She’s found the perfect man . . . There’s just one big twist. Packed with heart, charm, and Cousens’s signature humour, and is witty exploration of love, second chances, and finding your place in the world.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from And Then There Was You by Sophie Cousens, which releases on November 18th 2025.
Stuck in a Production Assistant job and living at home with her parents after a painful breakup, thirty-one-year-old Chloe Fairway isn’t where she wants to be in life. The last thing she needs is to face the people who once voted her “most likely to succeed” at her upcoming ten-year college reunion. And she definitely doesn’t want to see her former best friend, Sean Adler, who is now a hotshot film director living the life Chloe dreamed of. Desperate to make a splash—and to save face in front of the man who might be the one that got away—she turns to a mysterious dating service.
Enter Rob, her handsome, well-read, and charming match, the perfect plus-one to take to her reunion. The more she gets to know him, the more perfect he appears to be. Could it be that this dating service knows her better than she knows herself? And can she overlook the one big catch? As Chloe reconnects with old friends, she begins to question everything she thought she wanted. Maybe, just maybe, revisiting the past is exactly what she needs to move forward.
Chapter 1
Dating in your thirties can feel like a relentless game of romantic musical chairs. It starts out quite fun, but then the music gets too loud, and all the good, well-adjusted, stable chairs start disappearing. You’re left with a room full of wobbly three-legged stools that are probably going to give you splinters. You begin to panic, it feels like a race you can’t all win—what if you’re the last one standing with nowhere to sit? Maybe you should just grab the first chair you can, even if it looks uncomfortable, smells, and gives you little to no support. Because you’re tired and it might be better than the floor.
Chloe Fairway was only too familiar with the chair dilemma. Which is why she found herself heading into Soho on a Wednesday night to meet “Tom, 36,” even though she’d much rather have been at home eating buttered toast and watching The Traitors in her pajamas. Because she knew that if you wanted to find love you had to keep dancing, keep swiping, keep “putting yourself out there.” Because the next guy might just be the perfect chair for you, the one that you could cozy up in for the rest of your life, the one that made all those uncomfortable chairs worthwhile.
From his profile picture, and the few texts they’d exchanged, Tom seemed . . . hopeful. Though the first rule of online dating was not to get your hopes up. You had to go in with low expectations. Chloe got to the pub early and chose a table near the window, away from the noise of the TV blaring behind the bar. Tom had picked the venue. She wouldn’t have chosen a place like this, with the football playing, sticky carpets, and a happy hour where everyone looked miserable.
She checked her reflection using her phone camera, then frowned. She’d rushed from work, still dressed in her standard uniform: skinny black jeans, gray blouse, hair scraped into a bun. At home, her wardrobe was full of vintage blouses, wide-legged trousers, cute capes, and colorful cloche hats. But those belonged to a version of herself she rarely got to be. At the end of her first week at McKenzie and Sons, her boss had informed her she would need to dress more professionally. Her hair needed to be up—loose, it was “a distraction”—and her colorful clothes were “too theatrical.” So she’d dulled her weekday palette to a safe blur, tamed her curls into a respectable bun, and played the role of “sensible PA.”
Now she did what she could. She unpinned her hair, shook out her long auburn curls, then applied a swipe of red lipstick. What was it Coco Chanel said—“If you’re sad, add more lipstick and attack”? Chloe didn’t know what she was supposed to be attacking, and suspected Coco Chanel had never had to contend with internet dating, but the sentiment felt empowering.
Tom arrived, fourteen minutes late, clutching a bicycle helmet as he scanned the bar. His blond hair, damp with sweat, was slicked across a lightly freckled forehead. When he spotted her, he waved, then smiled, revealing two prominent canine teeth. Those fangs had not been visible on his profile picture. No. Do not judge someone on their teeth. It’s personality that counts.
“Hi, Chloe?” Tom said, hurrying over to her. “Am I late?”
“No, no, I only just got here myself.” She lied. Because that was the second rule of online dating: don’t sweat the small stuff.
As she stood up to greet him, she braced for his reaction. Her height was clearly listed on her profile, but men often failed to register it. She’d been greeted on first dates with “Whoa, it’s the BFG!” and “You didn’t say you were plus-sized.” Chloe was a slim five foot ten, but she had broad shoulders and big hair, so the whole effect was that of someone who took up space in the world. Luckily, on this occasion, Tom didn’t react, he just gave her a sweaty hug. He smelled faintly of cigarettes, despite listing himself as a nonsmoker.
