Under Blue Skies {Chapter 1}

Lily Sanchez was a self-proclaimed idiot. No matter how many times experience taught her that all men are the same, and no matter how perfect every relationship seemed at the start, they always ended the same way, she still wound up feeling lonely enough to long for another relationship; another insufficient, insensitive guy to fill the gaping romantic void in her life. She was still young enough to dream of the idyllic life with the perfect home and the perfect family, and the perfect picnics under blue skies, but yet she was old enough now to know that an impossible dream only makes reality that much harder to live through. Lily was not a cynic, but she recognised that idealism gains you nothing except disappointment with the world as it really is. Lily Sanchez was a realist: A self-proclaimed, idiot realist. No wonder she felt so alone.

Shaking her head to clear her mind of the blurry, early-morning philosophies that always hassled her on the way to work, Lily checked her mirrors and pushed the car up a gear. The battered Peugeot struggled on through the mist, complaining noisily and causing irreparable damage to the environment, as Lily gazed wistfully at shiny BMW convertibles and wooden framed Jags whizzing past up the fast lane. Pulling off the motorway she yawned widely and reached for her Starbucks to-go hot chocolate. She had never been any good at mornings.

Half an hour later Lily cut the engine in the office car park and released the catch on her seatbelt. Grabbing her bag from the passenger seat and slipping on a pair of sleek, black heels, she took the keys from the ignition and climbed out of the car. Chucking her empty Starbucks cup into the dustbin at the bottom of the steps Lily sighed as she resigned herself to another day of answering phone call after phone call, making sure everyone else’s problems were sorted out, whilst her own went un-noticed. That was something she could never forgive herself for; letting three years of hard work for a degree in journalism go to waste, and because of a man, of all things. Grinning ironically, Lily shoved her keys into her bag and walked into the building.