Page 27 of The Christmas Letter

It was stupid – stupid – for her heart to jump like this at the fact he’d remembered her name. She’d remembered his, hadn’t she? It didn’t mean anything.

‘Right,’ the receptionist said. ‘Did you still want me to . . .?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. She’d asked him to look up a Jack, claimed she was here on behalf of her new jewellery company and wanted to have a talk about some ‘consultancy’. It had sounded like a lie even to her, but the receptionist had gone along with it just fine. ‘No, that’s ok, thanks.’ She moved away from the reception desk, stumbling over her handbag as she did so and flailing her arms to catch herself. Because of course, now was a great time to fall flat on her face.

Jack bent down, picked the handbag up, and handed it to her.

She took it with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Thanks.’

‘Snazzy,’ he said, indicating the bag.

‘Yeah.’ Her lucky charity shop crocodile-print bag. Although she wasn’t sure if this was good luck or bad. She shoved at her hair. She should have brushed it, for God’s sake. She dropped her hands to her sides awkwardly.

There was a man looking at them from over Jack’s shoulder, in a slim-fitting suit, with neatly cropped brown hair and a clean-shaven jaw.

Jack saw her looking, and gestured towards the man, who came up to join them. ‘This is Ed.’

Holly squashed down a bubble of laughter that had to be coming from nerves. ‘Right. Hi.’

‘And this is Holly.’ Jack’s gaze scanned her face again. Then, without warning, he burst out laughing. And that was it – enough to set her off so that she collapsed into giggles too, not particularly caring that it was earning them a few curious looks – because really, the chances of this.

Ed glanced back and forth between them with raised eyebrows. ‘I often pride myself on my sense of humour, but I have to admit I’m missing the joke this time.’

Jack cleared his throat. ‘Sorry.’

Holly straightened, pressed her lips together. ‘Yes, sorry. It’s just . . .’ She trailed off, gesturing at Jack, and had to stop herself from collapsing into laughter all over again. Seriously, what was wrong with her?

‘I know,’ Jack said.

‘If you leave me in any more suspense I think I’m going to keel over,’ Ed said.

Jack pulled a hand through his dark hair, ruffling it in a way Holly couldn’t help thinking was a little sexy. Stop it, Holly.

‘Holly and I sort of . . .’

Ed turned a hand in the air to encourage Jack to keep going. ‘Know each other?’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Holly said quickly.

‘We met,’ Jack amended.

‘Right, we met,’ Holly agreed. ‘Met’ was better than ‘knew’, for a number of reasons.

‘Once,’ Jack added.

‘You met once,’ Ed repeated, still looking between them as if trying to connect the dots.

Jack sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’

Holly cocked her head. ‘Is it? Because I think that about sums it up.’

‘Ouch,’ Jack said, putting on a mock-hurt voice. ‘What about you knocking into me?’

‘Or you scalding my arm?’

‘I think that was still you, actually,’ Jack said mildly. ‘As was the lack of payment device and the envy over some biscuit.’

‘A chocolate and ginger star.’