A Cosy Candlelit Christmas: A wonderfully festive feel good romance (An Unforgettable Christmas Book 2)

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘I already did that and nobody has a spare.’

  Isla frowned. Dahlia had called around all the hotels in the village that fast? It seemed rude to question her on it. She’d have to get online and check for herself, although if the internet connection was as bad as Seb had mentioned then that might mean simply walking the streets to find out, not a particularly enticing prospect in the current weather.

  ‘It looks as though it’s going to be Dad’s then,’ Isla said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dahlia repeated. She gave an awkward smile and then left them to tend to a customer who’d just arrived at the bar.

  ‘My suite is huge,’ Seb said suddenly. ‘There’s a bed and a sofa.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It’s no problem. I can take the sofa for one night. Once you’ve camped out on a glacier you can sleep anywhere, you know. You can have my bed.’

  ‘I couldn’t—’

  ‘Yes, you could. I know it’s not ideal but I’m guessing the alternative is staying over where you’re not entirely sure you’re welcome. At least with me you know you’re welcome…’ He blushed, dipping his gaze to spread marmalade on his toast with far more concentration than the task merited. ‘And I’d be the perfect gentleman – no funny business.’

  Isla was reminded of when Justin had made the very same promise, and she was suddenly seized by the notion that if there was to be any ‘funny business’ she’d much rather it was with Seb than with him. She shook the idea away and turned her thoughts back to his proposal. Would Dahlia mind? She didn’t suppose so. It certainly beat the alternative.

  ‘I’d pay for the room for that one night.’

  ‘No need,’ he said, looking up from his toast. ‘I’ve already cleared it with the university and they’re happy to put the expenses through, so there’s nothing to worry about on that score.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t be in your way? Stop you from working?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. I can easily work around you.’

  She might live to regret her decision, but Isla smiled and nodded. ‘Thanks then – that would be brilliant.’

  Seb grinned. ‘I’ll clear it with Dahlia but I’m sure she won’t mind one bit.’

  After a short conversation with Dahlia, Seb disappeared to tidy his equipment away so that Isla had space for her stuff and Isla ordered herself another coffee. There wasn’t anywhere she needed to be and going out was going to be tricky for the next few hours anyway.

  Dahlia had just placed the cup in front of her with a strangely knowing smile and gone off to answer the phone in reception when Isla’s own phone rang. She groaned inwardly as she saw the name displayed on the screen. This guy just didn’t take no for an answer.

  ‘Justin.’

  ‘Are you OK? Ian told me about your flight.’

  ‘I’m fine. Is that all you wanted?’

  ‘No… I wanted to say—’

  ‘Don’t. I don’t want to hear an apology, or a proclamation of love, or how I do things to you that you can’t control. I don’t want any of that; I just want you to leave me alone.’

  There was a brief silence at the other end. Across the room a group of young men broke into a tipsy rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’. She hoped that they weren’t going to get louder as the day went on – Dahlia’s other guests were mostly stuck indoors like she was and that was a recipe for some serious boredom drinking.

  ‘I’m sorry for the way things turned out,’ Justin said finally. ‘I never meant it to end up this way.’

  Isla bit back the reply she really wanted to give. She’d bet a fair amount of money that much about it was true. Something had started between them and scuppered his well-laid plans, whatever they might have been. But it was up to Grover now to get to the bottom of it and Isla had to be content to let him if she wasn’t going to make things worse. At least she wasn’t staying at Ian’s house now, running the risk of bumping into Justin if he visited.

  ‘Is that all?’ she asked.

  ‘Merry Christmas?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘And to you too.’

  Ending the call before he could say anything else, she stowed the phone in her pocket. Times had been stressful enough and the last thing she wanted to think about was Justin and his silky lies.

  But her bad mood dissipated as soon as Seb came back down to the bar. She smiled broadly. He looked so damn pleased with himself she couldn’t help it.

  ‘All clear upstairs,’ he said. ‘Underpants removed from the light fittings and coffee-stained research papers kicked under the bed.’

  Isla laughed. ‘I’m thrilled to know you made such an effort for me.’

  ‘So, whenever you’re ready we’ll move your cases in and leave your old room free for Dahlia to get ready for the next guests.’

  Isla nodded and was about to suggest that he get a coffee and join her before they did that when her phone rang again. Pulling it from her pocket, she half expected to have to tell Justin to piss off again when she saw it was a number she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Miss McCoy – it’s Grover Rousseau here. Have I caught you at a good time to talk?’

  ‘It’s as good as any. Have you got news for me already?’ she asked, taken aback that he was still working at this time on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Firstly, I know who registered your grandmother’s house on the rental site. And now that I have the information I’ve taken the liberty of contacting the site to ask them to remove it. I hope that’s alright with you.’

  ‘Of course. I don’t suppose I officially own it anyway yet so I couldn’t complain if I wanted to.’

