Royal Holiday - Jasmine Guillory Page 0,47
things he’d been happy about all week. He’d made a bunch of calls and pulled a bunch of strings to get things perfect, and now he didn’t know what to do.
Vivian caught herself before she let out a sigh. She probably shouldn’t have been honest with Malcolm about that, but it wasn’t in her nature anymore to lie about her feelings. Though now she was worried that she’d ruined everything.
She had no real idea about how the next few days would go. She and Malcolm had texted a little bit on Christmas Day, but then not again until yesterday. She’d even worried that the plan to have her stay on in London was off, until she’d gotten that rather curt text from him that he’d meet her in the lobby of her hotel at noon. She’d wanted to ask if she was invited to stay with him, but it felt strange to ask that over a text, and his demeanor this afternoon had been pretty chilly so far. She’d packed her suitcase before coming downstairs this morning but had lost her nerve and had left it, all packed, in her hotel room.
She couldn’t fight back the sigh this time. She’d thought she was going to have sex tonight! She’d looked forward to it! But Malcolm had barely touched her so far, so that seemed less and less likely by the moment.
“Where did you and Maddie go in your two days in London?” Malcolm asked after they’d gotten in the car.
Oh, thank God, something to talk about.
“Want to see?” She pulled out her phone and narrated some of the pictures she and Maddie had taken over the past few days: their walk along the Thames; their trip to Liberty department store; their dinner out; their visit to the British Museum; their selfie outside of Buckingham Palace; their fancy tea.
“We went to this really fun place for tea, so colorful and creative—see? Look how cute it is. But the food was great, too: there were cucumber sandwiches and smoked salmon sandwiches and these incredible curry chicken sandwiches, and oh, the egg salad sandwiches were the best I’ve ever had. The pastries were so pretty it was almost a shame to eat them, but the scones weren’t as good as Julia’s.”
They’d really fit a lot into their two days in London—they’d treated themselves to blowouts, which gave them lots of time for a good hairdresser’s chair gossip; they’d done a lot of shopping, for themselves and for presents for the family; and they’d just had time to relax together. She and Maddie hadn’t had this much one-on-one time in years. Maybe once she had a handle on the new job, and felt like she could take an actual vacation, they could go somewhere again, just the two of them.
But who knew what Maddie’s life would be like then? Would she have the time for another vacation with her mom? Would her job be too busy for that? Given all the attention she’d gotten from her work with the Duchess, that was a possibility. Or would she be married? Or have kids? The way everything with Theo was going, that could all easily happen. Vivian would love it if any or all of those things came true for Maddie. But the thought that this may have been their last solo trip together made tears spring to her eyes.
She forced herself to shake that melancholy off and concentrate on telling Malcolm the story of their whirlwind trip. But after a few minutes, she realized Malcolm had hardly responded at all. Was he just being polite when he’d asked her what they’d done? She moved away from him and dropped her phone back into her purse.
“Sorry. You probably didn’t want to know in that much detail. Or with that many visuals.”
He leaned away from her, too.
“No, that was fine. You and your daughter take a lot of pictures together.”
Was that a criticism? Was he making fun of her penchant for taking selfies with Maddie? She didn’t used to do that, but since Maddie was so into the Instagram thing, she always made Vivian take selfies with her whenever they went somewhere together. At first, Vivian had been really self-conscious about it. But then Maddie had taught her how to look good in a selfie—Chin up! Picture from above! Smile with your eyes!—and she’d gotten into it. Now she found it fun to have a record of all of the places she and Maddie had gone together,