Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“My pleasure.” She grins. “I’m glad he seemed to see the error of his ways. Now, let’s get you to safety before you break a bone. Or your face. Or someone else’s face.”
“Told you,” I accuse. “I’m the worst.”
She laughs. “Not sure about that, but you’re up there. If my sister were here, she’d be having an aneurysm.” She pauses, glancing up at the sky as if in deep thought. “Makes me wish I’d done some filming. Maybe I can ask the French girls to air-drop me a few of their videos. I mean, I can tell Izzy all about your ice-skating stylings, but it’s really something that must be seen to be believed.”
“Wicked woman,” I accuse as she puts her arm around my waist, bolstering me for the final stretch to the exit.
“Very wicked,” she agrees, still grinning. “But I’ll make it up to you with a hot chocolate, Twitchy.”
“As you should.” I sniff, playing up the petulance in my voice as I add, “And I’ll be wanting extra whipped cream. For my dignity. It requires extra whipped cream to recover.”
We make it to the outdoor café beside the rink through a combination of Emily’s patient skill and sheer luck. By the time I collapse into a chair and Emily goes to fetch drinks, I’m just grateful to be alive.
And to have holiday skating behind me for another season.
“Here, drink up,” she says a few moments later, pressing a mug into my hand before settling into the wrought iron chair beside me. “You look like you’ve been through something.”
“I have,” I announce, wrapping my frozen fingers around the drink, which is indeed topped with extra whipped cream. She really is an angel… “You were there. You saw. It was even worse than usual. This might be it, Em.” I stare dramatically into the distance as I add in a softly wounded voice, “This might be the year I take genuine trauma away from that ice.”
“Understandable, considering the near-death experience of it all,” Emily says solemnly, playing along as I suspected she would. “But the way you crawled to the barrier on your hands and knees after that first big fall? Inspirational, really. I wanted to clap. Slow clap. For a long, long time.”
“Now, you’re taking the piss,” I say, glaring at her over the rim of my chocolate.
“No, I’m serious,” she says. “I would have clapped. But I was too busy reassuring a little girl that you weren’t actually dying. You just sounded like you were, with all the moaning and groaning.”
“I hate you,” I mutter.
She giggles. “No, you don’t. And she was so sweet! She was really worried about you. And her mother—” Something buzzes in her pocket, and she breaks off with a smile. “Oh, I bet that’s Isabelle now. We always joke that she has a skating sixth sense. She always texts when I’m …” Her words trail off as she scrolls through her phone, the pink slowly leaving her cheeks.
“What is it?” I lean closer. “Bad news from home?”
“No, from here.” She shifts the screen toward me, her lips pressing into a tight line. “I set up a Google alert for you, too, so…”
Once again, the headlines are plentiful, and as cheeky as Nigel before Emily gave him a good talking to:
Featherswallow Heir Falls
from Grace (and onto Ass)
DISASTER STRIKES NOBILITY AGAIN:
Oliver Just Can’t Keep it Up…
Watch: Britain’s Clumsiest Aristocrat Endangers Children at Holiday Event!
But it’s the last one that makes me go completely still…
Britain’s most Chaotic Couple Strikes Again: Could These Two Hot Messes be Perfect for Each Other?
The article includes a photo compilation: me crawling across the ice, Emily laughing so hard she’s doubled over, us clinging to each other by the barrier, and finally, that kiss from before.
The one that was supposed to be for the cameras, but felt like coming in from the cold on a long winter’s night…
She looks up, meeting my gaze, a question in her eyes that makes me hope she might be wondering what I’m wondering.
Could we be perfect for each other?
She pulls in a breath, but before she can speak, her phone rings.
Emily blinks, then glances down. “Sorry, I… It’s Isabelle.” A soft laugh as she shakes her head. “I told you, she always knows.” She lifts the phone between us as she half stands. “Do you mind? We’ve been trying to connect on a call for days and—”
“Of course,” I say, waving her off with a grin. “Go. Chat. I’ll be happy here with my cocoa and no ice under my feet. Or my ass.”
She grins, her eyes crinkling just for me, even as she answers the phone with a warm, “Hello there, baby sister. How are you? I miss you so much.”
Her words fade as she wanders away, seeking a bit of privacy for her conversation, but I can’t seem to pull my eyes from the ginger in the fluffy white scarf. She’s just…beautiful.