ADELE PARKS was born in North Yorkshire. She is the author of twenty bestselling novels including the recent Sunday Times Number One hits Lies Lies Lies and Just My Luck. She’s an ambassador for The National Literacy Trust and a judge for the Costa. Adele has lived in Botswana, Italy and London, and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey, with her husband, son and cat. Both Of You is her twenty-first novel. Also by Adele Parks Playing Away Game Over Larger Than Life The Other Woman’s Shoes Still Thinking Of You Husbands Young Wives’ Tales Happy Families (Quick Read) Tell Me Something Love Lies Men I’ve Loved Before About Last Night Whatever It Takes The State We’re In Spare Brides If You Go Away The Stranger In My Home The Image Of You I Invited Her In Lies Lies Lies Just My Luck Short story collections Love Is A Journey Copyright An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021 Copyright © Adele Parks 2021 Adele Parks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel 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. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © May 2021 ISBN: 9780008395582 Version 2021-05-18 Note to Readers This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings: Change of font size and line height Change of background and font colours Change of font Change justification Text to speech Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008395599 For Abdu Mohammed Ali. Tech genius who saved the day. Contents Cover About the Author Booklist Title Page Copyright Note to Readers Dedication Chapter 1 2. Leigh 3. Leigh 4. Leigh 5. Leigh 6. Mark 7. DC Clements 8. Leigh 9. Kai 10. Kai 11. Kai 12. Kai 13. Kai 14. DC Clements 15. DC Clements 16. Fiona 17. Kylie 18. DC Clements 19. Kylie 20. Mark 21. Fiona 22. Oli 23. Kylie 24. DC Clements 25. Kylie 26. Daan 27. Kylie 28. Fiona 29. Kylie 30. Oli 31. Kylie 32. Daan 33. Fiona 34. DC Clements 35. Kylie 36. Fiona 37. Kylie 38. Mark 39. Fiona 40. Kylie 41. Mark 42. Kylie 43. Kylie 44. Kylie 45. DC Clements 46. Fiona 47. Kylie 48. Daan 49. Kylie 50. Fiona Extract 1. Lexi 2. Lexi 3. Lexi Acknowledgements About the Publisher 1 Tuesday 17th March 2020 I am engulfed in emptiness. I’m not in my bed. I am not in any bed. In the instant my eyes flutter open I know there is something wrong. Seriously wrong. It’s dark. I’m suspended in a threatening, airless blackness. I’m lying down but am disorientated because I’m on a cold concrete floor. A floor that looks as though it’s waiting to be tiled, but something immediately suggests to me it never will be. My mind is lazy and unable to process why I think this. I can’t remember when I last slept on a floor, a million years ago when I was a student and would bunk in another student’s room if I was too drunk to get home. I try to sit up; my limbs feel heavy, my head sore. I try to stand up but as I do so, I am yanked back down, my left hand is tethered. Chained. I hear the rattle of the chain at the same time as I feel the cold tug. Am I dreaming? My head pulses, swells and then bursts, I close my eyes again, my lids are like sandpaper scratching, I open them for a second time, giving them a chance to adjust to the darkness. Is it my dizziness that’s leaving everything unfamiliar? Shaky? I feel slow, behind myself. How much did I have to drink last night? I try to remember. I can’t. And then – this is terrifying – I realise I can’t remember last night at all. I feel sick. I can smell vomit, suggesting I have already been sick. I should not be waking to the smell of vomit. Where is the smell of my husband’s early morning breath? There is no smell of toast from the kitchen, no traces of the Jo Malone Lime Basil and Mandarin room spray that I sometimes wake to. I’m somewhere dusty, not damp, a little overwarm. Am I in a hospital? No. What sort of hospital makes patients lie on the floor, chains them? There are no sounds. My boys are not arguing in the kitchen, the TV is not blaring, no doors opening, slamming, no demands, ‘Mum, where are my football shorts?’ I wait, sometimes I wake to something more serene. Sometimes it is Radio 4 and the smell of coffee. Nothing. Alarm and horror flood through my body. My organs and limbs turn to liquid and I can’t coordinate my movements. None of us are that naive anymore. The news doesn’t always enlighten or inform, often it terrifies. My foggy mind realises I must have been drugged. I have been abducted. The terrible thing that you read about that happens to someone else – someone other – has happened to me. Panicked, I tug hard at the chain, there’s no give. I scramble about in the darkness. Trying to understand my environment. I can’t move far because of the chain, which is attached to a radiator at one end and through a zip tie that is tight around my wrist on the other. The chain is about a metre long. As my eyes adjust, I see that I am in a room that is about three metres long by just over two, like a standard guest room. The walls are manila. It is clean and bare. I am not in a derelict warehouse or
