CHAPTER TEN – SYLVIE
I finally stabbed my fork into my waffle. Sure, the chocolate and the cream had melted, but that was my own fault. That’s what happened when I got distracted by pretty, pretty lights.
“I didn’t say anything,” he replied, turning away, but his gaze flickered back to me several times.
Damn it.
I couldn’t believe I’d just gone happy little Christmas elf around him.
It was Castleton. It was being back here that was doing something to me—reminding me just how much I adored this time of year. All the lights and the happiness and the general togetherness that people felt. It was almost inspiring.
Of course, the good stuff always went hand in hand with the bad stuff. The greed and expense and materialistic side of Christmas was never fun, but I’d learnt to mind my own business.
You want to spoil your kids? Go for it. It’s your money.
You want to stick to a tight budget for each one? Go for it. It’s your money.
You want to pad their presents with functional items like a new coat or bedding set or pair of shoes? Go for it. It’s your money.
That’s what my parents did. I swear I never got more functional items than I did at Christmas and birthdays.
Half my presents were new jeans or slippers or boots or a new scarf.
The year I requested a room makeover, I got new curtains and a rug.
The year Hazel grew out of almost all her shoes?
She had three new pairs under the tree that Christmas.
Gifts are gifts, after all, and I never once complained about toothpaste and shampoo in my stocking, let me tell you.
Thank God I didn’t. Ever since I’d moved out, my mum had sent me a stocking as part of my Christmas gift, and it included toothpaste and shampoo and deodorant and paracetamol and tampons.
And socks.
God, I loved getting socks for Christmas. If my roommates weren’t accidentally stealing them, the washing machine was eating them.
Yes to functional Christmas gifts. It was time we normalised that.
If I ever stood for Prime Minister, that would be my manifesto. Normalising giving useful items for Christmas. Making stockings a care package.
“Are those my waffles?” Beth rushed over, swiftly followed by Danny and Emily, Thomas’ mum.
Thomas barely had time to hold the polystyrene container out before she took it from his hands, opened it, and shovelled a forkful of goodness into her mouth with a happy moan.
I fought back a laugh. “Good?”
Emily smiled at her, touching her shoulder, then turned to me. “Sylvie, honey, it’s been a while.”
I was wrapped in a hug with just enough time to spare to hold my waffles out of the way, but that didn’t stop me getting some chocolate on her shoulder. “Oh, goodness,” I said, pulling back. “There’s chocolate on your shoulder. I’m sorry.”
Emily pulled back and twisted to look, then wiped it away. “No harm. It’s just sauce. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m good, thank you. You?”
“Fantastic.” Her smile was contagious. “Your grandma asked me to let you know that she and your gramps are going home. Something about tucking the pig into bed.”
“Of course, she needs tucking into bed.”
Hopefully it’d be the pig’s bed and not mine this time.
Emily laughed. “Did you enjoy the show?”
“She was like a three-year-old in a toy shop,” Thomas responded for me.
“Look at that,” I replied, looking at him. “I answered without saying a word.”
Emily cleared her throat, and I’d swear she was hiding a laugh. “Thomas, did you get me anything by any chance?”
He didn’t hesitate before he held out the last container that I knew for a fact was his waffles. “The toppings have melted, but they’re just as good.”
Beth glanced at the container then at Thomas.
“I’ve already had mine,” he assured his mum with a smile.
Emily took the container with one of her stunning smiles and thanked him with a kiss on the cheek. “Shall we walk and see the lights?” she asked Danny, reaching down to stroke his hair.
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Mumma, can we?”
Beth chucked him under the chin with a gentle laugh. “Can you walk and eat?”
“Yes!”
“Then let’s go,” she said, grinning.
Emily laughed when he skipped off, dragging her behind him, then turned to us. “Are you coming?”
I hesitated.
Shit.
I was going to have to walk home. I’d jumped in the back of Gramps’ car because of the snow.
Thomas must have seen me hesitate because he nudged me. “Did you drive here?”
“No. My car can’t handle snow.” I laughed under my breath. “I’ll have to walk home.”
Emily raised her eyebrows.
“No,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “Walk the lights with us, and I’ll take you home after.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay, I—”
“Just come with us.” He grabbed my shoulders and steered me in the direction Beth and Danny had just disappeared into. “You know you want to see the lights.”
“All right, all right.” I shrugged off his annoyingly large hands with a perfectly firm grip and closed my waffle box. “Let go, I’m walking, I’m walking.”
