Author’s Note

This book contains mentions of abuse and depictions of anxiety. I have tried to handle these topics as lovingly as I am able. I hope this romance is a Christmas comfort read.

Talia xx

One

@DoURe1dMe:

@AbbieGrl: Welcome home.

“I come bearing biscuits!”

Abigail Farrell stopped typing numbers into her spreadsheet du jour, removed her cat-eye spectacles, and massaged the bridge of her nose. Hard. “Chitra,” she said. “Remember our little chat, the other day? About how you are too pregnant to trek across campus every time you fancy a tea break, and you should stay in the biology block and call me instead?”

Chitra, who was round and glowing and far too pleased with herself, gave a derisive snort. “I can’t say I remember that, no—”

“How convenient,” Abbie murmured darkly.

“But I do remember telling you that I need to stretch my legs more. So shut up.” Chitra plopped takeout cups from the school’s canteen onto Abbie’s desk, shoving administrative paperwork out of the way in a flash of mauve nails and gold bangles. Then she sank into one of Abbie’s office chairs and propped her ankle-booted feet up on the other. “How goes the world of office management, my darling?”

“Swimmingly,” Abbie said, because everything she organised went swimmingly. Except for Chitra, who unfortunately refused to be controlled. “How goes the world of corralling whiny brats?”

Chitra arched a dark eyebrow. “You’re convincing no one with that ‘I hate kids’ routine. I know you keep a tub of sweets under your desk for any lost twelve-year-olds.”

Oh dear. If that information were widely known, it would completely undo the Fuck off and leave me alone aura Abbie had cultivated with her colleagues. Next thing you knew, people would be popping by her office for chats at all hours.

She made a mental note to hide the box of Celebrations better and wear more aggressive eyeliner. “I will neither confirm nor deny that accusation.”

“You’re ridiculous. Drink your tea and have a biscuit, you dizzy cow.”

Grudgingly, Abbie obeyed. The tea was rather nice. The canteen staff had added cinnamon in deference to the festive season, which was about as much Christmas spirit as she could stand.

“I have news, by the way,” Chitra said, biting into a gingerbread shaped like Santa’s head.

“Mm. Do tell.”

“According to my Instagram feed, Will Reid has been spotted at LAX. His fangirls reckon he’s coming home for Christmas. Isn’t that nice?”

Abbie wasn’t surprised by this information; she’d already known, courtesy of the three Union Jack emojis Will himself had sent her an hour ago.

But she was conscious of the fact that Chitra didn’t really care about Will Reid. Chitra cared about Abbie’s Reactions to Will Reid, and occasionally she mentioned him in leading tones while studying Abigail carefully, as if waiting for some sort of meaningful response. Which was ridiculous, and pointless, since there was no meaning of any kind to be found in Abbie’s responses to Will.

In order to prove as much, she sipped her tea and murmured dryly, “Ah. I thought you meant interesting news.”

Chitra’s unsubtle examination dissolved as she laughed around a mouthful of biscuit. “Don’t let anyone else hear you dismiss our city’s greatest success. They might excommunicate you.”

She did not exaggerate. It wasn’t often a small city like Nottingham produced America’s third-favourite British heartthrob (as voted by the readers of E! Online).

Lowering her voice, Chitra went on, “I take it you’ll see him at Christmas?”

Abbie opened her mouth to dispense an appropriately sarcastic reply. Unfortunately, instead of offering words, her brain helpfully produced a series of images instead.

Will Reid’s familiar, million-dollar face smiling just for her.

His literal superhero body sitting on the floor beside her grandma’s Christmas tree.

His hands—the same hands that had entire social media accounts dedicated to them—reaching for the clay ornaments they’d made together when they were twelve.

“Yes,” she said finally, the word a little hoarse. “Yes, I’ll see him at Christmas.”

Always would.

@DoURe1dMe: Is that a CHRISTMAS PARTY I see in your story?

@DoURe1dMe: I didn’t know you went to those.

@AbbieGrl: Har de har. It’s a work thing. Chitra forced me.

@DoURe1dMe: That woman is a very good influence on you.

The trouble with Will, Abbie reflected three days later, was that he lived in two realities at once.

Hollywood Will only existed on-screen. He lived in blockbuster American movies as Captain X, kicking aliens in the nuts without tearing his spandex. He lived in viral YouTube videos where he answered rapid-fire questions about his twelve-year acting career while a truckload of puppies scrambled into his lap. He lived in her phone, on social media, despite the fact that she’d muted all iterations of his name. Someone would tweet Jesus Christ I’d pay him to spit on me, and lo and behold, there’d be a picture of Will eye-fucking some glossy American woman next to a palm tree.

Really. Did they have anything other than palm trees over there? Perhaps a nice hedge or two?

