All We Want for Christmas by Phillipa Ashley

Author:Phillipa Ashley [Ashley, Phillipa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornerstone
Published: 2025-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

By late afternoon the next day, Flynn still hadn’t popped over to her cottage. Despite having spotted him three times around the estate, he hadn’t come up to her to offer any explanation at all.

Lara refused to be the one to ask him why he’d lied to her and why Molly had been at his cottage. She’d wasted plenty of time coming up with answers to both scenarios but not a single one of them made her feel any better. Speculating was useless; she had to hear the truth willingly from his own lips.

They bumped into each other as darkness was falling and Lara was on her way back to her office after leading a tour. He was striding along a path that skirted the rear of the kitchens in a way that suggested he didn’t want to be held up. When he spotted her, he pulled up suddenly and looked startled.

She wasn’t sure she even wanted to speak to him, but there was no escape now. ‘Hi there,’ she said, cheerfully enough.

‘Hi.’ He grinned – nervously? Or was she being paranoid? ‘How was your class?’

She felt it was a strange choice for the opening of their conversation. ‘It was – it was good. How was your evening with Harvey?’

‘Harvey?’ His brow creased in confusion. ‘It was – OK.’

Despite her sinking heart at his lie, Lara kept a smile on her face. It was just about possible Flynn had decided to meet his friend locally and then Molly had turned up the moment he’d got home.

‘Where did you meet?’ she asked.

‘Oh, the White Hart at Ravenglass.’

She nodded in approval. ‘Nice old place. Christmas menu, was it?’

‘Um. The usual stuff. Turkey, Christmas pud.’

Lara looked into his handsome face and felt queasy.

He looked around as if hoping someone would come to his rescue. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t stop. I have to go. I was on my way to sort out an issue with the grotto.’

She raised her eyebrows and said lightly, ‘Again?’

‘Unfortunately.’ He grimaced, but in a charming way. Even so, Lara felt a chill spread from the roots of her hair to her toes. ‘Catch you later.’

Flynn never did catch her later, although he didn’t have much chance. Lara had gone back to the cottage, then gone for a costume fitting at the Penhaligons’ apartment. The linen toile Tessa had made for her to try fitted like a glove, and the fabric she’d chosen was so beautiful she wanted to cry. Even so, it was very hard to keep smiling and joking while Tessa pinned her and made tiny adjustments with Fiona hovering around like a mother hen.

She went home and called her parents. Then she got involved in a long exchange of messages in a WhatsApp group of uni friends from Birmingham days. She watched a Christmas special of a favourite comedy and then went to bed, at which point she finally had the opportunity to think about the reasons why Flynn would openly lie about his relationship with Molly.

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