Emily laughed and touched us both on the shoulder as she passed us. “I’m going to find that grandson of mine and make sure Beth is safe on this snow. Catch us up in a second.”
I nodded, but before I knew it, she was gone, too.
Thomas fell into step beside me, and we walked for a few minutes until we caught sight of his family again. I hadn’t expected him to insist on taking me home, especially since that meant spending time with me.
Huh.
Maybe it was time to move on from our teenage issues.
“That was nice,” I said quietly.
“What was?” Thomas glanced at me.
“Giving your mum your waffles. I know they were yours.”
“Ah.” He chuckled, then shrugged his shoulders. “I… didn’t think to get her some,” he admitted after a moment. “I didn’t know she was going to join us, or I would have. I’ll get more another time. It’s not like it’s a one-day stall.”
I peered up at him for a second, then held out my leftover waffles.
He looked at the box. “What?”
“Here.” I nudged him with it. “My eyes are bigger than my belly. No use wasting what’s left.”
He took the box with a sceptical glance at me, opened it, and handed it back to me. “You’ve only eaten one.”
“It’s a… peace offering,” I replied, pushing it away. “Just eat it. I can’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Stop arguing with me. You’re ruining my peace offering.”
“It was my peace offering first.”
“Carry on and I’ll dump it on your head,” I warned, glaring at him.
He paused, almost as if he was considering chancing it. I added an extra threat to my glare, and he backed away, holding one hand up in defeat.
“Thank you,” I said after a moment, tucking my cold hands inside my sleeves. I was going to need to buy new gloves because clearly, the ones I had were not cut out for a Yorkshire winter.
Ahead of us, Emily wrapped an arm around Beth and drew her in closer.
“Does your mum know about the baby?” I asked.
Thomas glanced at them and nodded. “We spoke the day I found out,” he said, using the fork to break up the waffles.
“I told her that she needed to tell Mum if she was comfortable with it because I didn’t want her having to handle everything else by herself.
There’s only so much I can do with the estate, especially with spring coming, but Mum’s largely retired from the mayor’s office now.
She’s going to help her out at the shop while Zara isn’t here. ”
“When is she coming home?”
“Sunday. Allegedly.”
There was a dangerous bite to his tone. Whatever was going on, he really wasn’t happy about his sister not being here.
I did understand. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Beth to go through the IVF process by herself with little to no support, and to then find out she was pregnant alone…
If Julian had done that to my sister, I’d have his neck in a metal vice quicker than he could attempt to explain.
I wasn’t sure there was such a thing as explaining that situation, to be honest. Grief or no grief, Zara had been a terrible wife to Beth during the past several months, and I kind of hoped that Thomas did unload on her.
My gut told me she needed someone to knock some sense into her, just like Hazel had with the wedding when we’d started planning.
Sometimes, only your sibling could give you the reality check that you needed.
“Are you cold?” Thomas asked, looking over at me.
I nodded jerkily, wrapping my arms around myself.
The clouds had gathered in the sky above us, and there was that heavy sensation in the air that said more snow was imminent.
I knew Castleton well enough to realise that this snow was probably going to hang around for the next couple of weeks before there was any break.
If not snow, then ice. There was no way the ground would fully thaw at any point before Christmas. The closest it would get would be a freeze over some grey slushy mess.
I just hoped it snowed again in time for Hazel’s wedding on Christmas Eve. It was the one thing I didn’t have any control over and the thing that made me the most nervous.
Castleton always had a white Christmas, and that was one of the reasons she’d chosen the twenty-fourth as her wedding date. It was almost guaranteed to snow, but with the amount we already had…
Well.
I was slightly panicking that it’d come early this year.
“Right, let’s go,” Thomas said, touching my arm.
I jerked out of my thoughts and blinked at him. “What?”
“Let’s go,” he repeated, and his lips twitched into a smile. “I just spoke to Mum and told her I was taking you home.”
“You did?”
He shook his head. “You really were in a little world of your own, weren’t you?”
“Mm.” I turned around and walked back towards the square with him beside me. “Just thinking about the wedding, that’s all.”
“Understandable. I can imagine your job is stressful anyway, never mind having to plan your sister’s wedding.”
I took a deep breath slowly sighed it out. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s really sunk in until now. I always want my clients’ weddings to be perfect, but this is something else.”