  ‘I don’t know how it slipped through the necessary checks to be honest, but I suspect the site administration might be a little on the sloppy side. The fact remains that without relevant paperwork it shouldn’t have been on there. Of course, should you choose to reinstate the listing once the property passes to you then I would imagine that would be perfectly acceptable. Although, given what’s happened here, perhaps you might want to choose a letting agent with more stringent checks – it doesn’t bode well for the rest of their systems if they fail to fulfil the most basic ones.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Isla replied, but she wasn’t really thinking about letting agents and websites. She wanted to know who was behind it, and her heart was thumping as she waited. When she found out, what then? Was she supposed to confront them? Did she need to do something about it? Involve the police? Make some sort of formal complaint? Despite the betrayal, that wasn’t a road she really wanted to go down. It would make life difficult for her and even worse for her dad if it turned out to be someone close to him. Was it worth all that hassle? Perhaps it would be easier for Grover to issue a quiet warning to the perpetrator and leave it at that? They’d get away with it, of course, and that stuck in her throat, but was the alternative any better? She’d just begun to mend her relationship with her dad and something like this might set them right back again, especially if he was forced to take sides. And there was no telling which side he might take.

  ‘Who was it?’ she asked, shutting her eyes.

  Grover hesitated. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘No, but I probably ought to. If it’s my dad—’

  ‘Gracious, no!’ Grover exclaimed. ‘Not Ian! He’d never…’ He smoothed his tone again. ‘Ian and I go back a long way and I’m sure he’d never…’

  ‘Who then?’

  Another pause. ‘Your brother,’ Grover said quietly.

  ‘Benet?’ Isla blinked. She’d considered it, of course, but her natural instinct had been to suspect Justin. Unless they were in it together? Justin had already admitted that Celine had offered him money to help win Isla over. Would he have seen another opportunity to screw a little more out of the situation? It made some sense now – his guilt over their failed relationship seemed all too intense to be just about that. If he’d been trying to make a much bigger wedge of money from her too then that would explain why he was so t
orn up about it. So, did that mean Benet and Justin were in cahoots? Or was she seeing patterns and connections that weren’t there?

  ‘What would you like to do?’ Grover asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing yet, I suppose. Should I tell my dad?’

  ‘That’s entirely up to you. Would it do irreparable damage to the relationship if you did?’

  ‘That’s what I was wondering. So I just leave it?’

  ‘You could speak to Benet yourself and tell him you know. That might be enough to resolve the matter. You’d have to decide if you’d feel vindicated by such a small amount of action.’

  ‘Do I have a legal case to prosecute?’

  ‘I’ve never come across a situation like this before. Would you like me to look into it?’

  Isla was silent for a moment. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘He’ll know that we know when the rental agents contact him to tell him they’ve taken the house from their listings and I would hope that’s enough to deter him from trying anything untoward again. Perhaps I’ll talk to him, but not yet. I need to think about what to say first.’

  ‘That sounds like a wise course of action to me. Please don’t hesitate to call me any time if you need more advice or help. I’ll be on standby, awaiting your next instruction.’

  ‘Thank you, Grover – I appreciate that. And I really appreciate your help already with this. If I wanted to, would I be able to find out if anyone else has been involved?’

  ‘You think Benet may have had an accomplice?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Natalie…’ Grover began, but then stopped himself.

  ‘You can say it,’ Isla prompted. ‘Whatever you need to say, please do.’

  ‘It’s just that I know the family of old and your grandmother spoke of Natalie many times. From what I know I don’t imagine for a moment she’d be caught up in anything like this.’

  ‘Well, at least that’s one sibling not out to get me then,’ Isla said with a faint smile. ‘This brother and sister business is all new to me and I never imagined it would get this complicated.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry this happened.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s probably the last thing anyone would expect. If anything, it all seems like a lot of hassle for not very much payback.’

  ‘That all depends on how long you stayed away from St Martin and how little interest you took in the house,’ Grover said. ‘It might have been very profitable indeed if you were never here and he could get away with keeping it covered up.’

  ‘My dad would have been checking on it regularly, I’m sure.’

  ‘Perhaps Benet never considered that.’

  ‘He’s not very bright then.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Grover replied, and made an odd sound in his throat that sounded like he was trying to swallow an undiplomatic reply.

  But then it occurred to Isla again just how much interest Justin had shown in the situation. Hadn’t he said he was happy to check on the house for her? He had the keys and Ian trusted him. He could have kept her dad away on the pretence of doing it for him. And if that were true, did that mean Celine knew? She’d already offered him money for getting Isla on side. Would she go that much further too?

  ‘OK,’ she said, holding in a sigh. Her brain was in knots over this thing and she was tired of trying to work it out. It was Christmas, she was stuck far from home and she just wanted this whole horrible business to go away. ‘Thanks again for letting me know and for dealing with it. For now, I’m not going to do anything but let me know if there are developments that I ought to be acting on.’

  ‘I will. I just need to warn you that I won’t be available tomorrow.’

  ‘I should think not!’ Isla said, and she couldn’t help a little laugh. ‘I’d feel very sorry for you if you were!’

  ‘Quite,’ he replied, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Compliments of the season to you.’

  ‘And to you,’ she replied.

