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

I love you…

to see them. Charlotte will want

another squeeze. “And she’ll want to

that will take us to the home of James, Michael and Charlotte. As he drives, he casts around, craning upwards

the low ground the road is sheened

but the salt truck

already cold, with the tang of frost in the air. Now, ascending all the time, the

grass and shrubs are thick with rime. But it is stunningly beautiful. Frost

says, “What have they called

the last minute, Charlotte changed it to ‘Cara Deanna’, to name her

lets out air. “That sounds like

turn the final corner and Michael’s spa hotel swings into view:

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

Michael’s making a real success of it. Mind you, I think he had a head-start with being able to call on Beth

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

said that Beth and Charlotte keep each other company and Richard’s happier that way

sniffs. “Don’t blame him. But she’s

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