WARM WINTER KISSES a feel good Christmas romance novel

by STEEPLES, JILL

  WARM WINTER KISSES

  A feel-good romance novel

  JILL STEEPLES

  Published by Joffe Books 2015

  www.joffebooks.com

  © Jill Steeples

  Jill Steeples asserts the moral right to the identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this.

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  Romance writer Bronte Huntington has vowed she will never settle for anything less than ‘the one.’ When pleasant red-haired dentist Ryan moves in next door he just doesn't fit the bill. They have plenty in common but Bronte wants nothing more than friendship with him.

  Then it looks like Bronte’s dreams have finally come true when dashing Sebastian Fairfax rescues her on his horse after she has an accident in the countryside around her idyllic little cottage. Sebastian is tall, dark, handsome, and heir to a massive country estate!

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  ‘Oh . . . my . . . God!’

  Ah, Lexi. My sister was always so enthusiastic.

  ‘Rocc-o . . . di . . . Cas-tri!’ Her tongue lingered over each syllable of that well-known name.

  ‘That. Is. Sim-ply. A-maz-ing!’ With her swoon echoing through the sound waves, I balanced the phone precariously in the crook of my neck and struggled with the door keys.

  Slamming my way into the flat, I smiled, picturing her jigging up and down on the spot.

  ‘You do know who he is, don’t you?’ she added.

  I rolled my eyes heavenward as I picked up the post from the doormat, dumping it along with my handbag on the kitchen table. I parked my backside on the table, kicked off my heels and allowed my aching, stockinged feet to dangle in the air.

  ‘Of course I know who he is.’ I sighed, tugging off my hold-ups, discarding them on the floor and rubbing at my throbbing toes. I was aware that my sister thought I was completely clueless, but you’d need to have spent the last six months marooned on a desert island not to have heard of Rocco.

  Brooding: check.

  Tempestuous: check.

  Foul-mouthed: check.

  Reckless: check.

  Celebrated: check.

  Heart-meltingly good-looking: check.

  Well, only if you liked that full-on, contemptuous, bad boy thing, which I most certainly didn’t.

  He was the man of the moment, or so it seemed, judging by the amount of column inches he was amassing in the tabloids. A regular, all-round celebrity hot shot according to the papers.

  I was not interested.

  And then there was the small matter of those three Michelin stars which lent a certain gravitas to his reputation as theenfant terrible of the London culinary scene.

  Definitely not interested.

  Funnily enough though, only yesterday I’d been reading about him. I’d picked up one of those glossy Sunday supplements. You know the type. The sort of article that makes you want to give up and slit your throat at the humdrum banality of your own life. A double-page spread showing how that other breed; the talented, good-looking lot, like to spend their rare moments of free time.

  With Rocco that meant, apparently, fishing, clay-pigeon shooting and hanging out in the pubs surrounding his country estate, always accompanied by his black Labrador, Millie, and sometimes by his best friend, legendary rock guitarist, Zak Stranger.

  I was so not interested.

  There was his on-off relationship with supermodel Pandora to consider, too. She of the improbable figure and the face of an angel. A bad-tempered angel admittedly, but an angel, nonetheless. She had a fiery nature to match Rocco’s, and their spats were often played out in full view of the clientele of his West End restaurant and hit the headlines regularly. From what I’d heard, it seemed that life in the vicinity of Rocco was anything but dull, but I wasn’t sure that I was ready for such excitement.

  ‘So when do you start, Beth?’ Lexi asked, her enthusiasm zinging down the phone.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure I’m even going to take it yet,’ I explained. ‘The agency has only just rung. I said I’d let them know tomorrow.’

  Her disbelief whistled down the line.

  ‘Are you mad? What’s there to think about? We’re talking about Rocco di Castri here. The man’s a bloody genius. Just imagine what fun it’ll be working alongside him and meeting up with all his famous chums.’

  I shook my head. Quite frankly, that whole celebrity thing left me cold.

  ‘And all that fantastic food you’ll get to try out. Yum, yum!’ Lexi’s voice raised an octave higher with every word she spoke.

  Food, though? Now if anything could spark my interest then it might be that.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I managed, unconvinced. ‘The thing is,’ I said, thinking aloud, ‘I thought I might take a break.’ Once I’d said it, it sounded like the best idea ever. ‘That was the whole point of me temping in the first place. So I could pick and choose my jobs.’ I was warming to my subject. ‘That last contract was great, but it’s left me feeling completely wrung out. Twelve hour days, organising the schedule of a single-minded, globetrotting CEO, it’s exhausting!’

  Really, it felt like I hadn’t had any time to myself in ages.

