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Guilt washed over him like a tidal wave.
Him. He’d caused this. He’d made this girl cry.
Why? After five years he’d thought he was just about ready to move on. But Christmas was always the hardest time for him. He was frustrated with the rest of the world for enjoying Christmas when it only brought back what he had lost.
Thank goodness he still had his coat on. He undid the buttons and shrugged it off, slipping it around her shoulders.
She still hadn’t spoken to him. She was just looking at him with those huge brown eyes. The ones that had caught his attention in the first place. The ones that had sparked the reaction he should never have had.
Why was that? He’d always kept things locked inside. His friends knew that. They knew better than to try and discuss things. They spent their lives avoiding Anna’s name or any of the shared memories they had of her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I should never have shouted at you.’
She blinked. Her eyes went down to her feet. ‘I should never have decorated the room. I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
He shook his head. ‘No, Grace. You were trying to do something nice. Something sweet.’ The words made his insides twist a little. Was it really so long that someone had done something sweet around him?
She blinked again. The shivering hadn’t stopped yet and he could tell why. The wind was biting through his thin knit black jumper. It didn’t matter he had a shirt underneath. It had been a long time since he’d felt this cold.
She bit her bottom lip. ‘I...I sometimes forget that other people don’t like Christmas. I should have been more sensitive. I should have thought things through.’ A tear slid down her cheek. ‘Did you come up here to fire me?’
‘What? No.’ He couldn’t believe it. That was the last thing on his mind right now.
She looked confused. ‘But you said...you said—’
‘Forget what I said,’ he cut in. ‘I was being an idiot. I’m tired. I haven’t slept in three days. I’m sorry—I know it’s no excuse.’
‘I’m sorry about your wife,’ she whispered.
It came out of the blue. Entirely unexpected.
Sweeping through him like the brisk breeze of cold air around him.
It was the waver in her voice. He’d heard this a thousand times over the last few years. Most of the times the words had seemed meaningless. Automatically said by people who were sometimes sincere, sometimes not.
This woman—Grace—hadn’t known his wife at all. But there was something about her—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was as if she knew mourning, she knew loss. It was probably the sincerest he’d ever heard those words spoken and it twigged a little part inside him.
He stepped back a little. He stepped back and sucked in a breath, letting the cold air sear the inside of his lungs. She was staring at him again. Something about this woman’s vulnerable eyes did things to him.
He wanted to protect her. He wanted to make sure that no one hurt her. There was something else. It wasn’t sympathy in her eyes.
He couldn’t stand the look of sympathy. It only filled him with rage and self-loathing.
A tear slid down her cheek and the wave of protectiveness that was simmering beneath the surface washed over him completely.
He couldn’t help himself. He reached up with his thumb and brushed it away, feeling the coolness of her smooth skin beneath the tip.
He stepped closer again. ‘Don’t,’ he said quickly, his voice rising above a whisper. ‘I’m sorry I made you feel like this.’ He wanted to glance away—to have the safety of looking out over the capital’s skyline—but Grace’s chocolate gaze pulled him in. His hand was still at the side of her face. She hadn’t pulled away. ‘I meant what I said.’ He pressed his lips together. ‘Christmas brings out the worst in me. It just brings back too many memories. And I know...I know that not everyone feels like that. I know that maybe...just maybe I should be able to get past this.’ A picture swam into his head and he let out a wry laugh. ‘As for the Christmas decorations in the hotel? They might be a little on the sparse side.’
It was the oddest situation. The most bizarre he’d ever found himself in. The irony of it almost killed him. If someone had told him twenty-four hours ago that he’d end up on the roof of his hotel, in the snow, with a strange, enigmatic woman who was causing the shades to start to fall away from his eyes after five years, he would have laughed in their face.
He wasn’t joking about the sparseness of the hotel. Rob Speirs had emailed to say some of the guests were complaining about the lack of Christmas spirit. Rob had also dropped a few hints that it was bad for business.
