Cold Feet at Christmas by Debbie Johnson

Author:Debbie Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007594559
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

She didn’t speak to Rob again for almost a fortnight. It was a long fortnight, and a strange one, made up of what felt like a thousand days and nights and a million ups and downs. She felt abandoned, and lonely, and strangely determined to try and break through to him.

He’d left for New York three days after their laugh-a-minute brunch, and had been a ghost in the time in between. He spent eighteen hours a day in his office, and did a spectacular job of avoiding her and everyone else when he was at home; evading them all with manoeuvres worthy of a special-ops unit.

Leah had given them both a day to cool down, then did what came naturally to her: tried to make things better. Rob had made it obvious he didn’t want a relationship with her - but he clearly needed a friend, whether he realised it or not. She’d seen it now, the depth of his pain; the black hole of despair that lived inside him, consuming him like an emotional tapeworm. Nobody deserved that, no matter how much they blamed themselves for the death of those they loved. Not even you, a tiny voice reminded her; not even you.

Rob had no idea that she could understand his anguish in a way his family couldn’t, that her guilt parade was right up there marching in time with his. She owed it to both of them to reach out one last time, she decided. To try and break through those layers of despair and self-loathing, even if it meant risking rejection on all kinds of levels. It – he – was worth it.

Rob, however, had other ideas. He turned into the Invisible Man, separating himself from her and his family like a plague victim. She was forced to try and communicate the way any 21st century woman did: by text, voicemail, and online. Even if he wasn’t around to physically talk to, there were plenty of other ways to harass someone in the modern era, she knew.

The flipside of that, Leah soon discovered, was that there were also plenty of ways to be ignored. The texts went unanswered. His PA Felicia repeatedly informed her, in tones that escalated from sympathetic to annoyed, that he was unavailable. She’d obviously decided that Leah was made of restraining order material, and heck, maybe she was right. Rob, it seemed, had gone underground. He’d even started staying out all night, presumably in a hotel, to avoid them all.

His silence made her feel like an obsessed teenager breaking every girl rule in the book, but her ego could take a few dents, she decided. There was more at stake here than protecting her pride.

Leah had the strongest feeling that if she didn’t manage to break through Rob’s barriers now, it would be too late. He’d spend the rest of his days closed off and half alive, forever a spectator at the show. And in the same way he’d helped her when fate delivered her shivering and sad to his doorstep, she now needed to help him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.