Page 64 of Winter With You

‘Can we go, Gabriella? Please?’ Phoebe asked. ‘I promise I will revise history tomorrow.’

He looked at Gabriella and realised that his gut was telling him he really wanted her to say yes. More than he should.

‘Well, you know we’re going to have to evade capture by Cheyenne,’ Gabriella said. ‘Either you’re going to have to fake appendicitis again like you did when we had to get out of Pop-Pop’s slideshow of militaria through the ages, or it’s down the fire escape.’

‘OK,’ Phoebe said, nodding.

‘Or,’ Luca said. ‘We go now. Before your car gets here. We leave out the back door and we… go get Mr Darcy and head to the market.’

‘I like that idea,’ Phoebe said, still nodding.

He looked at Gabriella, could see the conflict written in her expression between doing the ‘right’ thing and doing what she wanted to do, be it for her or for Phoebe.

‘OK,’ Gabriella said, slipping on her coat and picking up her bag. ‘But we have to go right now.’

‘Yay!’ Phoebe exclaimed, collecting her things up in a matter of seconds.

And there was that feeling again, that unfurling, that tension release, that expectation of good. He was unused to it. A little scared of it maybe.

‘This market better be great,’ Gabriella said. ‘I’m expecting lights and garlands and⁠—’

‘There will be no Cheyenne,’ he interrupted. ‘That’s my guarantee. Unless she’s tracking your phone.’

There was only a small moment of hesitation before Gabriella spoke again.

‘OK. Let’s go.’

39

HERALD SQUARE

Mr Darcy woofed.

‘He needs to be good, Phoebe,’ Gabriella said.

‘He’s just talking and Eric got him a collar and lead that we can use until we can get a cute, pink one with fake diamonds.’ Phoebe rubbed Mr Darcy’s ears.

It was busy. New York busy. But it was a city that felt like adventure and Gabriella couldn’t deny that spending the night at a festive market, right outside the iconic store, Macy’s, decorated like a sparkling gift from the ground up to the top of its apparently eleven floors, was a whole lot better than itineraries with Cheyenne. Luca had told them a brief history of Macy’s when they had walked over the bustling crossing to arrive here in Herald Square, the air nose-bitingly cold. And now they were amid wooden huts that looked far more chic than any Christmas market Gabriella had been to in England. But there were glowing garlands and the scent of pine and cinnamon in the air, together with that almost familiar New York waft of hotdogs and onions.

‘We can get all our gifts here!’ Phoebe announced excitedly. ‘Look, there are scarfs Grandmama would love.’

‘Don’t bet on that,’ Gabriella said through partly gritted teeth.

‘So, how do you celebrate Christmas back in England?’ Luca asked as they began to walk the rows of cabins with many other likeminded shoppers.

‘Lots of tea, obviously. We drink tea at all times. Celebration, commiseration, extreme shock if there isn’t an Indiana Jones film on the TV over the festive period.’

‘Yeah, funny, Gabriella.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I’m being entirely serious.’

‘I meant, what do you do as a family. Do you all get together?’

‘Sit around the fire and sing holy carols? Make Christingles? Share heartwarming anecdotes from Christmases past?’

She stopped herself from talking. It was that usual Gabriella bravado, fighting hurt with humour, but, unlike most people, Luca wasn’t falling for it. Why wasn’t he falling for it?

‘Yeah, I’m not really a Christmas person,’ she admitted with a shrug of nonchalance she didn’t mean.