Read Online Her Christmas Fantasy & The Winter Bride by Lynne Graham, Penny Jordan - Free Book Online Page A

yet at the same time feel oddly elated.
    Oliver had gone over to her car, and as he returned Lisa saw that he was carrying her case and her handbag.
    â€˜I’ve locked it…your car,’ he told her as he slid into the driver’s seat alongside her. ‘Not that anyone would be likely to take it.’
    â€˜Not unless they had some petrol with them,’ Lisa agreed drowsily, opening her mouth to give a yawn which suddenly turned into a volley of bone-aching sneezes.
    â€˜Here.’ Oliver handed her a wad of clean tissues from a pack in the glove compartment, telling her, ‘It’s just as well I happened to be passing when I did. If you’re lucky the worst you’ll suffer is a bad cold; another hour in these temperatures and it could have been a very different story. This road is never very heavily trafficked, and on Christmas Eve, with snow forecast, the locals who do use it have more sense than to…’
    He went on talking but Lisa had heard enough. Did he think she had wanted to run out of petrol on a remote Yorkshire road? Had he forgotten whose fault it was that she had been there in the first place instead of warmly tucked up in bed at Henry’s parents’ home?
    Tears of unfamiliar and unexpected self-pity suddenly filled her eyes. ‘It isn’t Christmas Eve,’ she told him aggressively, fighting to hold them back. ‘It’s Christmas Day.’
    It was the wrong thing to say, bringing back her earlier awareness of how very fragile were the brightly coloured, delicate daydreams that she had cherished of how this Christmas would be—as fragile and vulnerable as the glass baubles with which she had so foolishly imagined herself decorating that huge, freshly cut, pine-smelling Christmas tree with Henry.
    It was too much. One tear fell and then another. She tried to stop them, dabbing surreptitiously at her eyes, and she averted her face from Oliver’s as he started the engine and set the car in motion. But it was no use. He had obviously witnessed her distress.
    â€˜Now what’s wrong?’ he demanded grimly.
    â€˜It’s Christmas Day,’ Lisa wept.
    â€˜Christmas Day.’ He repeated the words as though he had never heard them before. ‘Where would you have been spending it if your car hadn’t run out of petrol?’ he asked her. ‘Where were you going?’
    â€˜Home to London, to my flat,’ Lisa told him wearily. Despite the fact that at some point, without her being aware of it, he had obviously noticed that she was shivering and had turned the heater on full, she still felt frighteningly cold.
    â€˜My parents are both working away in Japan so I can’t go to them, and my friends have made other plans. I could have gone with them, but…’
    â€˜But you chose to subject yourself to Henry’s mother’s inspection instead,’ he taunted her unkindly.
    â€˜Henry and I were planning to get engaged,’ Lisa fought back angrily. ‘Of course he wanted me to meet his parents, his family. There was no question of there being any “inspection”.’
    â€˜No? Then why the urgent necessity for a new wardrobe?’
    Lisa flushed defensively.
    â€˜I just wanted to make a good impression on them, that’s all,’ she muttered.
    â€˜Well, you certainly did that all right,’ he mocked her wryly. ‘Especially—’
    â€˜I would have done if it hadn’t been for your interference,’ she interrupted him hotly. ‘You had no right to imply that you and I had been…that those clothes…’ She paused, her voice trailing away into silence as she saw the way he lifted one eyebrow and glanced unkindly at her.
    â€˜I spoke nothing but the truth. Those clothes were bought by my cousin for his girlfriend—his lover…’
    â€˜It might have been the truth, but you twisted it so that it seemed…so that it sounded…so