Prince Charming - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,2

be doing country Christmases this year, too, so there’ll be plenty going on.”

“Mm,” I agreed. Perhaps she actually missed me.

Perhaps she’d been replaced by a pod person.

Hard to tell with Mother.

“Your father will have emailed you through the details of your flight by now,” she went on.

The sound of a record being scratched played loud and clear in my head.

“My what?” I asked.

“Your flight home,” Mother said, as though this was some sort of explanation. “The Benthams plan to be at home, and young Fitzwilliam has already dropped such a lovely invitation by for you—”

“Hold on,” I said, blood rushing in my ears so I hadn’t heard anything after your flight home. “What do you mean, flight home?”

“It’s Christmas, my love! We haven’t seen you at Christmas in so long. I’m determined to have the most wonderful Christmas for you and you have been so sorely missed.”

What was she up to?

She had been a great deal more concerned with me since my grandfather had died around this time last year, and I wondered if it had simply put her mind on family, but this was an escalation on her weekly phone calls.

“It’s just that I’d planned to spend Christmas here,” I said as I stepped out of the elevator, standing in front of the door to the IT department.

A reason, Kit. Think of a reason.

“With, umm. With my boyfriend,” I stuttered out.

My non-existent boyfriend. But Mother didn’t know that, Mother was under the impression that I did have a boyfriend, and that had stopped endless questions about when I was getting married and settling down with someone nice, so I’d never corrected her.

“That American boy?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes. Andy,” I said, a twinge in my stomach as I directly confirmed it for the first time. I hated to lie, but it didn’t hurt anyone. My parents thought I was happy, Andy didn’t have to know, and I could…

Well, I could pine quietly, and wish it was true, and never, ever think about the possibility that I’d let the fiction go on so long because it was nice to pretend, every now and then, that it was reality.

“Oh, well, if that’s all, I’ll have your father book a ticket for him as well. We’ve all been dying to meet him.”

They had? This was the first I’d heard of it.

“Ah, well, I’m not... sure...”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

To my horror, Andy was standing behind me.

“Umm,” I said, horror welling up in my chest as I looked at his raised eyebrow.

Damn.

“Listen,” I continued, blood pounding in my ears. Would Andy be angry with me? It was a harmless lie, but perhaps he didn’t want me telling people he was my boyfriend. He didn’t seem to like it when they made the assumption. “I’ll get back to you in an hour, something’s just come up.”

I hung up before my mother could object, shoving my phone into my pocket hastily.

“So,” Andy began, rocking on the balls of his feet. “How long have you and I been dating?”

3

Andy

“It’s not exactly that I told them you were my boyfriend,” Kit said as he passed me a bribe in the form of a cup of coffee and a donut in the middle of a crowded coffee shop.

He knew me too well. But also, I knew he’d refused to talk about it until we were here because he was scared I’d be mad at him.

“Aside from when I just heard you telling your mom that I was your boyfriend?” I asked as someone bumped into my chair.

Warm coffee shops on cold days were always crowded here.

“Yes, well,” Kit tapped nervously on the side of his own coffee cup. “She backed me into a corner.”

“What exactly did you tell them?” I asked.

I wasn’t actually upset. A little surprised, but not upset.

“I talk about you, obviously,” Kit said, chewing on his lip. “We spend an awful lot of time together. Eventually my father came to the conclusion that you were my boyfriend, and it seemed like a lot of work to correct the assumption, and I just... sort’ve... went with it.”

“This is the most British thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, taking a bite out of the donut and sitting back. “You’re too polite for your own good.”

“It’s not politeness so much as abject terror of being shouted at,” Kit said.

“Which is why you apologized to that lamppost you ran into the other day.”

“I wouldn’t have liked it to think I’d done it deliberately,” Kit said, the tiniest smile flitting