Page 26 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
She shook her head, fiddling with the edge of a napkin. I still had a quarter of my sandwich left so I picked at it while she switched between toying with the napkin and the teaspoon she’d used to stir extra sugar into her tea.
She kept glancing at me. Little flicks of her gaze here and there that were full of uncertainty and hesitance.
“It’s none of my business,” I told her, dabbing at the corner of my mouth. “Truly. I just saw a way to get you out of an uncomfortable situation and did it. And you really did look as though you needed to get out of the shop for a bit.”
She smiled weakly. “Thank you. That was kind.”
“Not entirely. I knew it would piss off Thomas, and given a choice, I’ll always choose that option.” I grinned, sitting back in my chair. “Nothing pisses him off more than thinking I’m getting involved in his business.”
“Are you sure it’s not some kind of weird sexual tension between you?”
I shook my head. “Aside from one misguided crush in my teen years, absolutely not.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why don’t you get along?”
My lips quirked. “He threw a cricket ball at my head when I was nine, and I’m a pro at holding a grudge.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yep. There’s a scar just above my eyebrow to prove it.” I tapped the scar close to my temple on my right. “I ended up in A&E and left with seven stitches in my face. By the point I’d gotten over it, our relationship existed solely on sarcasm and bickering, so I never bothered to tell him I’d forgiven him.”
Beth laughed, reaching up to re-do her ponytail. “That’s insane. Have you really never told him that you’re over it?”
“Nope. I moved away, and it seemed rather pointless after that.” I bit a slice of cucumber. “So, naturally, I think he still assumes I’ve never forgiven him and that I think he did it deliberately.”
“Didhe do it deliberately?”
“Depends on who you ask.” I propped my chin up on my hand with a grin. “Once, I’d have said yes. With the benefit of hindsight, I think he just had dreadful judgement throwing a cricket ball for a casual game of catchanda terrible aim.”
“He still has a terrible aim.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all. He couldn’t hit a skyscraper with a water gun in New York City.”
Beth laughed, and some of the tension she’d been holding almost visibly disappeared from her shoulders. “Gosh, I needed this. Thank you.”
“Anytime. I’m here all month.”
She sighed, and the sadness settled back almost immediately. “I can see why you moved away. There’s not much in Castleton, is there?”
I hesitated.
No, there wasn’t. Especially not if you weren’t from here.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” I asked. “How long have you lived here?”
“Three years. I met Zara at uni in Liverpool, and we moved back here when her dad fell ill. She wanted to be nearby, andI was okay with it because it meant Danny would get to spend more time with his family.”
I tilted my head to the side. “So is Danny… Sorry, I don’t really know how to ask that, but I didn’t know she had a baby at any point.”
Her lips twitched. “He’s our son. Obviously, we used a sperm donor, but Danny is mine biologically. We planned to have two children—one from her eggs and one from mine. Barring any issues, we wanted to carry each other’s biological child from the same donor.”
Okay.
That made sense.