“So, Tom—” she began, but he was already rising from his chair.
“Sorry, do you mind if we swap seats? Just so I can keep half an eye on the score?” he asked, nodding toward the television. Chloe did mind. If he’d wanted to watch the game, he shouldn’t have arranged to meet her. But she said “sure” and relinquished her chair. There was no point starting things off on the wrong note.
“So, have you come far?” she asked him, trying not to mind about the seat swapping.
“Yeah, Hackney,” he said, snapping his fingers at the bartenders.
“I think we need to go up, order at the bar,” she said.
“Ah, okay,” he said, making no move to get up.
“I’ll go, shall I? What would you like?” she offered.
“Pint, lager, thanks. I’ll get the next ones,” he said, flashing her a toothy grin. Chloe walked to the bar with a heaviness in her step. This was the worst part, when you knew straightaway that it was a no, but you still had to spend a polite amount of time in the person’s company. She pictured her cozy seat on the sofa next to her dad, the chocolate Easter egg she hadn’t eaten yet, the Traitors theme tune starting . . . No, don’t torture yourself, it will only make it worse.
It seemed to Chloe that in the two years she had been off the market, the dating arena had morphed into a hellscape. Either that, or post thirty, the pool had shrunk to a puddle. In the last three months alone, she had been stood up, ghosted, and sent all manner of explicit, unsolicited photos. She’d met men so lacking in basic decency, she genuinely wondered how they convinced anyone to sleep with them. Belchers, groin scratchers, men who swore constantly, men who asked no questions and had little idea of what was going on in the world. These experiences made her fear she would always be alone, but they also made her fear for humanity. Where had all the good men gone?
“Love your hair,” the bartender said as she poured Chloe a glass of wine. She had a sharp black pixie cut, a nose ring, and smudged mascara beneath her eyes.
“Thanks,” Chloe said, noticing a rose tattoo curled around the woman’s wrist. “I love your tattoo.” They shared a brief smile, and Chloe watched the barmaid reach a finger to her ear, as if trying to block out the noise from the TV overhead.
“Hey, lady, can you turn this up?” said a man in a baseball cap, perched at the bar.
The bartender gave him a tight smile and clicked the volume up a single notch before turning back to Chloe.
“Just give it here,” the man said, motioning for the remote. But Chloe reached across the bar and plucked it up first.
“I got it,” she said sweetly, turning the volume down three notches.
“Hey, lady!” the man cried.
Chloe shot him her most charming smile. “I can’t hear myself order. Give me two minutes?” He looked ready to argue but then turned back to the TV with a scowl.
“Thanks,” the barmaid whispered, as she poured Chloe a pint. “I always get a headache when the football’s on.”
Without a word, Chloe slipped the remote into her lap, popped out one of the batteries, and wrapped it inside a folded five-pound note. She passed it to the barmaid, who let out a soft laugh and gave her an appreciative smile. Then Chloe cheerily passed the remote back to the man in the cap. “Enjoy the game.”
Back at the table, Tom reached for his pint, then finally turned his attention to her.
“What you reading then?” he asked, nodding toward the paperback poking out of her bag.
“Little Women,” she told him. “Well, rereading, it’s one of my favorites.”
“You should try the sequel, Big Men, it’s much better,” Tom said, guffawing at his own joke. She smiled politely and tightened her grip on her wineglass. “You a bookworm or something then?”
“I guess so,” she replied, trying to stay open-minded. Maybe he was the kind of guy who seemed awful at first but you could acquire a taste for—like oysters or tequila. “Have you read anything good lately?”
Tom exhaled loudly. “I don’t have much time to read. Started this book about Formula One, how it got started and that, but it was average. I prefer podcasts.” Tom’s face became animated. “Have you listened to Joe Rogan? He’s so funny.”
“I hear he’s popular,” Chloe said, feeling her soul crawl into the fetal position.
“So, what do you do for cashisho, Chloe?” Tom asked, and as he clasped his pint glass, she noticed his fingers—short pudgy sausage fingers. She had a thing about hands.
“Cashisho?” she repeated, trying to keep her eyes on his face.
“Cash. Moola. Money.” He rolled his eyes. “What do you do for work?”
