Harlequin Presents August 2016--Box Set 2 of 2 by Maisey Yates

Author:Maisey Yates
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488003226
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

‘BUT OF COURSE you must take time off, my dear,’ Dougal McCrae, Clem’s boss, said when he came into the shop an hour later. ‘When do you want to leave?’

‘Now.’ Clem straightened the pens on her desk, each one exactly a centimetre apart. ‘It’s…kind of an emergency.’

His bushy brows came together in a concerned frown. ‘Not your mother again?’

‘Yes and no.’ Clem mentally crossed her fingers at her little white lie. ‘It’s hard to explain.’

He patted her on the shoulder like he was patting a pet of which he had grown terribly fond. ‘You’re a good girl, Clem. Always doing the right thing by your mother when as far as I can see she’s never done the right thing by you.’

Clem hadn’t told Dougal much about her background but her mother had come into the shop a number of times. Needless to say, he’d figured everything else out for himself. He was an excellent judge of character and each time her mother left he would look at Clem with an empathetic grimace and hand her the packet of chocolate digestives without saying a single word.

‘I’ll only be a week at the most,’ Clem said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and snatching up her coat off the back of her chair. ‘If there’s any change, I’ll let you know.’

‘Take all the time you need,’ Dougal said. ‘You deserve a holiday.’

Some holiday this was going to be.

* * *

It took Clem way too long to pack. That was another reason she rarely went away. She could never decide what to take and ended up taking too much. It came from years of having to pack at short notice when her mother would get sick of her latest lover and announce they were leaving. Now. Clem had flown in a heart-flapping panic every single time. She’d always packed Jamie’s things first because that was what big sisters did, especially when you had a mother who couldn’t spell, let alone understand, the concept of organisation. But it had often meant she hadn’t got to pack her own things in time for their mother’s theatrical flounce out the door.

But these days Clem was too organised. She didn’t have a crooked knife or fork in her drawer. The cups and mugs were all perfectly aligned, the handles turned to the right. The plates and bowls were in neat stacks in neat rows. The glasses were lined up like soldiers ready for an inspection parade. The clothes in her wardrobe were positioned according to colour—not that she had a lot of it in her wardrobe. That was the problem with having been fat as a teenager; she had got used to wearing dark clothing to disguise her shape and had never really thrown the habit.

Deciding what clothes to take and what to leave behind was a problem. What if it was hot? What if it rained? The French Riviera had a much warmer climate than London in July but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t throw up some inclement weather now and again.

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