Page 13 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
“Whoa. Who nibbled your nipple?”
“I’d be a lot happier if someone did,” I replied. “Sorry. I just… ran into an irritant.”
My sister chuckled. “Thomas. You ran into Thomas.”
“Yes. That’s what I said.”
“You know, I was hoping that the two of you would have grown out of that by now.”
“I was hoping to not see him at all, so there we are. He’s not going to be at the wedding, is he?”
Hazel didn’t say anything.
“Hazel!”
“He’s… yes,” she said slowly, making something clink on her end of the line. “Didn’t you see his name on the guestlist?”
“I saw ‘The Duke of Castleton accompanied by The Duchess of Castleton.’ I assumed that was his parents.”
“Oh, well, this is awkward. You were technically half-right.” She coughed. “He’s coming with his mum. He and Julian are friends as their mums go way back.”
“Ugh,” I said, finally glancing over my shoulder in the direction of the café. There was no sign of Thomas there, and I huffed out another breath as I turned to the main street where all the shops were. “He’s not in the wedding party, is he?”
“No. You’d have known that much.”
“You’re right. I would have.” I sighed.Why had his name not been on the bloody list? Ugh. “What did you call for?”
“Beth just called me and asked if she can reschedule your meeting for tomorrow afternoon. Apparently, her kid cut his head open at school and she needs to take him to hospital. She didn’t have your number to call you directly.”
“Oh, gosh, of course.” I stopped in the middle of the street. That was my afternoon freed up. “Give her my number and have her let me know in the morning. That’s not a problem.”
“I will. That hasn’t messed up your day, has it?”
“Nope. It means I’m done and can handle emails at home instead. Do you need anything while I’m in town?”
“No, but I think Gramps was saying about there being no milk.”
“All right. I’ll swing by and grab some on my way home. Are you still there?”
“We’re meeting Julian’s parents for dinner. Was everything okay with the venue?”
I talked her through what had happened before that irritating meeting with Thomas, assured her everything measured up and Julian hadn’t messed it up when he’d done it initially. After we went over everything, I stopped in the food store for some milk and some other things I wanted and headed back to the house.
I’d been non-stop since I’d arrived last night, and I was looking forward to lying in bed for two hours under the guise of answering emails.
I wasn’t going to do that.
I was going to eat this sharing size bag of Quavers crisps and at least half the box of Maltesers while binge-watching something ridiculous on Netflix.
Then I’d answer emails.
I didn’t get days off. Being self-employed was one of life’s greatest pleasures, but it was more full-time than a full-time job sometimes, and days like today when I was exhausted was when I remembered that little fact.
Still, I was grateful that I could set my own hours—within reason. I was also thankful that past Sylvie had thought to tellher clients that she’d have a delayed response for a few days and set up an autoresponder in her email.
Autoresponders meant I could eat my weight in Maltesers and not feel too bad about it.
If it wasn’t an emergency, I wasn’t interested.
