Christmas at Tiffany's Read Online Free Page A

graciously. No one would do anything as improper as get drunk tonight.
    ‘Okay, Daddy’s here to say night-night . . .’
    What?
    Cassie stood up straight, the sound of blood rushing to her ears. Sholto was here ?
    She shook her head. Wiz had had no contact with him since he’d left – nearly four years ago now. And there was no way Gil would have invited him. He knew as well as she did what a betrayal – not to mention humiliation – it had been for Wiz when he’d walked out.
    ‘How’s my little man been today?’
    The pounding in her ears got louder and she felt her heart begin to pump more quickly.
    ‘The castle? . . . Good boy . . . Well now, do as Mummy says and brush your teeth . . . I’ll be home in two sleeps, okay? . . . I miss you, Ror. Sleep tight . . .’ said the voice, that oh-so-distinctive voice that she had first fallen in love with.

NEW YORK

Chapter One
     
    Cassie watched as the city rose up towards her, leaping out of the ground in huge sculpted shards of steel and glass, the famous river meandering like a copper snake between them. She tried to understand what the fuss was all about, but it was difficult from ten thousand feet up. It was one of those cities that everyone said you simply had to visit at least once in your life, but she’d never had the faintest interest in coming here. Not that she could publicly say so – it would be like admitting that she didn’t really want Mandela as her ideal dinner guest or that Pretty Woman was her all-time favourite film.
    But now here she was – first decision made. The last place she’d wanted to come had been her first. It was as far outside her comfort zone as she could imagine, everything she’d never wanted – loud, bright, glaring and blaring. A great honking, seething mass of urban humanity that would guarantee to distract her, at the very least, from the ruins of her own life.
    The plane circled the Statue of Liberty – tall and proud and as green as a peppermint – twice, as though making a heavy-handed point to her: See? Liberty. Freedom. Independence. It’s all good here. But she wasn’t fooled. There was nothing great about ‘freedom’ as far as she could see – it was just a piece of PR spin on the word ‘isolation’ or ‘loneliness’.
    She shook her head and finished the rest of her drink. She knew she was drunk and depressed. Both would pass, one faster than the other. She wondered whether Gil was either of these things right now, whether her immediate flight off the estate and out of the country had brought sudden clarity to his actions and made him realize what a mistake he had made.
    But even as she thought it, she knew that probably the only thing he felt right now was relief. In so many ways – socially, historically, Scottishly – he and Wiz were a much better fit, and now he was free to give up the charade of weekly commuting and just be with his second family.
    She paused.
    Were they the second family – or the first? Was she just the appendage? After all, they had had a child together. They had a blood tie. She just had a gold ring and a legal document. Then again, she’d been married to him first . . . She tried to debate the dilemma rationally, but six back-to-back gin and tonics made it difficult. Aha! Wait! Her legal document had also been sworn before God. She had God on her side . . . And the girls.
    She sank back against the headrest and closed her eyes. God and the girls. Who could argue with that? Certainly Gil couldn’t. Hadn’t.
    In the frigid aftermath of her discovery, Gil and Wiz had just watched as Suzy, Kelly and Anouk had sprung into action – whisking her upstairs, pulling her dress over her head and packing a bag for her, finding her passport, pushing her feet into the muck boots by the door, bundling her into the car, even doing up her seat belt for her as she sat shell-shocked, too fractured to pull herself together and fight back, just waiting to be spirited away to her next life.