Page 78 of A Winter Wish

If you wanted to wait for me naked I wouldn’t object.

She moved into the living room. There was a bunch of paperwork sitting on the coffee table, all with the R&L Travel logo stamped in the header, along with the slogan. See the world through celebration. She’d once thought it was a silly slogan—now, she thought it was apt. The first lot of paperwork was the latest P&L sheet. She made herself look at it properly. They were still on track to turn a profit. Her stomach gave a funny flip as she thought about what that meant—and the conversation she was about to have with Theo. Maybe they could just postpone the decision about whether to sell?

She kept flicking through. After the P&L document was a contract. She frowned, not understanding it at first. Then she saw her name, and her heart did a funny little lurch. She picked the paper up, rereading the top of it. There was Mike’s name too. And Theo’s.

It didn’t make sense at first. The document looked so like the contract the solicitor had given her when she’d first found out about her dad’s will. Only parts were changed—and Mike’s name was in places it shouldn’t be. Her heart was hammering, her fingers gripping the edges of the paper tightly. Because even as she tried to deny what her brain was telling her, she was already cottoning on.

They were planning on cutting her out. It was a draft contract, she could see that—there were no signatures yet. But the wording was clear. She would be out, and Mike would be in—with a twenty percent share of the company, the rest going to Theo. It cited her lack of involvement earlier in the year as a reason. There was no mention of selling the company off. Theo would get what he wanted—to keep the company, run it long-term; Mike would be in, like he clearly wanted, after having given her dad the start-up loan; and Lexie would be out completely.

She stared at the document, a lot of it in language that she didn’t immediately understand. Bewilderment came first. How could they do this? Could it even be legal? But beneath that, and far more overpowering, was the thought that really mattered. He’d been planning this. The whole time, Theo had been planning it. When they were in Madrid together. When they slept together in Ireland. He’d opened up, got her to open up, and talked about future plans, and all the while, he’d been working on a plan to cut her out.

The front door opened, and Theo came back in. She stared up at him.

“Hey, so…” He trailed off, and she knew her expression must have been giving her away. He looked at the contract in her hand, and his face paled. And that was all the confirmation she needed. “Lexie—”

She stood up, letting the contract fall to the floor. “Don’t.”

He stepped toward her, but she moved back. “Lexie, please, it’s not what you—”

“Not what I think?” She scoffed, clinging to the anger that was now rising—easier to feel that than the other emotions that wanted to boil over. “I don’t think there are any other ways to interpret this, Theo, though granted I’ve only glanced it over.”

And God, beneath the anger she was hurt. More hurt than she’d like to be. More hurt than she should have let herself be. This was why you shouldn’t trust anyone—not completely. She’d been ready to go all in—was about to make herself vulnerable and tell him as much—and all the while he’d been doing this. She’d been ready to give up her way of life, to sacrifice that for him, but to Theo, she was just collateral damage.

“If you just give me the chance to—”

“No, do you know what? I don’t think I will.” She walked toward the door, skirting past him. Because she knew he’d try, she was prepared, and dodged out of reach when he tried to take her hand to stop her.

“Lexie,” he said again, but she would not stop. She wanted to get away from him, as far away as possible—and she certainly didn’t want to listen to excuses. So she ran down the stairs, moving faster as she heard him swear, then follow behind her.

“Harry,” she said as she entered the office on the ground floor, her voice hitching on a near sob.

Harry looked up at her, hiding his phone swiftly in his pocket.

“Theo’s coming down now. He asked if you could run him through the customer inquiries this morning.”

Harry gave her a little salute, and she bolted from the shop.

Behind her, she heard Harry’s voice as he lurched into action the moment Theo came down the stairs—and that gave her the chance she needed to get away. Sooner or later, she knew, she’d have to have a conversation with him. Would have to feel the full hurt of what he’d been planning and find out exactly how manipulative he’d been.

But not today.

—

Lexie was sitting on her bedroom floor, suitcase open and half filled by the time Fran came in. She heard the jangle of keys from the living room as Fran placed them in the designated key bowl on the kitchen counter, then heard Fran calling out.

“Lexie?”

“In here!”

Lexie stared at the clothes in her suitcase. Usually she was excellent at packing, after all the practice, but right now, she couldn’t think of what she needed. Obviously the simplest thing to do would be to chuck everything in her room here into the suitcase and be done with it, but she knew she still had some things at her mum’s, too.

“So, I’ve brought wine because I have some pretty big…” Fran trailed off as she came into Lexie’s room and stared at the suitcase. “What’s going on?”

Lexie bit her lip. “I’m trying to remember where I put my passport.”

Why—why had she been so disorganized this time? It must be at her mum’s. She glanced at her mobile, which was on her bed. She’d called a few agencies already, looking for seasonal work—after telling the estate agent that she was going to withdraw her application for the flat, of course. She was a bit late, but there was always last-minute availability—and a couple of the agencies had worked with her before, so knew and liked her.

“Your…What the hell, Lex? Where are you going? I thought you’d put down a deposit on that flat!”