"I'm Holly," she mumbled and took his hand lightly, not wanting to be overly rude.

"Holly, that's a lovely name." He held her hand for much too long and Holly was forced to look up into his eyes. He had big blue sparkly eyes.

"Eh...thanks," she said, embarra.s.sed by his compliment, and her face flushed.

Charlie sighed to himself. Even she had fallen for it, his only hope of satisfaction for the night gone.

"Can I buy you a drink, Holly?" Steve asked smoothly.

"No thanks, I have one here." She sipped on her water again.

"OK, well, I'm just going to bring these drinks down to my table and then I'll be back to buy the lovely Holly a drink." He smiled at her creepily as he walked away. Charlie rolled his eyes as soon as he turned his back.

"Who the h.e.l.l is that eejit?" Holly asked, looking bewildered, and Charlie laughed, delighted that she hadn't fallen for him. She was a lady with sense even if she was crying because she missed her husband after only one day of separation.

Charlie lowered his voice, "That's Stevie, boyfriend of that blond b.i.t.c.h who was here a minute ago. Her dad owns this hotel, which means I can't exactly tell her where to go, although I would love to. Not worth losing my job over."

"Definitely worth losing your job over, I should think," Holly said, staring at the beautiful woman and thinking nasty thoughts. "Anyway, good night, Charlie."

"You off to bed?"

She nodded. "It's about time; it's after six," she tapped on her watch. "I hope you get home soon," she smiled.

"I wouldn't bet on it," he replied and watched her leave the bar. Stevie followed after her and Charlie, thinking this was suspicious, made his way closer to the door just to make sure she was OK. The blonde, noticing her boyfriend's sudden departure, left her table and arrived at the door with Charlie at the same time. They both stared down the corridor in the direction Holly and Stevie had headed.

The blonde gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.

"Hey!" Charlie called out angrily as he witnessed a distressed Holly pushing a drunken Stevie away from her. Holly angrily wiped her mouth, disgusted with his attempts to kiss her. She backed away from him. "I think you've got the wrong idea here, Stevie. Go back to the bar to your girlfriend."

Stevie wobbled slightly on his feet and slowly turned to face his girlfriend and an angry Charlie, who was charging toward them.

"Stevie!" she shrieked. "How could you?!" She ran from the hotel with tears streaming down her face. She was closely followed by a protesting Stevie.

"Uggghh!" Holly said with disgust to Charlie. "I did not want to do that at all!"

"Don't worry, I believe you," Charlie said, placing his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. "I saw what happened through the door."

"Ah well, thanks very much for coming to my rescue!" Holly complained.

"Got here too late, sorry. But I must admit, I did enjoy her witnessing that," he laughed, referring to the blonde, and bit his lip feeling guilty.

Holly smiled as she stared down the corridor at Stevie and his frantic girlfriend screaming and fighting with each other.

"Oops," she said, smiling at Charlie.

Holly knocked into everything in the bedroom as she tried to make her way back to her bed in the darkness. "Ouch!" she yelped, stubbing her toe on the bedpost.

"Sshhh!" Sharon said sleepily and Holly grumbled all the way to her bed.

She tapped Denise on the shoulder continuously until she woke up.

"What? What?" Denise moaned sleepily.

"Here." Holly forced a mobile phone in Denise's face. "Phone your future husband, tell him you love him and don't let the girls know."

The next day Holly and Sharon went for a long walk on the beach just outside Galway city. Although it was October, the air had warmth in it and Holly didn't need her coat. She stood in a long-sleeved top and listened to the water gently lapping. The rest of the girls had decided to go for a liquid lunch and Holly's stomach wasn't quite ready for that today.

"Are you OK, Holly?" Sharon approached her from behind and wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders.

