enough, it seems.’ Mags confirmed, a small smirk catching her lips.
I saw it.
‘Stop it! It’s not funny.’
Her smirk turned into a grin.
‘It’s not!’ I reiterated, ‘Anyway, how do you know?’
‘I saw him a few days ago. I was at Borough Market at lunchtime and he came into the pub with some colleagues.’
‘Oh.’
‘He was asking after you. He wanted to know if you were ok.’
‘Oh.’ I said again. ‘What did you tell him?’ I asked, after a couple more minutes.
‘I just said that you were doing ok, under the circumstances, and that you would be fine because you’re not about to let a lowlife piece of pond scum like Steven ruin your life.’
‘Right. Good. Ok. So long as you were subtle about it.’
‘Of course.’
And the funny thing was, that actually was subtle for Mags. It was lucky that it had been Rob and not Steven she’d run into. We’d been there for every good, and every awful, moment in each other’s lives and her fury at seeing her best friend hurt was probably more than my own could ever be. If Steven appeared in her line of vision any time within the next few months, there was every chance a trip to the casualty department would be in his very immediate future. I was just entertaining that idea in my head when Mags broke into my thoughts.
‘I think he’d like to see you.’
‘Who?’
‘Rob.’
‘Me? Why?’ My hand suddenly flew to my mouth, ‘Oh my God! He’s going to sue me for breaking his nose!’
Mags spurted out her wine over my kitchen table in laughter. ‘He does not want to sue you for breaking his nose!’
‘How do you know? Did he specifically say that? He is a lawyer! Why else would he want to see me?’
‘Izz, he specialises in company law, not ambulance chasing! Like I said, he’s just concerned as to how you are,’ she said, mopping up with a paper towel, ‘I think he feels some sort of odd sense of responsibility.’
‘Well, he shouldn’t.’
‘No, I told him that too.’
‘Good. Well, that’s that then.’
‘Excellent. Glad that’s settled. Is there any more wine?’
Millionaire Under the Mistletoe
The Playboy’s Mistress
Kim Lawrence
Christmas in the Billionaire’s Bed
Janice Maynard
The Boss’s Mistletoe Manoeuvres
Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
Kim Lawrence
KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in Anglesey with her university lecturer husband, assorted pets who arrived as strays and never left, and sometimes one or both of her boomerang sons. When she’s not writing she loves to be outdoors gardening, or walking on one of the beaches for which the island is famous – along with being the place where Prince William and Catherine made their first home!
DARCY slid her pink feet—the bath had been very hot—into a pair of slippers and padded through the quiet flat to the phone. It was nice to have the flat to herself for once. Jennifer was a great flatmate, but she thought silence was something you filled with noise—preferably the loud, throbbing variety! Music-wise the two were not compatible.
Propping the phone against her ear, Darcy hitched the towel wrapped sarong-style, around her slender body a little tighter and waited for someone to pick up. She was just about to hang up when Jack Alexander answered the phone.
‘Hi, Dad,’ she called cheerfully down the line. ‘Is Mum around?’ She eased her bottom onto the table-top, anticipating a nice long natter.
‘I’m afraid you can’t speak to your mother, Darcy…she…she isn’t here…’
It wasn’t the news that her hyperactive mother wasn’t at home that struck Darcy as strange—her community-minded parent was on more village committees than she had fingers to count them on—it was the peculiar note that bordered on panic in her phlegmatic stepfather’s voice.
Her post-warm-bath, pre-glass-of-wine, mellow holiday mood evaporated. Darcy wasn’t psychic, but she did know Jack, and she had the nasty suspicion that the icy fingers tap-dancing up her spine knew what they were about.
Her heart was thudding as she lightly asked, ‘What is it tonight? Practice for the carol concert or the church roof committee…?’
Jack would tell her what was up in his own good time—he wasn’t the sort of man who could be hurried. An affectionate smile briefly curved her lips as her thoughts rested on the man who had married her mother—Darcy loved him to bits.
Darcy had been five and her elder brother, Nick, seven when Jack entered their lives. After a couple of years Clare had come along and then, much to everyone’s surprise, the unplanned but much loved twins. The Alexanders were a tight-knit family.
‘Neither,’ came back the strangled response.
The line between Darcy’s straight, well-defined, darkish eyebrows deepened; Jack sounded perilously close to tears. This, she reminded herself, is the man who delivered his own grandchild in the back of a Land Rover without breaking sweat. She immediately ditched tactful reticence in favour of the upfront approach.
‘What’s up, Dad?’ she asked bluntly.
‘It’s your mother…’
Anxiety grabbed Darcy’s quivering tummy muscles in an icy fist; eyes wide in alarm, she shot upright from her perch on the console table. All sorts of awful scenarios ran through her head and with some trepidation she put the most alarming of these into words.
‘Is
