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She was feeling very relaxed as she put the finishing touches to her outfit. Some bright red lipstick and matching nail polish. On her bed was an assortment of Christmas presents. From her parents, much-needed cash and a necklace. From her sisters, clothes and make-up, and a very jolly Christmas card that cracked a supercorny joke when opened. From her friends, presents largely of the ridiculous nature. Right now she was wearing some earrings in the shape of Christmas trees. Fabulous.
And she wasn’t going to think about Alessandro at all today. She had spent way too much time thinking about him, ever since he had resurfaced in her life like a bad dream she’d thought she had finally put to rest. Today she was going to relax and have fun.
An hour later and the punch was helping with her mission. She and Charlotte had put it together, making up the recipe as they went along. They hadn’t been entirely sure of the ingredients, but had figured that, if in doubt, better too much alcohol than too little. It was consequently very potent and now almost finished, thanks to a houseful of nearly twenty people, all of whom had come bearing an interesting array of food. The kitchen table and counters were groaning under the weight of a nut loaf, a lentil loaf, several quiches, cold ham, sausages, and salads of every description. There was even a huge pot of curried chicken, courtesy of Amrita, one of Charlotte’s friends from work.
Somewhere along the line someone had stuck a silver cardboard crown on Megan’s head, which was tilting precariously to one side. The music was blaring and there was Robbie, more sober than might have been expected, taking on the role of host. He was decked out in a pair of red surfer shorts—the only red item of clothing he’d been able to rustle up from his wardrobe, he had told them—and an outrageously green shirt which he had bought from a charity shop especially for the occasion. Megan had to admit that he looked pretty good, with his blonde hair and blue eyes and muscular body. She grinned and waved, and he weaved over towards her.
‘Your crown’s slipping,’ he said, righting it and then standing back to inspect his handiwork. ‘You’re in danger of your people revolting if they think you’re no longer in charge of the throne, Your Majesty.’
Megan had to smile. ‘You seem to have been getting along like a house on fire with Dominic’s mum,’ she remarked. She had been meaning to prise a few more details about that from him, and had had no chance thus far.
‘She’s a very nice lady,’ he said, before waxing lyrical about the importance of sport for young kids and Dominic’s enthusiasm to join a football club.
‘You’re beginning to sound like a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.’
Megan was still laughing, one hand on her crown, the other wrapped around her second plastic cup of punch—which must be her last drink, at least until something solid went into her stomach—when Robbie whipped out a piece of mistletoe from his pocket and dangled it over her head.
It was so sudden and so unexpected that at first Megan wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, waving a leaf above her. But it clicked when his hand went to her waist and he pulled her towards him. With an audience of eighteen people, hooting with laughter, he delivered a kiss worthy of any theatrical performance.
She was tilted backwards at the waist, and it flashed through her mind that it wasn’t a very dignified position when wearing the short scarlet dress. One shoe went flying, and as she regained a vertical position, still laughing, with her arm slung around Robbie’s neck for balance, she froze at the sight of Alessandro and Victoria standing at the doorway—late arrivals.
What the heck were they doing here?
‘We have unexpected company,’ she groaned in a mortified undertone.
Robbie followed the direction of her glance and she might have had a little too much to drink, but why did she get the impression that the appearance of Alessandro and his fiancée was not entirely shocking for him?
‘Didn’t think they would make it,’ he murmured, settling his hand around her waist. He was smiling, leading her towards the door, while the rest of their assembled audience got on with the business of having fun.
Megan wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. This had all the hallmarks of the birthday-cake fiasco, which had been forever branded in her mind as the day romance died. Of course it was a silly notion, because as she now knew, for Alessandro, she had always been an interlude, but it had often seemed easier to pin her misery on that one isolated incident.
And now here she was, in a ridiculous situation all over again, as though she still made a habit of being wild.
She could feel Alessandro’s eyes pinned coldly on her face as she paused to stagger into the mislaid red shoe.
