Christmas at Holiday House - RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,98
part was fine. But Lucy had seen José twice that day in passing as she went throughout the hotel.
She hadn’t spoken with him, but even those brief glimpses left her feeling as if she had been gouged by a hundred sharp knives.
She hated knowing she had ruined their friendship.
His words seemed to ring through her head in a constant refrain.
Did you ever think that maybe you’re not asking enough of yourself?
He wanted her to be someone she wasn’t. How completely unfair of him. She couldn’t help the awful childhood cards she’d been dealt. It wasn’t her fault her parents were serial cheaters who jumped from romance to romance.
José came from a warm, loving family. His parents had adored each other, his sisters were happily married. He couldn’t understand the dysfunction and the chaos.
She sighed. She couldn’t sit here drinking all night. She had a wedding the next day, where she would have to smile and be pleasant while she translated all the romantic, sweet events of the day for Katya’s family.
After that was Christmas with Winnie and Abby and then she would grab her backpack, hop on an airplane and go back to Thailand and her students, to a place where no one expected her to be something other than what she was.
Seventeen
Though she had only had two glasses of wine, Lucy woke the next morning feeling hungover, her head fuzzy and her stomach in knots.
She wanted so badly to pull the covers over her head and stay in bed. Everything ached, mostly her heart. She couldn’t stop remembering those moments in his office after the gingerbread contest. The raw emotion in his voice, the pain in his expression.
She’s not you.
She didn’t want to remember. She wanted to pretend the whole thing was a bad dream. Climbing out of bed and standing in the shower didn’t make anything better, but at least she felt clean.
She had brought nothing appropriate for a winter wedding among the few clothes she had carried with her from Thailand. Fortunately, the bulk of her clothes were still in her bedroom closet at Holiday House. She stood in front of it, looking for something that might work. She finally settled on a simple deep green dress she thought looked good with her dark hair.
None of the attention would be on her, anyway. Everyone would be looking at Katya.
No one was around in the kitchen, not even the corgis. Grateful she didn’t have to make small talk with her grandmother or Abby or, worse, evade any other probing questions, she had coffee and a piece of cinnamon toast before heading to the hotel.
Her day was busy from the moment she hit the Lancaster Silver Bells. She helped while Katya’s mother and sisters had their hair done, while they dressed, while her father talked to the caterer and the florist. She noticed Katya growing increasingly pale as the day progressed and tried to convince her to eat something.
Finally it was time for the wedding. Daniel’s local friends and family filled up most of the chairs in the lovely room being used for the wedding.
Lucy helped Katya’s father have a conversation with Daniel’s father about the reception later, then went to see if Katya’s mother needed any help with anything.
She found the women in the hot, stuffy dressing room set aside for them. It smelled of hair spray and perfume and Katya’s six female relatives were talking loudly and laughing about a story one was telling about her own wedding.
Katya stood alone, slightly apart from them. She looked ethereally lovely in a richly embroidered dress trimmed in fake fur. Her slender features were pale, tense, and she looked poised for flight.
Lucy wasn’t sure what to do. She was here as a translator. That was all.
She had already asked if Katya would be kidnapped by her family, as was tradition in Russia, so that her groom could pay a “ransom” in challenges. Katya had told her Daniel had already paid his ransom when he had visited her in Russia and asked her to marry him.
After two days of helping with the wedding party, she knew Katya’s and Daniel’s romantic story. They had met in Italy when both were tourists there and had fallen head over heels, changing all their travel plans to spend a glorious two weeks with each other. For three years, they had carried on a long-distance relationship, meeting where they could, until Daniel had finally flown to Russia to ask her to marry him.