Hollywood Will was inescapable and distant and might have been safe to drool over alongside the rest of the world, if it weren’t for the fact that Home Will also existed.

Home Will had lived next door to Abbie since they were ten.

Home Will sent her adorable memes and indie artwork via his secret Instagram account.

Home Will was the lifelong best friend she shared with her twin brother, and that friendship was precious.

“Abs,” snapped the twin brother in question. “Are you hearing me or what?”

“Well, excuse me for concentrating on the road instead of your non-stop mouth,” Abbie said, even though she had actually been concentrating on emotional complications. She shifted gears and slipped into the motorway’s fast lane to add a sprinkle of truth to her white lie.

Jason’s snort filled the car, crackling through her speakerphone. “I call to check on your welfare, and this is what I get? Right, then. Understood. You’re on your own.”

“I’m rolling my eyes right now. I’m rolling them hard.” And that was the truth.

“Mind they don’t fall out of your head,” Jase singsonged. “By the way, I said, since I know you weren’t listening: there is a blizzard. A big one. Drive safe.”

Ah, the joys of the festive season. “Beast from the East?”

“Christ knows where it’s from, but it’s about to end up here, so I say again: drive safe.”

“Don’t worry.” Abbie glanced at the setting sun, then at a nearby road sign. “I’m thirty minutes away from Grandma’s, tops, and there’s no snow up here yet.”

“Well, no. It’s not due to hit Scotland for another day or so. But—”

“So you’re calling me why?”

“But,” Jase repeated firmly, “you never know, and preparedness pays. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later, you ungrateful swine. I have to get back to work.”

“Wait,” Abbie said, before her brother could cut the line and return to the whirl of his atelier. “When are you coming up?”

For the last five years, the Farrell family had made a habit of driving up to Scotland for Christmas. Not because they were actually Scottish, but because Abbie’s bonkers grandmother had decided that living in a Scottish farmhouse in the middle of fuck-off nowhere was her manifest destiny, and Abbie’s three bonkers older brothers had coughed up the money to help her do so.

Will Reid had also coughed up the money, but Abbie tried not to think about that. In fact, she tried never to think about Will unless he was standing right in front of her.

Or DMing her adorable lizards, obviously.

“I don’t know,” Jase hedged, not because he couldn’t leave for Christmas whenever he wanted—he could—but because he was a serial workaholic who didn’t know when to stop. “The twenty-third, maybe?”

“The—? That’s a week away, Jason!”

“Well, no one told you to drag your arse up there as soon as school was out, Abigail.”

“Is anyone going to be at Grandma’s this week, or is it just me and the cats? I—I had hoped to see you, you know.” In fact, Abbie had hoped to spend as much time as possible with her entire family, which was a desire she’d once have taken to her grave. But over the last two years—since the divorce, and the therapy Chitra had forced her to endure—she’d been trying, incrementally, to express her feelings more often.

It was disgusting, but occasionally worthwhile.

There was a pause from Jase before he said, sounding quietly pleased, “Oh. Well. Then I’ll come up a bit earlier. And I think Will’s on his way.”

Abbie froze. “Is he?”

“I’m not sure, I wasn’t paying attention when we talked about it. Call him and ask.”

A shout rang in the background, one that sounded suspiciously like, “Jason, if you don’t get over here and get these pins out of my tits—”

“Ah, for fuck’s sake. Yeah, I’m coming. Listen, speak later,” Jase said. “Don’t die in a snowdrift, don’t let Grandma die in a snowdrift, don’t let Will die in a snowdrift while chasing a chubby robin, goodbye.” The call cut out.

“Why,” Abbie asked the interior of her Volvo, “am I the one responsible for saving people from snowdrifts?”

There was an ice princess joke in there somewhere, but she couldn’t be bothered to find it.

Two

@AbbieGrl: Oh my fucking god that is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life

@DoURe1dMe: … Are we still talking about the Komodo dragon?

@AbbieGrl: YES.

It was sunset when William Reid arrived at his destination, and sunsets were meant to be a good omen. Or so he’d heard. His neighbour back in LA (his old neighbour, now that the condo was in escrow) had said so. She’d been big on omens and beachfront yoga and sunning her vagina, and she knew all kinds of interesting stuff, so Will tended to take her seriously.

He parked on the gravel drive outside Patricia Farrell’s house, switched off his engine, and took a peaceful moment to smile at the melting winter sun as it dripped away behind the trees. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he told it, quite sincerely. Then the scarlet front door of the farmhouse swung open, and out tottered Ms Tricia. It was a freezing afternoon, and she wore only a housedress, a purple-and-yellow pair of Despicable Me slippers, and a ginger cat. Will decided he’d better get out and hustle her into the house before she caught her death.

