves to remind me of escalators and if you’ve read my previous thoughts on that subject, then you’ll know just how I feel about those particular sets of moving stairs. I still loathe them and I loathe this lot even more for making me miserable. I suppose I have nobody to blame but myself, for getting involved with the wrong person. You cannot choose who you fall for. It just is what it is and I never really expected to see him again. Okay, I did hope that it would turn into some sort of fairytale and we would get a ‘happily ever after’ but clearly it was not meant to be anything more than it was for I was destined to remain a commoner, born and bred.

No, strike that because I can hold someone else responsible and that is my ex-flatmate and friend Tonya if I am playing the blame game. If only she were not dumped by the footballer and decided to steer clear of blokes for a while, so she took up a new hobby instead and went to evening classes to learn how to write in her spare time. Then with Tonya having written that damn Chick-Lit novel and self-published it as an eBook, where by some fluke of genius it soon shot up the bestseller charts. It was not long before it had the traditional publishers chomping at the bit to sign her to a book deal in order to get their hands on the printed rights, which they hope will turn into a hit movie. While having the people who have read it, connecting the dots to come up with me liaising with the heir to the throne then none of this would have gotten about in the first place. Only it is too late to take it all back and delete the truth, because it is out there now forever more and a day.

First off, let me explain exactly how I ended up in the bed of Prince Arthur (who will no doubt, one day be king) so the press has already nicknamed me ‘Genevieve’. Do they think that I would actually have an affair with a Sir Lancelot? So far, Prince Arthur has managed to keep his private love life totally private and there has been no mention of any girlfriend or indeed ladies associated with him, other than those that he is related to seeing as the nanny doesn’t count. It seems strange to me how he has managed this, for I had wondered if he usually has them killed afterwards. I mean, he must have some sort of power to make people disappear that he does not want around any longer and I do not mean by saying ‘you’re fired’. Especially, if they are going to cause him great grief and perhaps, I just happened to slip through the net (for at one stage he did have me wrapped up in one). Only, I survived the catch. According to Tonya, I should never go to Paris and drive through a tunnel after having dinner at the ‘Ritz’. While I should steer well clear of all white cars, particularly little ones. Whatever that entails, I am not sure but she does believe in all the conspiracy theories. She joined a group online, so it must be true.

Obviously, because of getting no juicy gossip for years, the media around the world and fans of royalty alike were beyond elated to get some sort of information leaking from the palace to contradict the false persona that he presents to the globe. The authorities had them all going and it was working just fine, since no news is good news as far as they are concerned. Until I came along, that is and spoiled the illusion that the prince was saving himself for marriage to his virgin princess, like some kind of Disney movie. Honestly, who does that anymore? Seriously, he is hot and why not, I say.