Holly sighed. "Every time someone asks me that question, Sharon, I say, "I'm fine, thank you," but to be honest, I'm not. Do people really want to know how you feel when they ask how are you? Or are they just trying to be polite?" Holly smiled. "The next time the woman across the road from my house says to me, "How are you?" I'm going to say to her, "Well, actually I'm not very well at all, thank you. I'm feeling a bit depressed and lonely. p.i.s.sed off at the world. Envious of you and your perfect little family but not particularly envious of your husband for having to live with you." And then I'll tell her about how I started a new job and met lots of new people and how I'm trying hard to pick myself up but that I'm now at a loss about what else to do. Then I'll tell her how it p.i.s.ses me off when everyone says time is a healer when at the same time they also say absence makes the heart grow fonder, which really confuses me, because that means that the longer he's gone the more I want him. I'll tell her that nothing is healing at all and that every morning I wake up in my empty bed it feels like salt is being rubbed into those unhealing wounds." Holly took a deep breath. "And then I'll tell her about how much I miss my husband and about how worthless my life seems without him. How uninterested I am in getting on with things without him, and I'll explain how I feel like I'm just waiting for my world to end so that I can join him. She'll probably just say, "Oh that's good," like she always does, kiss her husband good-bye, hop into her car and drop her kids at school, go to work, make the dinner and eat the dinner, and go to bed with her husband and she'll have it all done while I'm still trying to decide what color shirt to wear to work. What do you think?" Holly finally finished and turned to Sharon.

"Oooh!" Sharon jumped and her arm flew away from Holly's shoulders.

"Oooh?" Holly frowned. "I say all that and all you can say is 'Oooh'?"

Sharon placed her hand over her b.u.mp and laughed. "No, you silly, the baby kicked!"

Holly's mouth dropped open.

"Feel it!" Sharon giggled.

Holly placed her hand over Sharon's swollen belly and felt the tiny little kick. Both their eyes filled with tears.

"Oh Sharon, if only every minute of my life were filled with perfect little moments like this I would never moan again."

"But Holly, n.o.body's life is filled with perfect little moments. And if it were, they wouldn't be perfect little moments. They would just be normal. How would you ever know happiness if you never experienced downs?"

"Oooh!" they both shrieked again as the baby kicked for a third time.

"I think this little boy is going to be a footballer like his daddy!" Sharon laughed.

"Boy?" Holly gasped. "You're having a boy?"

Sharon nodded happily and her eyes glistened. "Holly, meet baby Gerry. Gerry, meet your G.o.dmother Holly."

FORTY-FOUR.

"HI, ALICE," HOLLY SAID, HOVERING in front of her desk. Holly had been standing there for a few minutes now and Alice hadn't said a word yet.

"Hi," Alice said shortly, refusing to look up at her.

Holly took a deep breath. "Alice, are you mad at me?"

"No," she said shortly again. "Chris wants to see you in his office again. He wants you to write another article."

"Another article?" Holly gasped.

"That's what I said."

"Alice, why don't you do it?" Holly said softly. "You're a fantastic writer. I'm sure if Chris knew you could write he would def -"

"He knows," she interrupted.

"What?" Holly was confused. "He knows you can write?"

"Five years ago I applied for a job as a writer, but this was the only job going. Chris said if I hung on then maybe something would come up." Holly wasn't used to seeing the usually chirpy Alice looking so...upset wasn't even the word. She was just angry.

Holly sighed and made her way into Chris's office. She had a sneaking suspicion she would be writing this one all on her own.

Holly smiled as she flicked through the pages of the November magazine she had worked on. It would be out in the shops tomorrow, the first of November, and she felt so excited. Her first magazine would be on the shelves and she could also open Gerry's November letter. Tomorrow would be a good day.

Although she had only sold the ad s.p.a.ce, she felt great pride in being a member of a team that managed to produce something so professional-looking. It was a far cry from that pathetic leaflet she had printed up years ago and she giggled at the memory of mentioning it in her interview. As if it would impress Chris at all. But despite all that she felt she had really proven herself. She had taken her job by the reins and guided it through to success.

"It's nice to see you looking so happy," Alice snapped, strolling tartly into Holly's office and throwing two little sc.r.a.ps of paper onto her desk. "You got two calls while you were out. One from Sharon and one from Denise. Please tell your friends to call you on your lunch break, as it's a waste of time for me."

