“I’m so sorry,” she said to Dahlia, who rather stiffly said it was fine and not to mention it. But she added that she wasn’t really in the business of overcharging people, and Carmen said she knew that and left a huge tip, which actually then felt like she’d made everything slightly worse. She screwed up her face and headed back up the hill to the bookshop, which now had its sidewalk perfectly swept and a rather jolly-looking Mr. McCredie standing outside in his reindeer kit. A woman was walking along very, very slowly with a bundled-up toddler who had so many clothes on he looked like a bouncy rubber ball.

“Mummy! Mummy! Man! Look! Santa!” he shouted, his high voice loud in the silent street. His eyes were wide as he regarded Mr. McCredie as one would a vision from the past, and Mr. McCredie smiled broadly and bowed to the child, and the snow kept falling.

Chapter Twenty

“Just come back to my hotel room. Finish the booking,” Blair had urged.

“Blair,” she said. “Am I seriously the only woman you know in Edinburgh?”

“Yes. So?” he reflected. “Well, that girl in the coffee shop was cute.”

“Go get her then.”

“Oh no, it’s too boring to meet new people and pretend to be nice to them. Come on. You’re right here and my hotel room is only . . . well, up, like, nineteen flights of steps.”

“No, no, no, no, no. Get out of here; I have to sell some books.”

Carmen shook him off—he looked genuinely startled by this—and went back to work.

And sure enough, as more and more people ventured out to take a look at the beautiful landscape and make snowmen in the Grassmarket and throw snowballs at the traffic wardens, which was very bad and something obviously you should never ever do, the shop got busier and busier.

In the past, Carmen mused, she had certainly hopped into bed with people far less attractive and attentive than Blair, then laughed herself stupid about it with Idra later. Her sister was turning her into a prude, she decided. Also, to be entirely fair, it wasn’t as if Blair was giving her even the faintest of empty promises about how much he wanted to see her again or how special he thought she was.

“Bye then,” said Blair sulkily, standing in the snow.

She smiled. “Bye,” she said. Then she added truthfully: “It was very nice to meet you.”

Blair snorted. “It cost me ten hot chocolates. Hmm. Maybe I should go see that girl. I bet she’s feeling very grateful.”

“You are a massive sex case. Get out of here.”

“I’m just being authentic to my true feelings,” he said. “Come on. Please. I need fun. My LA schedule is full of meetings.”

“You’re telling me that going to LA to live in luxury and get ferried about isn’t fun?”