  ‘Everything has to be done immediately, if not sooner, and most of the people I end up working for have no concept that I might have a social life of my own. I can’t imagine Rocco di Castri will be any different.’ I paused for a moment. ‘And besides, I have Martin to think about.’

  Lexi made a strangulated screeching sound at the other end of the phone.

  ‘No, no, no. Listen to me. You simply have to take this job. Who knows where it’ll lead? And Martin— pherr!’ She made a dismissive snorting sound. ‘He won’t mind, you know that. You’ve got no worries there.’

  I supposed that was true. But there was more to it. For a whi
le now, I’d been having a niggling feeling about the direction my life was taking. All work and no play was making for a very boring existence. And although Martin was as supportive as ever, I sensed that something was amiss. Maybe some time alone together was just what we needed.

  Hearing his key in the door, I jumped off the table.

  ‘Look, Lexi, I’m going to have to go. Martin’s home. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.’

  ‘Take care, Beth. Love you. And don’t forget to call the agency!’

  Switching my phone off with a smile, I placed it on the table and turned to greet Martin.

  ‘Hello, stranger!’

  ‘Hello,’ he said, looking surprised, his eyes searching my face. ‘I wasn’t expecting you home so early.’ He walked past me and into the kitchen.

  ‘I know,’ I said, following him. ‘I thought I’d surprise you. As of five o’clock pm today, I finished working for the Investment Bank and am now officially unemployed.’ I stretched my arms high above my head. ‘And boy, does it feel wonderful!’

  ‘What, nothing fixed up for tomorrow?’

  ‘No,’ I said, deciding not to mention the offer of the job with a certain Mr Di Castri. What was the point when I had no intention of taking it? ‘I thought I might take some time off.’

  ‘Really?’ said Martin, sounding decidedly underwhelmed. ‘Well, in that case I think we should go out. There’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for a while now. I’ll book a table at Martini’s, and we can talk.’

  * * *

  Sitting at our usual place, in the corner of the Italian trattoria, felt as comfortably familiar as sitting on the sofa at home, wrapped up in a duvet. We’d been coming here for years. High days and low days, it was somewhere we always returned to. The smells of garlic, onions and tomatoes wafting from the kitchen were tantalising and sipping at a refreshing glass of Orvieto, with Tony hovering in the background in his customary attentive manner, I felt content and relaxed for the first time in a long while.

  Watching Martin across the table nursing an orange juice, I noticed how tired he was looking. Wondering why I hadn’t noticed earlier, I reached across for his hands.

  ‘Why don’t you have a proper drink, a beer maybe or some wine?’

  He’d been unusually quiet all evening, toying with his pasta, observing me thoughtfully. Was he ill? Stressed? Broke? That might be it. The thought of me not bringing any money home must have tipped him over the edge.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Beth.’ My name on his lips sounded as if he was saying it for the very first time. He took my hands in his, looking me intently in the eyes. ‘This isn’t easy,’ he faltered, ‘but, you and me . . .’

  The alarm bells began to ring. I’m nothing if not intuitive and I had an inkling this was turning into one of those low days.

  ‘The thing is,’ he went on, ‘I think we’ve both known for a while now that it’s not working between us.’

  I was aware, vaguely, of my mouth drooping open in an unflattering manner, my wine glass wavering in front of my face. No, no, we hadn’t, I wanted to say.

  ‘We’ve been bumbling along,’ he continued, ‘good mates and all that, but neither of us is happy, not really. We both deserve more. Don’t we?’

  He tilted his head to one side and I was able to examine his face, so achingly familiar. The intelligent eyes, the smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, his hair escaping in random strands around his ears and yet tonight, it was like seeing him for the first time. My heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Not happy?’ My voice creaked. ‘I hadn’t realised.’

  ‘No?’ He tilted his head the other way, his gaze dropping to the table. ‘You don’t love me, Beth, I know that much. Not . . .’

  ‘I adore you, Martin.’

  He smiled, shaking his head. ‘I know you do. But that’s not enough. It never has been.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, please Beth,’ he said, holding his hand up to stop me, ‘let’s not pretend. Not anymore. I’ve always known it. For years I’ve been hoping you’d grow to love me, like I loved you, but I realise now I can’t make that happen.’

  Loved me? Past tense? When did that happen? I wasn’t going to cry. Not sitting there in the middle of my favourite restaurant. Not in front of Tony, who by now appeared to have got an inkling that something untoward was going on, and was hovering all the more. I bit on my lip, screwing up my mouth to stop the tell-tale tears from falling.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing happened. It seemed I’d lost the faculty of speech. Instead I practised my mentally challenged guppy expression. At that moment I think I probably perfected it. Dear Martin. Dependable, kind, loving Martin, the one who worshipped the ground I walked on, who’d pledged, admittedly not that recently, now I came to think about it, that to marry me and have a family with me would make him the happiest man on earth. The one who was sitting across the table from me, telling me he was dumping me. When had it all gone so wrong?

