Hot Revenge Box Set 2

Chapter 24 Kirstie’s Christmas

Three Days Before Christmas

The clouds, low, dull and grey, match my mood, and I stare out of the passenger window, not wanting to show my disappointment. Sleet spikes down, spitting onto the windscreen and the wipers squeak, leaving white streaks as they arc across the glass.

Ryan, from the driver’s seat, lays a hand on my thigh. “Cheer up. There’ll be others.”

“I know…” My throat is unreasonably tight. “It just looked so good in the ad. I’d thought maybe…”

He cuts in, but the cheerful tone to his voice sounds forced. “Vendors are always going to overegg the cake. It did say, Needs Renovation.”

I huff. “Needs complete demolition and rebuilding would have been nearer the mark.” Then, at his answering silence, I realise how waspish I must have just sounded. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It wasn’t aimed at you.”

He squeezes my knee. “I know. Hey, tell you what. We’re not far away. Let’s go say Hi to the happy family. You can deliver your balloon and your card and whatever else it is you have stashed in the back. They’ll dose you with wine and mince pies and we’ll all get into the Christmas spirit.”

I hesitate.

Do they really want my gloomy mood there? Right now?

“I’d like that, but...”

Ryan persists. “We’ll be looking at properties again in the New Year. Who knows what we’ll find then? There’ll be something.”

on a smile, conscious that it’s a bit watery, but also that Ryan is doing his

I love you…

be nice to see them. Charlotte will want to

will.” My thigh gets another squeeze. “And she’ll want to see you,

home of James, Michael and Charlotte. As he drives, he casts around, craning

their house, yes, I should think so.” Even here on the low ground the road is sheened white and black. “You sure

around, but the salt truck should

taking the corners slowly on the zig-zag mountain road. When we left the City this morning, it was already

and frozen mist hangs low over the fields. At ground level, the grass and shrubs are thick with rime. But it is stunningly beautiful. Frost picks out individual twigs and stalks, like some spectacular cake

a while Ryan says, “What have they called her? The baby. D’you

going to be just Cara. But when I rang and asked Beth, she said that at the last minute, Charlotte changed it to ‘Cara Deanna’, to name her after her grandmother… Her

sounds like

corner and Michael’s spa hotel swings into

in through the gates and past a parking lot occupied by top-end models.

of it. Mind you, I think he had a head-start with being able to call on Beth

is to be friends with the City High and Mighty.” He drives past the hotel and to the rear, pulling up to the side of another

and Beth are here more or less permanently now. Michael said that Beth and Charlotte keep each other company and Richard’s

blame him. But she’s okay

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