“Oh, I’m a PA for a film producer,” she said, knowing she’d already told him this over text. “But I’m hoping it’s going to be a stepping stone to more creative things. I really want to be a writer—plays, screenplays.”
“You don’t want to be a writer,” he said flatly, picking his teeth.
“I do,” she said, blanching.
“Nah, it’s a shrinking sector. AI will be writing everything soon anyway. You’re better off looking for something tech-proof,” he said, his eyes flitting around her face, assessing her. “You could be a model, I reckon, if you straightened your hair.”
“But I don’t want to be a . . .” She trailed off, swallowing her irritation. What was the point? She forced a smile. “How about you? You said you were in the army? That must be interesting.”
“Yup, corporal,” Tom said, flexing his arm muscles. “It’s good, plenty of travel. But there’s too much politics these days.” His mouth twisted into a sneer. “The woke brigade have got a lot to answer for. I’m not against women being in the army, but if you want to join, you’ve got to be one of the lads, haven’t you? You can’t expect special treatment. If you’re on the front line, you can’t start crying if someone calls you ‘love.’”
Chloe swallowed. He’d seemed normal over text, nice even. She glanced across to the bar. The man in the cap was jabbing at the remote, clearly baffled. Chloe turned back to Tom just as he took a noisy slurp of his pint, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Was this fiction’s fault? Had reading ruined men for her? Once you’d been introduced to Gabriel Oak, Mr. Rochester, and her dear George Emerson, how were you meant to settle for this?
“I’m just going to nip to the loo,” she said, picking up her bag.
“Knock yourself out,” Tom replied, already half-turned back to the TV.
Chloe always tried to stay on a date for at least forty-five minutes. Any less just felt too rude. But if she could tell, as she did now, that even forty-five minutes was going to be an endurance test, she allowed herself an extra-long bathroom break to sneak in a chapter of her book. Glancing back at the table, she doubted Tom would even notice she was gone.
In the bathroom, Chloe glanced at her phone. Her photo app had compiled a memory reel titled “On this Day.” The first image was of her and Peter lying on a sun lounger in Tenerife the year before. She was curled into his chest, wearing just a bikini, squinting up at the camera. He had one arm around her, and he was kissing her head as he took the selfie. They both looked so happy. Peter would never have tried to watch the football game during a date; he was stickler for manners. He opened doors, he asked questions, he made eye contact.
She quickly closed her phone. This wasn’t helping, and those photos certainly didn’t tell the whole story. Instead, she climbed onto the old Victorian radiator next to the sink and pulled out Little Women—a safer kind of fantasy. The radiator let out a reassuring clonk sound.
“Yes, he is a bit of a clonk,” Chloe muttered.
“Clonk clonk,” said the radiator. And already, she was having a better conversation with the radiator than she’d been having back in the bar.
She was only several pages into a chapter when she became aware of someone else entering the room. A striking woman with long, dark hair and pale, freckled skin was smiling at her from across the tiled floor.
“Chloe?” the woman said, eyes wide with delight. “Oh, I thought it was you!”
Chloe blinked. She couldn’t place her. “Wendy,” the woman offered, not the least bit offended.
“Wendy?” Chloe asked, eyebrows lifting in surprise.
Wendy had freelanced as a producer at McKenzie and Sons a few years back. Chloe had liked her, she was bubbly and always brought home-baked biscuits to work on a Friday. The only reason Chloe hadn’t recognized her now was because she looked completely different. The Wendy she remembered was a bit, well, frumpy, with limp, gray-streaked hair and a permanently defeated posture. This Wendy looked . . . radiant. Toned. Confident. She also looked ten years younger.
“I know, I know,” Wendy said, doing a twirl. “I made some changes.”
She moved to the sink and began washing her hands—slowly, with deliberate movements, lathering soap between her long, graceful fingers. Chloe caught sight of the smartwatch on her wrist: sleek, iridescent, clearly expensive.
“But what are you doing in here?” Wendy asked, watching Chloe in the mirror. “Are you avoiding someone?”
“Bad date,” Chloe admitted.
“Sleazy or boring?” Wendy asked, her tone light and knowing.
“Rude,” Chloe said.
“Poor love. How long have you been looking?” The question landed harder than Chloe expected, and she was struck by Wendy’s choice of words.
“Too long,” she said, quietly.