"OK, thanks," Holly said, glancing at the messages. Alice had scrawled something completely illegible, most likely on purpose. "Hey, Alice!" Holly called after her before she slammed the door behind her.

"What?" she snapped.

"Did you read the article on the launch? The photos and everything turned out great! I'm really proud," Holly grinned broadly.

"No, I have not!" Alice said, looking disgusted, and she slammed the door behind her.

Holly giggled and chased her out of the office with the magazine in her hand.

"But look at it, Alice! It's so good! Daniel will be so happy!"

"Well whoopdeedoo for you and Daniel," Alice snapped, busying herself with random bits of paper at her desk.

Holly rolled her eyes. "Look, stop being such a baby and read the d.a.m.n thing!"

"No!" Alice huffed.

"Fine then, you won't see the photo of you with that gorgeous half-naked man then..." Holly turned and walked away slowly.

"Give me that!" Alice snapped the magazine from Holly's hand and flicked through the pages. Her jaw dropped as she reached the page of the Blue Rock launch.

At the top of the page it read 'Alice in Wonderland&rsquo, with the photograph of her and the muscular model that Holly had taken.

"Read it out loud," Holly ordered.

Alice's voice shook as she began to read: "A new Alco pop has. .h.i.t the shelves and our party correspondent Alice Goodyear went to find out if the hot new drink for winter was as it claimed to be..." She trailed off and her hands flew to her mouth in shock. "Party correspondent?" she squealed.

Holly called Chris out of his office and he came out to join them, a broad grin on his face.

"Well done, Alice; that was a fantastic article you wrote. It was very amusing," he told her with a pat on the shoulder. "So I created a new page called Alice in Wonderland where you will go to all the weird and wonderful things you love to go to and write about them every month."

Alice gasped at them and stuttered, "But Holly..."

"Holly can't spell," Chris laughed. "You, on the other hand, are a great writer. One I should have used before now. I'm very sorry, Alice."

"Oh my G.o.d!" she gasped, ignoring him. "Thank you so much, Holly!" She threw her arms around her and squeezed her so hard Holly couldn't breathe.

Holly tried to pull Alice's arms away from around her neck and gasped for air. "Alice, this was the hardest secret to keep from anyone ever!"

"It must have been! How on earth didn't I notice this?" Alice looked at Holly, startled, then turned to Chris. "Five years, Chris," she said accusingly.

Chris winced and nodded.

"I waited five years for this," she continued.

"I know, I know." Chris looked like a chastised schoolboy and he scratched his eyebrow awkwardly. "Why don't you step into my office now and we can talk about that."

"I suppose I could do that," Alice replied sternly, but she couldn't hide the glint of happiness in her eyes. As Chris headed toward his office, Alice turned to Holly and winked before doing a quick skip behind him.

Holly made her way back to her own office. Time to get working on the December edition. "Oops!" she said, tripping over a pile of handbags lying outside her door. "What's all this?"

Chris made a face as he stepped out of his office to make Alice a cup of tea for a change. "Oh they're John Paul's handbags."

"John Paul's handbags?" Holly giggled.

"It's for the article he's doing on this season's handbags, or something stupid like that." Chris pretended not to have an interest.

"Oh, they're gorgeous," Holly said, bending down to pick one up.

"Nice, aren't they?" John Paul said, leaning against the door frame of his office.

"Yeah, I love this one," Holly said, sliding it over her shoulder. "Does it suit me?"

Chris made another face. "How can a handbag not suit someone; it's a handbag for Christ's sake!"

"Well then, you'll have to read the article I'm writing next month, won't you?" John Paul wagged a finger at his boss, "Not all handbags suit everyone, you know." He turned to Holly, "You can have it if you want."

"For keeps?" she gasped. "This must cost hundreds."

"Yeah, but I've got loads of them, you should see the amount of stuff the designer gave me. Trying to sweeten me up with freebies; the cheek of him!" John Paul pretended to be outraged.

"I bet it works, though," Holly said.

"Absolutely, the first line of my article will be: Everybody go out and buy one, they're fab!" he laughed.

"What else have you got?" Holly tried to peek behind him into the office.