As he released his seatbelt, his phone buzzed for the thousandth time. Kara. He pressed Decline.

“William!” Ms Tricia beamed. “Here you are, here you are. Let me help you with your luggage—”

“No,” Will said firmly, because the head of the Farrell family was the kind of lady you had to be firm with, or next thing you knew you’d find yourself, er … buying her a farmhouse in Scotland. “No, Ms Tricia, I’ll get it. You’re very busy there with your cat.”

“Mmm, yes, you’re right,” she allowed, pausing to coo at the bundle of fur in her arms. “She’s pregnant, aren’t you, darling? She’s a very pregnant cat.”

“Congratulations to the happy couple.” He hauled his suitcase out of the car boot and strode across the gravel, practically shoving Ms Tricia into the house. Her long, pink dress looked awfully thin, and her brown skin was turning a bit blue already.

“How are you?” he asked once they were safe in the cozily lit hallway, a thousand family photographs smiling down from the lime-green walls.

“Don’t small-talk me, William. I hate it. Tell me some celebrity gossip, hm?”

Oh, I’ve got celebrity gossip, alright.

But he couldn’t say it out loud because it wasn’t for Ms Tricia. It was news for an entirely different Farrell woman, and she had to be the first one to hear it, because she was special. And this Christmas, finally, he was going to show her as much.

So he chose something else to placate Ms Tricia with. “Er … Cherry Ambjørn is pregnant again?”

“Oh, William, you’re rubbish. I read that in the papers last week.”

“Fair enough.” He smiled, setting his suitcase down by the worn-but-elegant console table. This house was old, and old-fashioned, and a bit rickety, but Ms Tricia liked it that way. The stone floors were covered with red-and-gold rugs—for Christmas, of course; they were usually blue. And the stairs behind her had a stuffed angel decorating every other step, and a shit-ton of tinsel wound over the bannister. Will approved. Now he was here, he would bully Jase into helping him attach tinsel from the ceiling, too, and maybe they would nail some bells and whatnot to the doorframes.

Mistletoe, even. Mistletoe could be great for his plans. But perhaps he was getting ahead of himself.

“Where is Jase, anyway?” he asked out loud, then realised he’d carried his thoughts into his words, which was a problem of his. But he was with the Farrells now, and they were practically family, so no one would judge him if he came off a bit dopey. There weren’t a thousand cameras pointed at him, or co-stars who were paid to pretend to like him but secretly thought he was dim, or pretty people with ugly smiles who stared at his crotch a lot. Just the Farrells. And that suited him better than fine.

“Did you say something, darling?” Ms Tricia looked up from the cat she’d been cooing at, widening her eyes behind big, eighties glasses. They had pearl-studded arms that almost perfectly matched her short, white curls.

“Jason,” Will repeated, unzipping his jacket and hanging it up on the brass coat stand, trying not to disturb the tinsel taped to each hook. “You said he was coming today?” Although, when Will had mentioned it during their last phone call, Jase had seemed a bit bewildered.

But Jase was a workaholic who spent ninety percent of his time high on espresso fumes; he always seemed a bit bewildered. It was his thing.

“Oh, I’m sure one of the children will be about soon. But no one’s arrived yet. You are the first. I don’t believe you’ve met Gravy, have you, William?”

Will blinked at the cat in Ms Tricia’s arms, his mind shifting with the subject. “I can’t say I recognise her. Very nice to meet you, Gravy. I’m charmed.” He patted the creature’s little ginger paw and was delighted when it hissed and tried to scratch him. Showed a lot of spirit and strong personal boundaries. He made an entry in his mental catcyclopaedia: Gravy, ginger, new, has very firm character. Ms Tricia’s cats multiplied at the speed of light so he’d set up a system to keep them all straight in his head.

That dealt with, he followed Ms Tricia into the kitchen. There was a pot of what smelled like curry goat on the Aga, which was also bedecked with a row of tinsel—which might be a fire hazard. He should probably Google that. “Shall I call Jase, see if he’s been held up?”

“Jason, Jason, Jason. You boys, you’re obsessed with each other.” Ms Tricia put Gravy down on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island. Will went to sit down as well, only to find the nearest stool occupied by a lazy-looking tabby by the name of Cassava, if he wasn’t mistaken. He politely chose another chair.

“I’m not obsessed with Jase,” he said honestly, “I just need to ask him something.” Will had spent months working up to this Christmas. The Christmas When Everything Would Change. He had a plan, a foundational plan, a plan whose success (or failure) would dictate how the next year, or maybe the rest of his life, went for him. This plan was everything. So he really needed to run it by Jase before he started. Because Will had two best friends, and one of those best friends was the subject of The Plan. The other best friend was Jase, which made him the only one who could say, “Actually your plan is a pile of wank. Please fix this, this, and this before rushing off to make a fool of yourself.”