Thomas stopped at the hot drink stall. There was only one person at the counter, but he placed an order for two hot chocolates, then turned to me. “It’ll be fine. You have everything in place, don’t you? What’s left that could go wrong?”
“Oh, well, you’ve said that now. The last time someone said that about a wedding I was planning, the groom’s father died.”
Tentatively, he reached out and rapped his knuckles against the wooden siding of the stall and smiled awkwardly. “Touch wood. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.” He handed me one of the takeaway cups of hot chocolate.
The warmth instantly seeped through my gloves to my fingers, and I returned his smile. “Cross your toes, too. Just in case.”
“If I could in these shoes, I would.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Thank you. For the drink. Another peace offering?”
He lifted the cup to his lips and hid a smile behind the thick, white lid. “More like an attempt to keep you alive long enough to take you home. The last thing I need is you freezing to death in the middle of the square. You’d kill the Christmas vibes a bit.”
I rolled my eyes as we passed by the towering tree. “Thank you for your concern, Your Grace.”
Thomas laughed, and we made the rest of the walk to the carpark without saying another word. It was a weirdly comfortable silence, and I was too grateful for the warmth of the hot chocolate breaking my chill to speak at all.
I finished the last of it and put the empty cup in the bin by the entrance to the carpark. “Thank you. You don’t have to take me home. I can walk.”
He put his cup in the bin, staring at me. “Sylvie. It’s zero degrees out here, it’s dark, it’s cold, and there’s black ice everywhere. You can’t walk home.”
I waved a hand. “Please. Of course, I can.”
He grabbed my shoulders and manhandled me across the carpark to a black Range Rover.
All right.
Manhandled was a strong word.
I didn’t exactly put up a fight, and he was hardly hauling me across the carpark on his shoulder, but still.
“Really, it’s fine, I—”
He released me to dig into his pockets and pull out his keys. The car beeped, and the cars in front were illuminated by the headlights.
Thomas reached around me and opened the passenger side door. “Get in.”
“I can—”
“I’m not asking you, Sylvie. Get in, or I’m going to throw you in.”
“You are not!”
“I most certainly am, and if you keep arguing, I’ll shove you in the fucking boot.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s kidnapping!”
“Oh, boohoo. Kidnapping you in the cold, dark, icy weather to make sure you get home safely. I’m sure you’ll survive.” He kept hold of the door and rested his other hand on the top of the car, effectively trapping me in.
My only way of escape was to get in the blasted car.
Not that it mattered at this point. I was really quite aware of just how close to me Thomas was. There was barely an inch between our toes, and if I so much as twitched to the left, my head would touch his arm. I didn’t have a lot of room to move at all, but neither did he.
Still, that didn’t stop my stubborn arse from glaring at him for a good minute before I sniffed. “Kidnapping is still kidnapping, regardless of the reason.”
“Are you always this stubborn and argumentative or is it reserved just for me?” His lips tugged to the side in a wry smirk.
My tongue darted out to wet my lips, and his gaze briefly dropped to my mouth.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Thomas. You’re not that special.”
“Oh, so you’re an arsehole to everyone?”
“You know, you’re close enough to me that with one swift jerk of my knee, you’ll be wishing you never laid eyes on me again.”
That little smirk slowly morphed into a full grin, and he leant in closer to me, adjusting his footing to the side, almost pushing me further into the triangular gap of the open door and the front seat.
“Now why would I wish that?” he asked in a low voice, still grinning. “My life is so much more fun with you and your attitude in it.”
My heart thumped against my ribs, and a shiver twisted its way across my skin, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
What was he doing?
“Sylvie,” he said, tilting his head so his lips were close to my ear. “Get in the bloody car,” he whispered.
His breath fluttered my hair, and the warmth of it just ghosting my cheek as he pulled back only heightened the sensation of the goosebumps that were prickling across my skin.
God, I needed this to stop.
Being this attracted to Thomas—feeling like this with him this close—was not what I needed in my life right now.
Not now, not ever.
“Fine,” I snapped, taking hold of the passenger door. I dumped my handbag in the footwell and put one foot in the car, then turned back to him.
And karate chopped his arm, right on the inner crease of his elbow.
“Motherfu—”
I slammed the door before he could finish his curse and sat back in the plush leather seat, feeling quite proud of myself for that.
Was it childish? Yes.
Was it petty? Absolutely.
Did I care?
Not at fucking all.