Page 13 of Confessions of a Christmasholic

Holy shit! What if Gus had checked on the cottage and found her in their house? What if she’d bumped into them while she was looking for the key? How would she have explained what she was doing, why she was there? Close call, Sutton. Too close.

Thank God she’d avoided being busted for trespassing and squatting. But now she didn’t have anywhere to sleep tonight. Bit of a problem, that.

Eli placed his hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘I suppose we should head out, darling.’

‘We should,’ Will gently agreed. ‘I can’t wait to see the Chaos Crew of Two later on.’

Despite her where-was-she-going-to-go panic, Sutton grinned. From the little she’d seen of them, it was a perfect name for the twins.

‘We’ll leave you to get settled in,’ Eli suggested, following Will into the hallway. Settle in? Here? Her mind whizzed through her options. Huh. Maybe she didn’t need to move on, maybe this house was where she could stay for the next three weeks.

She just had to get one so-called, very fake Christmasholic to see things her way.

ChapterFour

Gus walked into the kitchen, saw her sitting in the window seat, and sighed. ‘You’re still here.’

Sutton gripped her coffee cup tighter and pushed the tips of her bare toes into the fabric covering the cushions on the window seat.

‘Yep.’

‘How’s the headache?’

‘Horrible,’ she admitted. Her hangover was exacerbated by a stress headache, and not helped by Alex’s rare can-you-help-me call. And her guilt at not being able to help her baby brother added another layer of pain. ‘And I’m about to add to yours.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Oh, God, what have you done now?’ he asked.

‘I let your dog into the house, but I didn’t know he was wet, and he climbed onto the cream couch,’ she told him, machine-gunning the words.

‘If I had the money, I’d offer to pay the bill to have it cleaned, but I don’t, not right now anyway, so you’ll have to add it to what I owe you.’

‘You might end up having to sell a kidney at this rate,’ he replied, sounding resigned. ‘And Pepper? The pig?’

The pig looked so mournful, and hard done by, Sutton figured it didn’t really make a difference if he slept with his mate or not. He couldn’t do any more damage to the already wrecked couch.

‘I felt sorry for him, so I helped him up,’ she admitted.

‘I have no words.’

‘Sorry, again. So, the dog is Pig, and the pig is called Pepper.’

He raised his hands. ‘Don’t ask me, I’m just the dad, and the guy who pays for the dog food and the vet’s bills.’

Gus walked up to the coffee machine and lifted the lid to the compartment holding the beans. He cursed and opened a cupboard above his head and sighed.

‘Your friends took a bag of beans before they left,’ Sutton said. Eli brazenly tucked the bag under his arm before they left the kitchen, blithely informing her Gus wouldn’t mind. Gus did, in fact, mind.

‘I’m going to kill them,’ Gus muttered. ‘How hard is it to remember to order coffee?’ He walked over to the stove, picked up the kettle and shook it. It was empty so he shoved the spout under the tap.

Sutton touched her wet hair. ‘I took a shower,’ she told him, needing to be upfront and transparent.

‘I noticed.’ He roughly spooned instant coffee into his mug and leaned back against the kitchen counter, looking grumpy and delicious. God, he was just her type. Unavailable and emotionally distant and a little fucked up.

She lifted her cup. ‘I made myself some coffee too.’ But that was where her honesty ended. She didn’t think he needed to know that she was responsible for using the last of his beans, that she was on cup number four, and she was feeling super-jittery. But that could be the combination of caffeine and crime.

‘Your neighbours are lovely,’ she said, swinging her legs around and dropping them to the floor.And very chatty. She put her coffee cup on the windowsill and gripped the edge of the long cushion with both hands.

‘You still haven’t explained where you were heading to last night. And don’t tell me you were going up to the hall. I spoke to Moira, and she says she had no bookings last night.’

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