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‘Are they still in Scotland?’
‘Always. They’ll never leave.’
She gave him a fixed stare. ‘Why did you leave?’
He hesitated then spoke quickly. ‘Business.’ There was so much more to it than that. He had a home—a castle—in Scotland that had been his pride and joy. He hadn’t set foot in it for over a year. The penthouse in The Armstrong was where he now called home. He needed to change the subject—fast.
‘Tell me about the Christmas stuff?’
She quickly swallowed a mouthful of food. ‘What do you mean?’
He sipped his coffee. Then stopped and connected with her gaze. ‘Wow.’
A smile spread across her face. ‘I told you.’
He kept his nose above the coffee and breathed in the aroma, then took another sip. The coffee was different from most of the roasts he’d tasted. Finlay was a self-confessed snob when it came to coffee. This was good.
He looked over his shoulder to where the coffee machine and barista were standing. ‘I have to find out what this is.’
She was still smiling. ‘You’ll be lucky if they tell you. The coffee in here has been this good for years. My gran and I used to come here all the time.’
Her voice quietened. He wanted to ask some more but it felt like prying. Could he really go there?
He went back to safer territory. ‘The Christmas stuff. You seem to really enjoy it.’
She gave him a careful stare. Her voice was soft. ‘I do. I’ve always loved Christmas. It’s my favourite time of year.’ She stretched her fingers across the table and brushed them against his hand. ‘I’m sorry, I know you said you didn’t like it.’
He took a deep breath. The coffee was excellent in here. The food was surprisingly good. And the company...the company was intriguing.
Grace was polite, well-mannered and good at her job. She was also excellent at the unexpected job he’d flung on her the other day. She’d more than delivered.
It was more than a little distracting that she was also incredibly beautiful. But it was an understated beauty. Shiny hair and a pair of deep dark brown eyes that could hide a million secrets. But it wasn’t the secrets that intrigued him. It was the sincerity.
Grace didn’t feel like the kind of person who would tell lies. She seemed inherently good. All the staff at the hotel liked her. Frank was strangely protective of her.
He took a deep breath. ‘It’s not that I don’t like it. I know I said that—’
She touched his hand again. ‘No, you said you hated it.’
He nodded. ‘Okay, I said I hated it. And I have. For the last five years. But I didn’t always hate it. I had great Christmases as a kid. My sister and I always enjoyed Christmas with our mum and dad.’
Grace pressed her lips together. ‘I’ve spent all my Christmases with my gran. My mum...’ She paused as she searched for the words, ‘My mum had me when she was very young. My dad was never on the scene. I was brought up by my gran.’
‘Your mum wasn’t around?’
Grace shook her head. ‘Not much. She’s married now—lives in Australia—and has a new family. I have two half-brothers.’ Her gaze was fixated on her plate of food. ‘She’s very happy.’
‘Do you talk?’
Grace looked up. ‘Yes. Of course. Just...not much. We have a relationship of sorts.’
‘What does that mean?’
Grace sighed and gave a shrug. ‘I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman. There’s not much point in holding a grudge against someone who couldn’t cope with a baby as a teenager. I had a good life with my gran. And we had the best Christmases together.’
He got the feeling she was taking the conversation away from her family circumstances and back onto Christmas.
‘Is that where your love of Christmas came from?’
She smiled again and got a little sparkle in her eyes. ‘Gran and I used to watch lots of black and white films, and we especially loved the Christmas-themed ones. We had a whole load of handmade ornaments. Spray-painted pine cones were our favourites. We did a lot of Christmas baking. We couldn’t afford a real tree every year but we always had a holly wreath and I loved the smell.’ There was something in her voice. Something in the tone. These were all happy memories—loving memories. But he could hear the wistfulness as she spoke.
He’d told her the biggest event in his life. It didn’t matter that he’d blurted it out in anger with a whole host of other things. Grace knew probably the most important thing about him.
Him? He knew very little about her. It was like peeling back a layer at a time. And the further he peeled back the layers, the more he liked her.
