Just for Christmas - Emily Harvale Page 0,38

aside, the pub sounds great to me. If we can get a table.’

‘I’ll call them now and ask. Do you have the number?’

Molly searched her bag for her phone. ‘Mention my name. They know me well in there. And they know Sarah and Terry even better. I hope that’s not where he’s taking her tonight. That would be quite funny. Ask Maud or Rupert when you call. Wait. Why don’t I do it?’

Before he had time to reply, she’d dialled the number and was smiling at him.

‘Hi, Maud. It’s Molly. Merry Christmas to you and Rupert. Listen, you know Chance and I won that dinner for two, do you happen to have a table free for tonight? We’ll pay the extra as it’s Christmas Eve. But has my brother booked a table? You can? Excellent. He hasn’t. No. That’s fine. We’ll see you and Rupert at seven. And I already know I’ll be having your turkey, port and cranberry pie with all the trimmings. Bye for now.’

‘Turkey, port and cranberry pie?’ Chance repeated. ‘Not exactly cordon bleu.’

‘Nope. Not one of your posh New York restaurants, but if you haven’t eaten one of their pies, you haven’t lived. Believe me, you’ll love it.’

‘That’s settled then,’ Vicky said, beaming. ‘I think this may be one of the best Christmas Eve’s yet. For all of us.’

Twenty-One

‘Wow!’ Chance said, as his gaze swept over Molly. ‘You look fantastic.’

Molly hoped her cheeks weren’t as pink and shiny as her new dress. The way Chance was smiling at her with that admiring look in his eyes was making her temperature rise and her mind imagine all sorts of things.

And the way he was dressed didn’t help. Until this evening she’d only seen him in jeans, T-shirts or old shirts and jumpers. Now he wore a pair of expensive-looking, navy trousers, an equally classy, white shirt with one button undone at the neck, and a navy cashmere sweater with a surprisingly cheesy, Christmas motif of Father Christmas and his reindeer flying across a starry, moonlit night sky.

Yet he looked so sexy that when they walked into the pub restaurant and hung up their coats on the rack, after Molly had nipped to the ladies to change from her snow boots into a pair of strappy, silver sandals, she realised she wasn’t the only girl there who was wishing he was her boyfriend.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You don’t look bad yourself. Er. Do those stars light up?’

He grinned. Pressed one and said, ‘Ta dah!’

All four stars and the moon twinkled at her.

‘Nice. Bet you didn’t get that off a stall in the old ‘flea market’. She was referring to some stalls they’d seen that afternoon selling very cheap, and rather flimsy-looking, Christmas jumpers.

‘Nope. But I did buy it today. I thought you’d appreciate my effort to get into the Christmas spirit, after nagging me earlier because I said I thought six huge bags of Christmas decorations were probably enough.’

Molly tutted and laughed. ‘You can never have enough decorations. But I do appreciate it. It’s perfect.’

‘Thanks. I bet you didn’t get that dress from the market either.’

Again, his eyes scanned her from head to toe and she was glad she’d changed her footwear.

‘This old thing.’ She blushed as she said it.

She knew she looked really good. She’d only bought the sequined satin halter- neck midi today, when Chance had said he needed thirty minutes on his own. She’d joked that he would need a lot longer than that to find her the perfect present to which he’d replied, ‘You might be surprised’, before looking a little awkward and embarrassed. They’d arranged to meet in The Cherry Topped Café in half an hour, and it had been Molly who had kept him waiting, not the other way around.

She hadn’t been looking for a dress, but it had made her stop in her tracks as she’d walked past the store window. She hurried inside and tried it on and she didn’t want to take it off.

It clung in all the right places and the sequins were so small you could hardly see them but they made the dress sparkle between pink and silver depending on how the light hit it.

The long slit that ran up the front of her left thigh wasn’t just sexy, it made her feel taller, somehow. And because of the halter neck, she couldn’t wear a bra. She couldn’t get on with those strapless ones and besides, everyone told her how pert her breasts were. Some said they