Page 103 of The Best Little Christmas Shop
Chapter Twenty
Not many people in the village owned a matt black Lamborghini Aventador. In fact, there was a grand total of zero. But I knew one person who did. The bigger question was why it was currently parked in my parents’ driveway. Passing the stairs to my own place, I made my way to the back door, getting blown into the kitchen by an icy wind that was now well on its way to approachinggale status. Sat there at the table looking both oddly out of place, and yet completely at home, was Marco Benoit. Three of my petrol-headed nephews were opposite him, their eyes wide and their mouths slightly agape as he regaled them with tales of the Formula One track.
‘Hello, darling,’ Mum said. ‘Marco dropped by to see you. I wasn’t sure how long you’d be so I’ve invited him to dinner.’ Hertone was entirely casual, as if having billionaire racing drivers sat at your kitchen table was an everyday occurrence. My family had taken my going out with Marco in their stride – as they did everything – and Mum knew us breaking up hadn’t been easy on either side. Now she knew the full story, her care for him would have only increased.
‘Marco’s going to take us out in his car!’ My eldest nephewwas practically reverberating with excitement.
‘Not in that weather he’s not,’ I replied firmly.
‘Exactly what I said,’ Marco assured me as he stood and bent to kiss me on both cheeks. ‘But I’ll come back when the weather is better, yes?’
I nodded acceptance and the boys bounced up and down cheering, before running around making car noises and zipping in and out of the kitchen. Mum eventuallysent them into the living room so that she could get on with making dinner. A glance at the stove indicated there was more than just her and Dad and me and Marco eating here tonight.
‘What’s with all the food?’ I asked, shrugging off all the layers I’d put on to walk to and from work today. The weather seemed to be getting colder every day and the odds of a white Christmas were now only two toone.
‘Oh, I thought you might have seen one of the boys at work?’
I shook my head. ‘Only briefly but we didn’t have time to chat.’
The stream of customers into the shop had been almost continuous today and on the odd quiet moment, I’d taken the opportunity to pack up some online orders and get them ready for collection first thing tomorrow. I was exhausted but I knew it wasn’t just from beingso busy. Busy was good. Busy kept me from thinking of other things. Like the most gorgeous, interesting, and disturbingly hot man I’d ever met telling me he loved me and me sending him away. Yep, I definitely needed busy.
‘Dan asked if we could all get together tonight,’ Mum said, interrupting my thoughts as the back door opened again after a brief knock. Cal walked in.
‘Oh, Cal, sweetheart.I’m so glad you could make it at such late notice. Is George not with you?’
The warm expression his face held for my mum turned to wary as he looked from me to Marco and back to me again.
‘Oh. No, sorry. I should have said. We’ve been building an army of snowmen this afternoon and he’s kind of worn out. I got him to have a nap and he was still out like a light. I didn’t really want to wake him,and Martha was happy to come and babysit. Dan’s text sounded like it was important though.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
Mum shrugged. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I just work here!’ she said, laughing. ‘Cal, I’ve only recently made tea. There should be some left in that pot. Lexi, aren’t you forgetting your manners?’
I gave her a blank look. Cal Martin had a habit of making a woman forget a lotof things. All I could be thankful for was that I’d never slept with him. I had the distinct feeling that was something I’d never have forgotten. Odd then that despite everything, I was having such a hard time conjuring up any grain of gratefulness for that particular circumstance.
I steered my brain away from that thought with haste. ‘Oh! Marco Benoit, this is Cal Martin. Cal, this is Marco.’Mum and I both knew that Cal had recognised the man the moment he’d walked in but we were British, and there were some things that you just had to do in the right way.
Cal nodded and held out his hand. Marco took it, his mouth smiling but his eyes assessing just as much as Cal’s were. The only difference is that Cal didn’t even pretend to smile. I prayed that they weren’t going to have some squeezy-handshake-until-the-death competition but luckily they just gave a brief shake and dropped their hands back to their sides.
‘You missed something.’ Marco smiled down at me, pulling the hat I’d forgotten off my head and the hair I’d roughly shoved under it tumbled down.
‘I so rarely saw you wear your hair loose,’ he said, his face thoughtful.
‘Not the best idea when you’ve got your head shoved halfway insidea car.’
‘You didn’t always have your head in an engine.’ He quirked an eyebrow at me and I made a point of ignoring it. And a point of not looking at Cal.
‘Still. It suits you.’
‘She had it short for a while when she was little,’ Mum added as she stirred something that smelled mouthwatering on the hob, ‘but it turns out that as much as she declared she wanted to be a boy and do “boy stuff”,it irked her to be actually called a boy all the time. She thought if she grew her hair it would stop people doing it. I tried to explain that wearing a dress occasionally might help too but –’
‘I’m pretty sure no one’s interested in that, Mum,’ I said, my insides curling with embarrassment.
‘I am,’ Cal and Marco both chimed in unison. They exchanged a look and I felt the tension in the airnotch up a level. Perfect. Exactly what I needed. A double dose of amped-up testosterone.
‘Did you tell Mum you can’t make it to Christmas dinner yet?’ I asked Cal, effectively dropping him in it in a desperate bid to shift the focus of conversation.
‘You can’t?’ Mum turned, disappointment creasing her features.