  Ending the call she tapped the phone silently against her chin as she gazed the length of the restaurant. Seb sat next to her, a silent question in his expression, one she wasn’t capable of answering until she understood it fully herself. Why was her life never simple? Swiping to unlock the screen, she brought up Justin’s number. But then she paused, finger hovering over the call button for a moment before locking it again. What was the point? If he was involved he’d only deny it, and if she was honest she just didn’t have the energy to get into a debate with him again about anything, least of all this.

  The most galling thing was the lies. When she thought about it now, she almost felt she would have handed them the opportunity to rent out the house so that it was all above board if only they’d put it to her. She’d never asked for Serendipity Sound and she hadn’t really cared about it all that much. It would have made sense for them to do it between them and share the profits, and she would have been happy with that arrangement.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ Seb asked, his voice low and respectful of the pain in her eyes. ‘Something’s happened?’

  Isla shook herself. ‘I don’t want to ruin the day with all that crap and I have the rest of my life to think about it. Why don’t we go and get my stuff moved into your room and try to remember that Christmas is coming?’

  Once she’d dumped her belongings in Seb’s room, Isla called her mum to explain she wasn’t going to make it home for Christmas. The reaction was typical Glory – emotional fireworks, tears, recriminations and cold threats. But in the end she’d had to concede that Ian had been right to want to keep his daughter safe and decided that, although she’d never stop hating him, perhaps that one act would save him from the fiery damnation she’d wished on him so many times in the past. Still, this was going to be a Christmas that would live long in the memory of Glory McCoy – and for all the wrong reasons. She’d take great pleasure in trotting the story out year after year, embellishing it and turning it into legend. The story of how her ungrateful daughter had forsaken her at the most precious time of any Christian year to take off halfway across the world to find a dad who hadn’t cared about her for all those Christmases before. It was already a classic.

  She also phoned Dodie, who was expecting her in Bournemouth to take part in a charity sea swim on Christmas Day, to apologise for the fact she wasn’t going to make that either. It was something they’d been doing for a couple of years now, a crazy tradition that Dodie seemed to love, and Isla hadn’t the heart to tell her friend how much she wished they could do something just a little less radical for their fundraising efforts. Who wanted to splash around in the sea in zero temperatures when they could be tucked up in bed with Christmas champagne before wrapping up in a fluffy robe and ambling downstairs to open presents? But Dodie had a way of making even the most horrible things seem like a good idea and Isla always ended up getting roped in.

  A small part of her relished the idea of spending Christmas holed up a hotel sharing a room with a virtual stranger. Although, this was Seb, and perhaps he wasn’t such a stranger any more. She was finding it harder to fight the growing, confused feelings she had about him and as much as she craved his company, it scared her too. She was on the cusp, about to fall into something big, and she didn’t know if she was ready. She didn’t know if she’d ever be ready.

  As she ended the call to her friend, she looked across to where Seb was hunched over his laptop, muttering to himself.

  ‘You’re a workaholic,’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t got much else to do,’ he replied, looking up. Isla raised her eyebrows. ‘OK,’ he laughed. ‘Perhaps I have today.’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing, we’ll go stir-crazy in here all day.’

  ‘Dahlia says there’s a carol concert and service at the little church in the square tonight.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Isla replied. ‘Won’t it get called off?’

  ‘Too important to get called off…’ Seb dipped his head back to a spreadsheet on his lapto
p.

  ‘Even in a deadly blizzard?’

  ‘So she says. They never call it off, not for anything. And everyone just battles through the snow to get there.’

  ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘I know.’

  Isla flopped onto his bed. ‘I’m bored already. Maybe we should try and get there.’

  ‘You really want to?’ he asked, looking up again.

  ‘You said you weren’t going to do any more work today,’ she added, aware that she sounded vaguely like an unreasonable toddler but unable to help it. There he was, sitting at his desk with his silly bow tie and his floppy hair and freckles, and all she wanted to do was pull him up from his chair and rip his silly bow tie off, followed by his shirt and then his trousers. It was a ridiculous notion and along with all the other emotions that were spinning around in her head, she was about ready to explode and she didn’t know what to do about any of it.

  She went to the window and wrapped her arms around herself. He’d promised no funny business and she believed him because he was good. She ought to be thankful he wasn’t just another Justin.

  ‘I’m sorry; I did,’ he said, closing the lid on his laptop. ‘It’s hard to break the habit of a lifetime.’ She turned away from the window to face him. ‘So, what do you want to do?’ he asked.

  Isla chewed on her lip and those wicked images invaded her thoughts again. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ she said with a shrug, feeling even more like a fractious toddler than ever. ‘We’re stuck. And I never thought I’d complain about having to lounge around all day.’

  ‘How do you feel about Christmas films?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re OK I suppose. Depends on what film it is. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because,’ he said with a smile, ‘I happen to know that Dahlia has a cupboard full of DVDs in her office and I’m sure she’d let us borrow some if we asked.’

  As they sat together on the sofa in Seb’s suite, Isla would have put a sizeable sum on the fact that Dodie was watching this exact same film right now.

  ‘It’s a Wonderful Life is my best friend’s favourite movie,’ she said. ‘She’s nuts about James Stewart and she watches this one every Christmas.’