Beth Reekles - It Won’t be Christmas Without You

One More Chapter

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Copyright © Beth Reekles 2019

Cover images© Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Beth Reekles asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008354497

Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008354480

Version: 2019-08-01

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page It Won’t Be Christmas Without You BETH REEKLES

Copyright One More Chapter an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Copyright © Beth Reekles 2019 Cover images© Shutterstock.com Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Beth Reekles asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008354497 Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008354480 Version: 2019-08-01

Dedication For my sister, my tree-decorating and singalong partner. Love ya, Kat.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

For my sister, my tree-decorating and singalong partner. Love ya, Kat.

Eloise stared so hard into the camera that Cara tapped on her iPad screen, wondering if the connection had cut out. But then her twin blinked.

“What do you mean, you’re not coming home for Christmas?”

Cara’s face twisted. She knew Eloise would react like this. She’d braced herself for a screaming match, for tantrums, for tears and threats of never speaking to her again.

But she plastered on a big smile, noticing that her lipstick needed touching up. “I mean, technically, I will be. I’ll just be there a bit … later. It’s not the end of the world!”

She really didn’t see what the big deal was.

Eloise pursed her lips, eyes closing, head tilted down. It was a look of grave disappointment, punctuated by a slow shake of the head. She looks exactly like Mum when she does that , Cara thought.

“That’s not the point. Christmas is – well, it’s Christmas. It’s the whole holiday season. My tree’s been up for weeks. And you’re going to spend Christmas morning on a bus .”

“It’s not like there’s much public transport running on Christmas Day. And it’s the cheapest fare I could get,” Cara admitted, before she could second-guess telling her sister that part. It wasn’t as though she didn’t spend a bloody fortune already, living in London. She rented one room in a five-bedroom house. Three bedrooms, technically – but who needed a dining room, or a loft, when you could convert them to bedrooms and rent them out at extortionate rates to desperate graduates trying to kick-start their careers?

Predictably, Eloise let out a snide bark of laughter, her phone screen tilting back towards the sky before she realigned it with her face. “Oh, of course. I hope you remembered to get yourself on Santa’s Naughty List this year, Car, or you’ll have to go buy that lump of coal to warm the house yourself.”

Not for the first time in this conversation, Cara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. But her cheeks did colour, and her jaw worked furiously. So what if she was trying to save money? (And by save, she really meant ‘not be broke’.) And so what if she wanted to go all out proving herself in her job to try and get a promotion in the New Year? Dave Steers was leaving his editorial role in January and she knew for a fact they were going to recruit internally, and they were looking for someone with fresh, new ideas. Which could be her.