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.”

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

I love you…

would be nice to see them. Charlotte will want

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

Michael and Charlotte. As he drives, he casts around, craning upwards through the windscreen. “Looks like it’s going

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

salt truck should have done its work

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

air is frigid, 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

a while Ryan says, “What have they called

and asked Beth, she said that at the last minute, Charlotte changed

“That sounds like one family reconciliation that’s

Michael’s spa hotel swings into view:

the iced road surface, curving slowly in through the gates and past a parking lot occupied by top-end models. “It’s

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

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

that Beth and Charlotte keep each other company and Richard’s happier that way because it keeps Beth calm. After she almost

sniffs. “Don’t blame him. But she’s

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