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Back What Happens At Christmas
Chapters (32)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. One
  4. December 21st
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. December 22nd
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. December 23rd
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-one
  27. December 24th
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. December 25th
  31. Twenty-four
  32. Copyright Page

He stared at her; and for a moment, the years fell away and it was the day before her wedding. The stricken look on his face was the same as it had been when she’d responded to his charge that she would marry him if he had money. And her heart cracked.

“Good evening, Grayson.” She turned to the door and pulled it open.

“Camille.”

She paused but didn’t turn around. “Yes?”

“The boy I was then was a fool to let what he wanted most slip away.” Determination sounded in his voice. “The man I am now will not make the same mistake. This is not over, Camille.”

“I suppose that remains to be seen,” she said, and took her leave.

It wasn’t until Camille had reached her room, changed into her nightclothes and collapsed onto her bed that she allowed herself to wonder exactly what he had meant. Certainly, he had said all sorts of things since his return that had been, well, romantic and perhaps indications of feelings that were far more than friendship. But he hadn’t told her everything; he hadn’t been completely honest; he hadn’t mentioned his money. And the question she couldn’t get past was why.

Surely, he didn’t think that made a difference to her. It hadn’t eleven years ago—although, admittedly, given what they had said to one another, she could understand why he thought it would. But now she was financially independent. She could marry whomever she wished, without regard to the practicalities of finance. Still, he thought she wanted to marry a prince for very nearly the same reasons she had married Harold. Well, if he was so foolish as to believe that . . .

She heaved a heartfelt sigh. She’d never known such confusion. All the anger, all the pain, she’d thought was far behind her now threatened to overwhelm her, as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. And yet it was somehow freeing to at long last tell him exactly what he had done. And how he had broken her heart.

Her mother was right. The past is never over and done with. It would be with her, with them, always. And hadn’t she admitted the truth to her family, even if she hadn’t quite accepted it yet herself?

She had always loved him, and she still did.

Twenty-one

Twenty-one

It could have been worse—although, at the moment, Gray couldn’t imagine how. At the very least, they now understood all the other had gone through.