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…

right, it would be nice to see them. Charlotte will want to show off

My thigh gets another squeeze. “And she’ll want to

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

should think so.” Even here on the low ground the road is

the salt truck should have done its work up there

left the City this morning, it was already cold, with the tang of

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

says, “What have they

that at the last minute, Charlotte changed it to ‘Cara Deanna’, to name her after her grandmother… Her

air. “That sounds like one family

turn the final corner and Michael’s spa

guides the wheels carefully over the iced road surface, curving slowly in through the gates and

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

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

that Beth and Charlotte keep each other company and Richard’s happier that way because it keeps Beth calm. After she almost lost their baby, he’s keeping her where she’s among

“Don’t blame him. But

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