Page 9 of The Mission

Conrad waited for a pig to fly past because that was more likely.

“Are you going out to meet family or friends?” That was as near as Conrad was likely to get to asking him if he had a boyfriend.

“My family has a chalet in Kitzbühel.”

“Lucky you.”

“So why are you spending Christmas with guys you clearly don’t want to be with?”

“It was booked a while ago and until the middle of September I was going out with Big Arsehole.”

“Though now you can’t remember why?”

Conrad chuckled. “Something like that.”

“Does he happen to be the one with Little Mister Gorgeous?”

“How did you guess?”

“I saw him watching you.”

Conrad raised his eyebrows. “Really?”Shit, was he?

“I got the feeling he wanted you to look at him.”

He probably did. Despite it being Mark who’d cheated, the guy had still wanted Conrad to weep, wail, gnash his teeth and plead with him to give him another chance. Conrad hadn’t. He’d said nothing. He’d only cried when he was alone. None of it was his fault—apart from still being with Mark long after he should have put an end to it.

“Is it rude to ask what happened?”

Do not ask him which time!“I caught him in bed with someone else.”

“Little Arsehole?”

Conrad nodded. “The twink is an international model, on the verge of a career in Hollywood, apparently. Better eye candy than me.”

“I don’t think so.”

Conrad swallowed hard. “Are you blind? Shit. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. You’re obviously not blind. You’re a pilot. Being blind would be a disaster. Have I distracted you enough yet?”

“No. How long had you been together?”

“You’re full of questions. Are you really a pilot? You don’t work for MI5?”

“Really a pilot. I’m just nosy.”

“I was trying not to unload everything in case you decided to go and sit in the cockpit.”

“Nah. I know the pilot and he’s not as interesting as you.”

Conrad tried to think if he’d ever been called interesting.

“I’m just intrigued as to why you’d come on holiday with your ex and his new bit of fluff and presumably a bunch of mates who for some inexplicable reason are not on your side.”

“Apart from a few clients, and a few personal friends of Big Arsehole, most of us work at the same place. That’s how we know one another. I love skiing and after Mark and I broke up, I thought I could still go and not be bothered, but later I saw the light. By which I mean, I eventually saw that it probably would have been better not to have come. By then, it was too late to cancel.”

“You’d lose your money?”

Conrad nodded. “I can ski on my own, so I’ll only be around them at breakfast and dinner time. I can cope with that.”

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