(During the course of his life, Will had learned that he needed external voices of reason. He’d been born without one of his own.)

“Well,” Ms Tricia said, “it’s possible Jason isn’t coming today.”

Will blinked slowly. “Oh. Did I get confused?” Sometimes he got confused. Maybe he’d come on the wrong day? Maybe he’d misunderstood on the phone. “I thought you said Jase was—”

“Abigail,” Ms Tricia interrupted. “I said Abigail was coming today.”

Will opened his mouth, closed his mouth, looked at Ms Tricia very hard, and tried to figure out why the nice old lady who used to pick him and the Farrell kids up from school every afternoon would lie to his face like this. Because information often fell out of Will’s head, and he frequently made ditzy mistakes, but he knew one thing for absolute certain: he would never, ever, forget or mistake or misunderstand even the barest mention of Abigail Farrell’s name. Never.

Before he could think of a way to sternly interrogate a woman who’d once caught him drinking squeezy honey from the bottle, the sound of a car engine came from outside. He and Ms Tricia turned toward the window. Ms Tricia’s ancient border terrier, Haddock, remained uninterested and unconcerned in his dog bed. Will wondered if it might be worth gifting Ms Tricia a guard dog for her birthday, now that Haddock was getting on in years. Surely it wasn’t good for an older lady to be alone in the middle of nowhere like this?

Then something clicked inside his head. “Wait. If Abbie is coming today—is that Abbie? Outside? Right now?”

“Maybe. Likely. Yes.”

Shit.

Will rocketed to his feet. This wasn’t ideal. This wasn’t remotely ideal. For one thing, he hadn’t run his plan by Jase. The whole thing could be a wash, and he would have no fucking idea because he hadn’t run his plan by Jase.

Second, the house wasn’t ready. He hadn’t had a chance to put up the rest of Ms Tricia’s Christmas decorations, the ones that required power tools or stepladders. The house was barely festive at all—there weren’t even any lights outside—which meant there was zero evidence of his many practical talents to overwhelm and impress Abbie with.

Although… it suddenly occurred to Will that Abbie didn’t care about lights. Or practical talents. And now he was wondering why lights and practical talents had ever featured in his Very Important Plan when he knew very well that Abbie cared far more about pizza and sarcasm. Fuck. He’d already miscalculated somewhere. The plan was flawed. This was why he had to talk to Jase about things, but now Abbie was here and it was too late and—

And, third disaster of the day: like the house, Will wasn’t ready.

He was aware that he looked good—it was hard to ignore that sort of thing when you’d built your career off of it—but right now he didn’t look his best. His hair wasn’t done—it was flat as shit from being stuffed under a knit hat—and his outfit was whatever he’d thrown on before leaving his mother’s house this morning, Christ, he barely even remembered, but he just hoped his fucking socks matched, and—

And nothing. He took a breath and wiped a hand over his face and reminded himself to calm the fuck down. He wasn’t eighteen anymore, and he didn’t need to be a self-conscious nervous wreck. He was a grown man who’d learned his strengths and weaknesses the hard way, and most importantly, he was a man with a plan. Sure, the plan might have holes, but he’d figure it out as he went, and—

“Aren’t you going to help Abbie with her luggage?” Ms Tricia asked lightly.

“Shit,” Will said, and rushed out of the kitchen.

Ready or not, the moment was here, and he would take it. For the very first time, he would take it.

Because all he wanted this Christmas was one Abigail Farrell.

Christmas made Abbie uncomfortable.

She understood its popularity, of course. For one thing, there was the whole, er, Christ aspect, which she imagined some people found very affirming. Then there was the food-and-presents part, which she was hugely in favour of. Life in general could do with more food and more presents, as far as Abbie was concerned.

Really, the only thing she disliked about Christmas was the vile and inhumane level of cheer. The constant noise, the never-ending lights, the incessant colour. All of it said, Hey, you, you miserable cow! You should be happy and earnest and spiritually at one with your fellow man!

Well, Abbie’s baseline emotional status was mild irritation; being earnest appealed to her about as much as the idea of sending nudes to her headmaster, and as for the whole “forced intimacy” aspect of Christmas, she’d been raised in a two-bedroom house with three older brothers. Abbie had lived as close with her fellow man as it was humanly possible to get, and she had found it a loud, messy, BO-scented experience where vulnerability would get you ruthlessly pranked.

Speaking of… She pulled up outside Grandma’s big old house, grabbed her handbag from the passenger seat, and made sure her emergency can of Silly String was safely stashed within. When her brothers arrived, she would need an appropriate weapon to stop them messing with her hair or leaving worms in her bed. (Yes, Abbie’s brothers were all—allegedly—adult men. Not that they seemed to know it.)

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