All the Romance You Need This Christmas: 5-Book Festive Collection. Romy Sommer

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СКАЧАТЬ have a…’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind. I’m sure it told you that I kinda… dropped out of society a couple of years ago.’

      ‘When you got divorced,’ Dory said, then bit her lip. ‘Sorry about that.’

      ‘Don’t be,’ Lucas said, absently. ‘Besides, that’s the wrong way round. Cheryl left me because I wasn’t living the life she married me for anymore.’

      ‘Why not?’ Dory asked, curious. ‘I mean, most people would kill for this sort of existence.’

      ‘Would you?’

      ‘Well… no. But lots of people.’

      ‘Yeah, well, not me either.’

      ‘But you did,’ Dory said. ‘You ran the company before Tyler took it over.’

      ‘And I ran it damn well. But then…’ Lucas paused, as if trying to find the words. ‘You know how, sometimes, something happens that changes your whole life. The whole way you see the world.’

      ‘I guess,’ Dory said. Losing her job, she supposed. Or agreeing to move to New York. Or the day she came home to find Ewen in bed with the hot, blonde, Manhattan socialite. That was a big one.

      ‘There was an accident.’ Lucas looked down at his empty hands. ‘My best friend… he died. He was showing off, living the high life, fooling around on his speedboat to impress his fiancée. Except it went wrong. I was in hospital for weeks, unconscious for most of it. And when I woke up, he was gone.’

      Dory’s heart clenched at the matter-of-fact way he told the story. However hard he tried to sound unemotional about it, the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers flexed, told her otherwise. ‘That’s… God, Lucas, that’s awful.’ Without thinking, she reached across and grabbed his hand, holding those tight, tense fingers in hers.

      Lucas looked up, giving her a half smile. ‘Yeah. It was. Tyler never told you about this?’

      Dory shook her head. ‘Tyler doesn’t really talk about… well, you.’

      ‘The black sheep, huh?’

      ‘Pretty much.’

      He squeezed her fingers, then let go of her hand. ‘Well, at least it was my choice. I took my money – not the business’s money, or the family’s, just what I’d earned myself over the last however many years – and I left. I bought my farm, holed up there for a while. And then, well, I got bored.’

      ‘Thought as much.’ Dory took one last mouthful of cake from the plate. ‘So, back to my original question. What do you do now?’

      Lucas shrugged and picked up his fork again. ‘I wanted to do something new, but using what I’d learnt in the family business. Something I could get in on the ground floor of, not be stuck up in some office somewhere. So I set up my own restaurant, in one of the old barns at the edge of the farm, closest to the road into the nearest town.’

      ‘I’m guessing this restaurant is not another Alexander’s.’

      ‘No.’ Lucas laughed. ‘My father would hate it. It’s all organic, local food on the menu, for locals to eat. We grow or rear most of it on my farm.’

      ‘Sounds wonderful.’ And totally unlike the corporate, establishment Alexander Corporation and its identikit chain restaurants.

      ‘We’ll see. It’s still just starting out. I guess I was just looking for something that’s mine. That I can build up myself.’

      Dory thought about how she’d followed Ewen across an ocean, only to be cut adrift. And now she was at Tyler’s beck and call instead. ‘I can understand that.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Lucas said, staring at her, an odd look in his eye. ‘Somehow, I thought you might.’

      ***

      Lucas tore his gaze away from Dory, from the way her lips wrapped around that last mouthful of chocolate cake, and how her shoulders wriggled under her strappy pyjama top at the taste. It took considerably more effort than it should. Was that why he couldn’t shake the feeling he was doing something wrong? In reality, all he’d done was make polite conversation with a woman who might one day be his sister-in-law. Perfectly reasonable.

      Except it hadn’t all been polite. And a lot of it had been things he hadn’t spoken about to anyone else since Cheryl left. Least of all his actual family, mostly because they simply weren’t prepared to listen.

      Dory listened. Dory not only showed interest in what he had to say but… she seemed to care about it, too. On less than twelve hours’ acquaintance. A hell of a better record than his parents or brother had in this matter.

      But she was Tyler’s. So a good listener was all she could ever be to him, however well they’d bonded over cake.

      Still… at least he should return the favour.

      Clearing his throat, Lucas speared a few cake crumbs and some icing with his fork. ‘So, what about you? What would you really be doing for Christmas if you weren’t here? And not the story you told my mother at dinner. Where would you want to be?’

      ‘Ideally?’ Dory asked. ‘I’d be at home in Liverpool, drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies. Playing board games with my family. Watching Doctor Who on Christmas Day. Opening our stockings. That sort of thing.’

      ‘Sounds nice.’ His Christmases had never been like that, even as a child. There were always guests – usually people his parents were trying to impress – and itchy, formal outfits to be worn. ‘And instead, you’re here.’

      ‘Instead, I’m here,’ Dory agreed.

      ‘You must really love my brother,’ Lucas joked, but Dory didn’t laugh. In fact, she looked positively uncomfortable. ‘Still, you survived your first Alexander family dinner. Think you can make it through the next few days without losing your mind?’

      The face she pulled suggested that Dory wasn’t entirely sure she could. ‘I’m just focusing on getting to go home for two whole weeks after this.’

      He wasn’t surprised that she’d rather be with her own family, whatever Felicia’s assumptions. ‘Think Tyler will be able to cope without you for that long?’

      ‘He’ll have to,’ Dory said, face stubborn. ‘That was the deal.’

      ‘Deal?’

      The colour faded from Dory’s cheeks, as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to. ‘Um, yeah. Well, I mean, he promised that if I came and spent Christmas with his family, he’d give me a couple of weeks off to visit mine over New Year. Not that I didn’t want to be with him for Christmas, or anything. Or here. Um…’

      ‘I get it, Dory,’ Lucas said, deciding the only decent thing was to put her out of her misery. ‘It’s okay to want to be with your own family for the holidays. Especially when the other option is my family.’

      She gave him a faint smile, but nothing like the way she’d beamed at him when he’d placed the chocolate cake on the table. She looked… scared, СКАЧАТЬ