“I know that feeling,” said Wendy, drying her hands on a paper towel with the same precision she’d used to wash them. The bathroom was nicer than you might expect, given the decor in the pub: there was moisturizer as well as soap, and even a magnifying mirror for doing makeup. Wendy took a moment to moisturize her hands. Then she stepped forward and pressed soft, clean hand over Chloe’s. This tactile display of empathy pushed Chloe over some edge she hadn’t even known she’d been teetering on. A sob rose unbidden as Wendy’s sympathy untethered the full weight of her loneliness, and she lifted a hand to her mouth, trying to keep it in.
“Sorry,” she said briskly. “I’m fine, it’s just one date, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“It’s not just one date, though, is it,” Wendy said, tilting her head, eyes trained on Chloe’s face. “It’s the opportunity cost, the evening you don’t get back, the hope, the anticipation, the ‘what if?’ extinguished again and again. It’s walking home deflated, wondering if you have the energy to do it all again. It’s wondering if all men are awful, or if your standards are just too high.”
“Yes. Exactly,” Chloe whispered, her voice cracking.
Wendy enveloped her in a long-limbed hug. It was so unexpected, but Chloe found herself leaning into it, breathing in the expensive scent of almond oil in Wendy’s hair. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been hugged by someone other than her parents.
“Never apologize for wanting more,” Wendy said into her shoulder.
When she released Chloe from the hug, she turned to retrieve her handbag from the sink. From an inner pocket, she pulled out a small gray business card, gilt edged with a gold “PP” embossed in the center and a QR code below it. “I’m not really supposed to do this,” Wendy said, biting her lip as she passed the card to Chloe.
“What is it?” Chloe asked.
“It’s the future,” Wendy said. “Trust me, it will change your life, it changed mine.” She gestured toward her own reflection. Chloe raised an eyebrow.
“But what’s PP?”
“Perfect Partners. It’s a dating service,” Wendy said, lowering her voice, “but it isn’t like anything you’ve ever tried—”
Her phone buzzed and Wendy glanced at the screen and smiled. “Just coming, sweetie,” she said as she answered it, then quickly reapplied her lip gloss in the mirror, before turning back to Chloe. “You need a referral to get an appointment. Just give my name.”
Then she blew Chloe an air kiss, pressed a finger to her lips, and whispered, “Shhh, don’t tell the men.” Then she was gone, heels clicking against the tile, hair swishing behind her.
Chloe looked down at the card, intrigued. She pulled out her phone and scanned the QR code. A web page blinked open. The logo read Perfect Partners, the font sleek and futuristic. The home page was populated with images of incredibly attractive people. Underneath was a single line of text.
Looking for the perfect partner? Don’t wait for fate. Take happiness into your own hands.
The website gave no further details about what the company was offering, how to sign up, or what it cost. Just a number to call and a message: For inquiries, please call to book a consultation. Whatever Perfect Partners was, she couldn’t find anything about it on Google. She could only find something called Perfect Partnerz with a “Z” that was a tacky adult website. Whereas this looked exclusive, discreet, and like something Chloe definitely couldn’t afford. But after seeing Wendy, she felt inspired—inspired not to waste another minute of her evening with Sausage Fingers.
Back in the bar, she returned to the table but didn’t sit down, she just picked up her jacket and said, “I have to go.”
“How come?” Tom asked, eyebrows knitted in incomprehension.
“Because I feel lonelier here with you than I would on my own.” She gave him a tight smile. “Oh, and I did mind that you were late and that you asked to swap seats. Enjoy the game.” Then she turned and she walked out of the door without a backward glance.
When she got back to Richmond, the house was dark. Her parents must have already gone to bed. Her family home was a ramshackle sixteenth-century cottage, half-swallowed by wisteria, sandwiched between two grand Queen Anne mansions. It looked misplaced on the street, as though the world had evolved around it but the house had stubbornly refused to budge. Chloe loved that about it, and when she’d moved out of Peter’s, it was the only place she’d wanted to go.
Letting herself in, she crept through to the kitchen. The dishwasher had finished, so she took a moment to empty it, then laid out a cafetière, bowls, and cutlery for breakfast. On instinct, she pulled a Post-it note from the phone table, scribbled FARTS BEAK, and stuck it to her dad’s chair. They had taken to writing each other anagrams after reading an article that claimed it could help ward off dementia.
