Page 92 of The Best Little Christmas Shop
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Marco walked me back to my car. The light was already gone and the damp air of earlierhad grown colder and now seeped down collars and up sleeves until it made its way to our very marrow, chilling us from the inside out. I shivered and wrapped my coat tighter. Marco gently tugged my collar up.
‘An apartment in the south of France doesn’t seem like such a bad idea now, does it?’
I gave him a look through my lashes and he laughed. ‘I have to try.’
‘Of course.’
‘But you will thinkabout it.’
I nodded, not quite meeting his eyes.
He caught my chin with the side of his forefinger, and tilted it up. ‘But I think you may have already made up your mind?’
I wrapped my hands around his. ‘No. I promise I haven’t. I will think about it. It’s just that it’s a lot to think about, and very unexpected so it’s sort of taken me by surprise.’
‘I’m sorry to have … sprung … is that theright word?’ He furrowed his brow for a moment and I nodded. ‘OK. Good. Yes, to have sprung it on you. I did think you might have heard something. You know how the gossip mill is always working in racing.’
‘Oh yes, that’s for sure.’ We both knew all about the gossips in the paddock and beyond and had always done our best to ignore them.
‘But you’ll think about it?’
I laughed and gave him agentle tap on his arm. ‘I said I would! Stop hassling me!’
He grinned. ‘Actually there’s something else I’d really like you to think about too, if you get time?’
‘Something else? You didn’t think that was enough?’
He did the Gallic shrug thing. ‘It’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for a while but it never seemed the right time.’
‘OK. Let’s hear it then. May as well get allmy thinking done in one –’
I jumped back from Marco’s kiss in shock and whacked my hip on a gold-wrapped, pimped-up, and frankly quite hideous Range Rover, which only served to add insult to injury.
Marco shoved his hands in the pockets of the made-to-measure wool car coat. ‘That wasn’t exactly the reaction I was hoping for.’
I opened my mouth to reply but my thoughts hadn’t yet formed intoanything cohesive so I clamped it closed again. Turning away, I began crunching over the gravel towards my car as I waited for my brain to come up with something. Anything would do!
‘Lexi. Please wait.’
Marco’s longer strides together with the bonus of not having to fight with thin heels on gravel meant that even though I didn’t wait, he was soon beside me. He reached his hand out and caughtmine as I laid it on the door handle, ready to pull it open. Keyless entry had its benefits when it came to making quick exits. Beautiful but impractical heels didn’t.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you quite that much.’ When I remained silent, he continued, ‘I suppose I wasn’t thinking it would be that much of a surprise. I thought you knew that I’d always wanted to give us a second chance.’
I gave a thoroughly unladylike snort of laughter. ‘Yeah, it was really easy to tell that from the string of women that filtered through the pit garage after we’d split up!’
‘They’re different.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘But that’s why I can’t stop thinking about you. Because you’re not like them at all.’
‘OK, seriously. You need to stop while we’re still friends. All the women you date areridiculously stunning and although I pride myself on not being vain, being told I’m completely the opposite of gorgeous isn’t what my ego needs to hear right now.’
‘That’s not how I meant it. I loved that I could talk to you about anything, have fun with you, enjoy watching you eat dessert! Do you know how long it is since I dated a woman who ate dessert?’
‘Marco, you can’t enjoy dating womenwho have amazing figures and then moan that some of them don’t eat as much as you’d like them to!’
