Jessica Hart - Christmas Eve Marriage

‘Let’s try this way first,’ said Thea, pointing left.

All was very quiet as they climbed the steps leading up to the terrace. ‘Hello?’ Thea called, but there was no reply. ‘Hello?’

‘I don’t think there’s anyone here,’ Clara whispered, affected by the silence.

‘It doesn’t look like it.’

Reluctantly, as one, they turned to look at the villa opposite. They had a much better view across the pool than from their own terrace, and they could clearly see the man sitting at a table under a vine-laden pergola. A little girl was slumped in a chair beside him, scuffing her shoes sulkily.

‘There he is.’ This time it was Thea whispering.

‘He still looks cross,’ said Clara.

It was too far to read his expression, in fact, but Thea knew what her niece meant. There was something off-putting about the body language on the opposite terrace.

She bit her lip doubtfully. She had already experienced the rough side of his tongue, and she didn’t fancy it again. OK, the mistake was theirs, but there had been no need for him to be quite that fierce, had there?

If she had any self-respect, she would go and find the car keys and brave the hairpin bends before she would ask him for so much as a glass of water.

It was a battle between pride and her stomach, and her stomach won. No surprises there then.

‘He’s probably got a nice wife inside,’ she suggested to Clara. ‘She might feel guilty about the way he shouted at us. We weren’t making that much noise.’

‘It was five in the morning,’ said Clara gloomily. ‘And you did crash into his car.’

‘It was just a little bump.’

Clara’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Maybe we should go to that town after all,’ she said, but Thea had stiffened.

‘Look.’ She nudged her niece as she spotted a cup and a cafetière on the table. ‘He’s got coffee!’

She felt quite giddy at the thought. She would do anything for a cup of coffee right then. ‘Let’s just go and see,’ she encouraged Clara. ‘He’s not going to be rude in front of his little girl, is he?’

Clara was clearly unconvinced, but she could see that her aunt was determined. ‘OK, but you do the talking,’ she warned.

Buoyed up at the prospect of coffee, Thea bore her niece around the pool and back past their own villa. It was only at the bottom of the steps that her nerve began to fail. Close to, the man’s face was very grim as he looked out at the view. He was evidently lost in his thoughts, and it didn’t look as if they were particularly happy ones.

He hadn’t seen them yet, and Thea faltered. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all,’ she muttered.

‘Go on,’ whispered Clara, giving her a push. ‘We’re here now, and I’m starving!’

Thea opened her mouth to argue, but just then the little girl spotted them and sat up curiously. She tugged at her father’s sleeve, and he turned his head and saw them lurking at the bottom of the steps. The intimidating brows rose in surprise and Thea gulped. It was too late to turn and run now.

Squaring her shoulders, she trod up the steps with an assumption of confidence, Clara following reluctantly in her wake.

‘Morning!’ She produced a bright smile, the kind of smile she might give someone she had never met before. Someone who had never shouted at her furiously.

He looked a little taken aback by her smile as he got to his feet. ‘Good morning.’

His voice was cool but civil. That was something, thought Thea, looking on the bright side. At least he hadn’t leapt to his feet and roared at them the way he had only a matter of hours ago. It wasn’t the warmest welcome she had ever received, but Thea had to admit that she probably didn’t deserve one of those.

‘Hello.’ She smiled a little nervously at the little girl and received a blank stare in return. Oh. That grimness must run in the family.

She turned back to the man. ‘We…er…thought we should come over and apologise for last night…well, this morning.’

Distracted by the smell of coffee, her gaze wandered in spite of herself over to the cafetière, and she had to force herself to look back at him. ‘I’m very sorry for waking you up and…er…and for crashing into your car.’

To her surprise, the sternness in his face lightened somewhat. ‘I think I’m the one who should apologise,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I was very rude to you. I’d had a difficult day,’ he went on, his own gaze straying involuntarily towards his daughter, ‘and an even worse evening, so I was in a filthy temper long before you arrived. It wasn’t fair to take it out on you.’

An apology from him was the last thing Thea had expected, and she was completely thrown. ‘I don’t blame you for being annoyed,’ she said, stammering slightly. ‘It was very late and we were making a lot of noise, I know.

‘It was just that we’d had such a nightmare journey,’ she tried to explain. ‘The plane was delayed, of course, and then there was some problem with the baggage handling at the airport, which meant that we had to wait ages for our cases. By the time we’d found the car hire place, I was so tired I was like some kind of zombie—and that was before we had to find our way here in the dark.’

‘It’s not an easy drive at the best of times,’ he said, which was nice of him, Thea thought. Especially when she doubted very much that he would have found it difficult at any time of day. He had an air of calm competence about him that could be intimidating or incredibly reassuring, depending on how much you really needed someone competent with you.

‘I’d no idea it would be so far, or that the roads would be that scary,’ she told him. ‘It’s not as if I’m a good driver to begin with—I’m more used to taking cabs—and I really thought we’d never get here. We’d been creeping along for miles in the dark, terrified we were going to go over the edge…don’t you think somebody would have thought of putting up safety barriers at some point?…and it was such a relief to get here at last that I probably stopped concentrating.

‘We came round that corner there,’ she went on, pointing. ‘And the next thing I knew there was this big bang. I didn’t see your car until it was too late. I wasn’t going that fast,’ she added guiltily and risked a glance at him. Fortunately he was looking more amused than anything. Phew. A big change from last night!

‘It was just a little bump really, but I suppose it was the last straw. We were both so tired by then that we started to laugh. It was that or cry.’

‘So that’s what all the giggling was about,’ he said dryly. ‘I wondered what was so funny.’

‘I think it was hysteria rather than amusement, but once we’d started laughing we couldn’t stop. You know what it’s like when you start snorting, and then you set each other off…’ Thea trailed off as she realised that he was just looking at her.

No, of course he didn’t. Obviously not.

‘Well…anyway…we didn’t realise how much noise we were making, obviously,’ she hurried on. ‘And then when we found ourselves in the wrong villa, it just seemed even funnier.’

Or had, until he had come roaring down the stairs and demanded to know what the hell they thought they were doing. He had been furious. As well he might be, Thea thought contritely. If she’d been woken up in the early hours of the morning by the sound of someone crashing into her car, and if they had then started fooling around, laughing loudly and breaking into her house, she probably wouldn’t have been that amused either.

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, wondering why it suddenly seemed so important to convince him that she wasn’t as silly as she had been last night. Or not often, anyway.