Upstairs, she sat down on her childhood bed and looked around at all the mementos of her youth. The framed drama awards above her dressing table, the fake Oscar Sean had given her in first year. Photographs of long-lost friends, their faces plump with youth. She stood up and peeled one photo from the mirror—the Lincoln gang in their second year at Oxford, when they’d all still been close. The four of them were dressed in costume for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Chloe had played Puck; Akiko, Titania; and Sean, Bottom. John, their music director, wore a green velvet smoking jacket and a crown of ivy.
She looked at herself in the photo: twenty years old, so full of confidence and conviction. Back then, she’d been sure she was going to be an actress or a writer, that she would lead a creative, fulfilling life. And that love, the kind you read about, would be just around the corner. What would that girl think of the life she had now?
Whenever she felt unsettled about the future, or disappointed in the present, Chloe turned to the past. Reaching beneath her bed, she pulled out a dusty shoebox. Inside were all the notes the Imp had ever sent—clues, riddles and poems, all written in his distinctive, sweeping calligraphy. She’d always known these notes were from her best friend, Sean, though he had never said it out loud. These notes were her proof that someone could know you, better than you knew yourself. That there were kind, thoughtful men in the world, even if they weren’t in her life right now. Flicking through the box, she found a ripped playbill for The Taming of the Shrew. She thought back to that opening night, the night when everything had changed. What would she do differently now?
There was a gentle tap at her door and Chloe looked up to see her mother standing in the doorway wearing a dressing gown and fluffy pink bed socks.
“You’re back early,” she said, pushing her gray fringe away from her eyes. “He wasn’t a charming young man who whisked you off your feet, then?”
“Sadly no whisking and very little charming,” Chloe said, with a weak smile. “The loo in the pub was nice though, so that’s something.”
“Oh that makes all the difference,” her mum said, enthusiastically. “Did they have those little cotton flannels instead of the paper towels?”
“No, but they had moisturizer as well as soap.”
“Oh well, it’s almost worth going just for that then,” her mother said with a knowing nod. They shared a smile and her mother came to sit down beside her.
“I’m beginning to think I might have terrible taste in men, Mum.”
Her mother laughed and squeezed her hand. “That’s not true.”
“It is. At uni, I always fancied the arrogant rugby boys who wouldn’t give me the time of day. I overlooked the nice suitable men who actually liked me.”
“Well rugby boys have got those lovely thighs,” her mum said, and Chloe leaned her head on her shoulder.
“I wasted two years with Peter,” Chloe said, quietly. “Everyone could see he was bad news, except me.”
“Weak men don’t like strong women. You saw through him eventually, love,” her mother said, hugging her close.
“I just don’t trust myself anymore, Mum. I don’t trust my instincts.”
Her mother reached for the threadbare teddy that sat on Chloe’s pillow. He had once belonged to Chloe’s grandmother Valerie, and something about him—perhaps the tilt of his stitched brow—exuded the same air of intelligent mischief that his previous owner had possessed in spades.
“Don’t listen to her, Aloysius,” her mother said, covering the bear’s ears with his paws. Chloe smiled, reaching for him. He had faded fur; loose, frayed stitches; lumpy stuffing; and scratched glass eyes that gave him a look of worn-out wisdom. Peter had never liked him, had refused to have “the manky bear” in their flat. But to Chloe he was a treasured possession—imbued with nostalgia for her childhood and the warmth of her grandmother, a link to a time before she even existed.
“It might take you a little while to see when something’s wrong,” her mother said softly. “But when it’s right? Trust me, you’ll know. Life isn’t a race. Everyone gets where they need to go in their own time.” She leaned forward and kissed Chloe’s head. “Right, I’m off to bed, I haven’t done my Wordle yet.” With a glance at the open shoebox she added, “Don’t stay up too late reminiscing. You can’t live in the past, you know, only the present, maybe the future.”
Her mum blew her a kiss, said good night, then quietly closed the door behind her. Once she was gone, Chloe pulled the Perfect Partners card from her bag. Wendy did say it was the future. She turned it over in her hand, running a finger along the thick edge.
“What do you think, Aloysius?” she asked the bear. “Is some secretive, high-end dating service going to be the solution to all our problems?”
She shook Aloysius’s head for him. “No. I didn’t think so either. Shall we look for cute 1950s hats on Vinted instead?” Aloysius nodded. He was a bad-influence sort of bear, but he was old enough to know that scrolling for hats was much more enjoyable than scrolling for men. And that indulging her nostalgia for fashion was probably safer than reminiscing about the contents of that shoebox.
