Page 82 of A Billionaire for Christmas
Again, Molly felt her cheeks flame as she looked at the first item on the list.
* * *
By teatime, Molly had solved the mystery of the missing hat, spent the day blindfolded and was completely and utterly exhausted by constantly referring to herself in the third person.
‘Can Molly take a quick break now, please?’ she asked, shivering as she felt along the wall back to where she hoped Levi was waiting.
‘What happened?’ she heard Levi ask her. Until five minutes before, he’d stuck to her like glue since blindfolding her after breakfast.
‘Molly somehow managed to lose her personal bodyguard. The one who swore to stick by her side all day. And now she’s tired. She needs an alcoholic beverage, and she needs to change out of these wet clothes.’
There had been a slight incident when she’d gone to the bathroom downstairs, come out, taken the wrong turn and ended up in the spa where she accidently pulled on the cord that released the bucket of ice-cold water.
‘She would also like to know where the hell you were when she needed you?’
Levi chuckled. ‘So sorry. I took a call from the hospital. I literally turned my back for a second and you’d gone.’
‘Can you untie Molly now, please? She’s fucking fed up with being blindfolded and no longer gives two flying shits about the bucket list.’
Levi tried not to laugh as he untied the blindfold. ‘Christ. This is a bit tight, isn’t it?’
‘Well, it certainly is headache-inducing,’ said Molly through tight lips. She had never felt so exhausted. ‘Okay. That’s got to be almost everything on the list by now, surely.’ She’d decided not to tell Levi about conquering her fear of highly-strung, overly controlling American mothers. She wasn’t 100 per cent sure that would ever happen, but Monsieur Fournier didn’t need to know that. She glanced down at the list. ‘Except…’
That eighth challenge was becoming a huge elephant in the room. A woolly mammoth.
‘Let’s see it.’ Levi held out his hand as Molly, with her eyesight fully restored, handed the list over.
‘Your friend was certainly looking out for you, wasn’t she?’ he said quietly.
Molly stared at the list. She hadn’t dared to cross outFall madly in love. She quickly folded it back up, hoping he hadn’t seen it. ‘These were supposed to be forherto do.’
Levi gave her a tender look. ‘But I’m not sure they were meant forherto finish.’ He took her hand. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you can cross off number eight.’
Molly melted. Properly melted.
‘Come on. We don’t have long to go before the deadline. Let’s send these photos of you falling over the sofa blindfolded to the solicitor.’
Molly sat wrapped in a towel next to Levi as they quickly uploaded everything to the laptop, including the one of the camel, the sausage-meat face and a signed affidavit from Levi testifying that Molly did indeed complete the remaining tasks, with the exception of photographic evidence for those requiring nudity, on the grounds of common decency, and he even invoked some clause in the Human Rights Act.
Just as she went to press send, the Wi-Fi died. ‘Don’t worry. It’s been dropping in and out all day. It’ll come back on.’
Toby, Freda and Lucca came to join them. ‘Have you sent everything across? Did you get your business and house back?’
‘The Wi-Fi is out. Mobile data isn’t getting a signal.’ Molly was starting to panic.
‘Don’t worry,’ agreed Toby. ‘It’ll come back on soon.’
‘Yes, it will. It was working before because I’ve posted on my socials about my new job working with you,’ said Freda, all excited. ‘There’s been so much interest already. So I’m thinking soft launch between Christmas and New Year and hard launch after. I’ve called in some favours.’
‘You have? Already?’ Molly tried to hide her alarm.
Lucca waved his phone at her excitedly. ‘And I’ve got you your first catering booking for the New Year! It’s a high-end event in South Africa. My friend’s thirtieth. Safari themed.’ Lucca gave Freda a high-five slap of the hand. ‘They’ll fly you both out there. Business class obviously.’
‘We have a booking? Without running it by me first? But who would manage the…’ She saw the joy shining from their faces. ‘Doesn’t matter. Well done. Thank you.’ Molly had wondered how the three of them would work together. A million miles an hour apparently, with no corner of the globe off limits, and lots of jet-setting. She felt her palms starting to sweat.This family!
Twenty minutes crawled by, and Molly sensed she wasn’t the only one beginning to worry. She whipped out her phone and called Monsieur Fournier, the solicitor.
‘Hello, Monsieur Fournier. It’s me, Molly Johnson. I just wanted to warn you that the Wi-Fi isn’t working… Hello? Hello? Monsieur Fournier?’