  ‘I’ll leave first thing in the morning,’ he said, examining his fingers. ‘It’s for the best.’ My eyebrows shot heavenwards. ‘Don’t look like that, Beth, please. We can still be friends.’

  Stifling an ungainly snort, I wondered when Martin had turned into an all-walking all-talking book of clichés.

  A heavy silence descended over us.

  ‘Would you like some pudding?’ he asked a moment later, looking around for Tony.

  Funnily enough, my appetite for zabaglione or panna cotta had all but vanished.

  ‘No. Thank you,’ I replied quietly, picking up my handbag. ‘Shall we go, then?’

  Chapter 2

  Back at home I climbed straight into bed, expecting a fitful night wrestling with the bedcovers, sleep taunting me, as I listened to Martin making his way stealthily through the flat like a cat-burglar. Instead, within minutes I was sparko, the traumas of the evening working as a most effective sedative.

  The next morning, I awoke to an unnerving stillness and a headache the size of the national debt. I peered out from the bedroom door knowing, instinctively, that Martin had gone. This had been no spur of the moment decision, but instead a long-thought out, well-planned operation executed with military precision.

  I clutched my chest. Was it possible to have a heart attack at twenty-eight? I took a deep breath and, managing to convince myself the pains in my chest were more likely due to a panic attack than anything more serious, I wandered dazed around the flat.

  His absent CDs had left a gaping hole in the rack in the living room, the kitchen was drained of colour following the departure of his Le Creuset casserole set and all that remained in the hallway, where his dozen pairs of baseball boots had littered the floor for months, annoying me intensely, was a smattering of mud flecks.

  But it was the blank space on the wall above the television where he’d removed the photo that really got to me. Tears leapt to my eyes at the sight of that bald patch of matt vinyl and I began to sob, at first quietly like a heroine from a period drama, and then with more gusto, befitting a more contemporary heroine, a screaming, wailing one from EastEnders. The missing picture was taken five years earlier, shortly after we met, on our first holiday together in the Maldives. Him grinning broadly, standing in the sea, the water lapping his knees, me cupped in his arms looking lovingly up into his eyes.

  I sighed for that lost moment. It had been reckless to go off to the other side of the world with someone I barely knew, but it hadn’t felt like that at the time. We’d both been overwhelmed by our feelings— well, lust, I guess, and that delicious anticipation of knowing that we were in at the beginning of something big. Not a fling or a passing dalliance, but something life-changing.

  ‘I love you!’ Martin told me that day, the sweltering heat and exotic sands only adding to the heady romantic atmosphere.

  ‘I think you’re great too,’ I’d said, not quite making the cut.

  But I did grow to like him a lot in my ow
n sweet little way, the only way I knew how.

  ‘I sometimes think you’re just keeping your options open, waiting in case something better turns up,’ he told me some months later.

  Ouch! It wasn’t true; although I knew my inability to match Martin’s depth of emotion was a stumbling block. But not for one moment did I imagine he would up and leave. Not in a million years. The one thing that was a constant in my life, an absolute certainty, was that Martin loved me and would always be there for me.

  Only, now he wasn’t. I was a poor, pathetic creature sitting alone on my sofa with Jeremy Kyle twittering away in the background about a sordid love-triangle involving a headmaster, his wife and the chair of the Board of Governors, whose name had once been Arthur, but who was now known as Anita.

  Ordinarily, I’d have been enthralled, but I had my own problems to consider now. I had no boyfriend, no job and I’d been abandoned by my parents who, weeks earlier, had told me they were quitting their jobs to take a gap year travelling the world. Where were they when I needed them? Probably on a beach in Thailand somewhere, acting like a couple of lovesick teenagers.

  I was sobbing noisily into my tissue when the doorbell rang and I heard Lexi’s cheerful voice calling through the letterbox.

  ‘It’s only me, sweetie. Come on, let me in.’

  Thank goodness for Lexi, I thought, sniffing my way to the door, tissues falling to the floor in my wake.

  ‘Good grief, look at the state of you,’ she said, throwing her arms around me.

  Snatching a glance in the mirror over her shoulder, I could see what she meant. My eyes were red and puffy and last night’s make-up was smeared in an unsightly mess over my cheeks.

  ‘He’s left me,’ I blurted, the tears falling again.

  ‘I know,’ she said, as if I’d just told her I’d had cereal for breakfast. ‘He phoned me first thing this morning. Said you’d probably be in need of a friendly ear.’

  Huh, how dare he be so considerate at a moment like this? He was meant to act like a cruel, heartless bastard. Sadly though, that had never been his style.