Grace’s eyebrows arched. The edges of her lips turned upwards. ‘You think?’
He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘It’s freezing out here—and only one of us has a coat. Let’s go back inside.’
She hesitated for the tiniest second then gave a shiver and a nod as they started walking to the door. ‘So you can fire me in comfort?’
‘Less of the firing thing. Are you going to bring this up all the time?’
She nodded. ‘Probably.’
He pulled open the door. ‘How about we go downstairs for some hot chocolate and you can tell me more about Maids in Chelsea? I have it on good authority you’ve got a fan in Mrs Archer.’
Grace nodded. ‘I thought you were tired. You said you hadn’t slept in three days. You don’t need to talk to me. We can just call it quits and I’ll go home now.’
He shook his head as they stepped inside and walked down the stairs. ‘Oh, no. You don’t get off that easy. We have things to discuss.’
‘We do?’
She sounded surprised. He swiped a key fob next to the elevator and the doors swished open. He gestured with his hand for her to go inside. ‘You don’t want to have hot chocolate with me?’
He made it sound light-hearted. He wanted to try and make amends for his earlier behaviour. But the truth was his curiosity was piqued by Grace.
She gave him a cheeky stare. ‘Only if there are marshmallows and cream. I get the impression you might be a bit of a cheapskate.’
He laughed as she walked into the elevator and for the first time in five years something happened.
It had been so long he almost didn’t recognise it.
His heart gave a little leap.
* * *
Grace wasn’t quite sure what to make of any of this. One minute Mr Film Star looks was firing her in his gravelly Scottish voice, the next minute he was apologising and making her heart completely stop when he touched her cheek.
It was the weirdest feeling. She’d been beyond cold—but the touch of his finger on her cheek had been like a little flame sending pulses around her body.
They stood in silence as the elevator moved silently to the ground floor. Frank caught sight of them as they walked out into the foyer, but Finlay didn’t give them time to talk. He ushered her through to one
of the private sitting rooms, speaking to a waitress on the way past.
They sat down on the comfortable black velvet-covered chairs. She ran her hand over the material. ‘Black. Nice,’ she said as she watched his face.
He shook his head. ‘I feel that you might be going to make me pay.’
The strange wariness she’d felt around him had seemed to vanish. She’d seen something up on that roof. Something she’d never seen in another person.
For a few moments it had felt as if she could see right into his soul. His pain. His hurt. His bitterness.
He seemed to be at a point in his life that she couldn’t even begin to understand.
‘Me? Make you pay? Whatever makes you think that?’
He put one elbow on the table and leaned on his hand. He did still look tired, but there was a little sparkle in those blue eyes. When Finlay Armstrong wasn’t being so businesslike and generally miserable, he showed tiny glimmers of a sense of humour.
The good looks were still there. Now she wasn’t so flabbergasted she could see them clearly. In fact, in the bright lights of the hotel his handsome features might even be a bit intimidating.
But there was something about that accent—that Scottish burr—that added something else to the mix. When she’d first heard it—that fierceness—its tone of don’t ever cross me had had her shaking in her shoes. Now, there was a softness. A warmth about the tone.
He held out his arms to the room they were sitting in. ‘I chose black and grey deliberately. I liked the smoothness, sleekness and no-nonsense look of the hotel. White would have been clinical. Any other colour just a distraction that would age quickly. Black and grey are pretty timeless colours.’
‘If you can call them colours.’
The waitress appeared and set down steaming hot chocolates, adorned with marshmallows and cream, and long spoons. The aroma drifted up instantly. After the coldness of outside the instant warmth was comforting.
Finlay spooned some of the cream from his hot chocolate into his mouth and gave a loud sigh. ‘I’m guessing you don’t like my interior design selections.’
Grace smiled and tried to catch some of her marshmallows before they melted. ‘I bet they cost more money than I could earn in ten years.’
