LITMIR.BIZ

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not if he thought she was dating his brother.

      The problem was, of course, that even if she told him the truth, she couldn’t do anything about the attraction between them. She was there with Tyler, that was the deal. And if somebody stumbled across her and Lucas… well, the jig would be up and her ticket home was sure to be cancelled.

      Flipping on to her back, she stared up at the ceiling again. There was only one thing for it – she just had to wait it out. Eventually, Tyler would have to come clean about who the woman in the photos really was. Or, even if he didn’t, he’d fake break-up with her, or vice versa, and she’d be free of all this. And maybe then, just maybe, she could call Lucas up and ask if he had a table free at that restaurant of his…

      When she finally dozed off, imagining a farmhouse kitchen and another chocolate cake, Tyler still hadn’t come to bed.

      He was there when she woke up the next morning, though, passed out on the sofa with a blanket tugged over his t-shirt and a bare, hairy calf sticking out the end. Dory stared down at him, wondering how on earth he’d managed to sleep in such an uncomfortable position. His arm lolled off the edge of the sofa, his phone on the floor just below. It must have slipped out of his fingers when he dropped off. Knowing he was bound to stand on it when he woke up – and then blame her for it somehow – Dory picked it up to put on the table. As she did, the screen lit up, and she couldn’t help but read the notifications. Three missed calls and eight text messages. All from one person – someone Tyler had stored in his phone as ‘Angel.’

      Was that a name or an endearment, Dory wondered? Not that it mattered. It had to be the woman in the photos, right? And Dory had no interest in finding out her identity until after her trip home. No questions. That was Tyler’s rule.

      Placing the phone securely on the coffee table, she headed for the shower, only to freeze when the phone started ringing.

      Holding her breath, Dory stood in the middle of the room, waiting for Tyler to wake up and answer it. But the only sign that Tyler was even still alive was the loud snore he gave out as he turned over.

      She should ignore it. It wasn’t any of her business. Except… clearly this woman was going to keep ringing. And Dory’s restraint only went so far…

      With a muttered curse, she spun round and grabbed the phone again. Angel, the screen read, unsurprisingly. Dory pressed answer.

      ‘Hello? Tyler Alexander’s phone. Can I help you?’ she asked, in her best bubbly assistant voice.

      There was a long pause on the other end. Then, finally, a woman said, ‘Is Tyler there?’

      ‘I’m afraid he’s… indisposed right now. I’m his assistant, Dory. Can I take a message.’

      ‘Yes. No.’ The woman sighed. ‘I guess… just ask him to call Cheryl, yeah?’

      Cheryl. Not Angel. So now she had a name, and Dory really wished she didn’t. Cheryl left me because I wasn’t living the life she married me for anymore. Lucas’s words from the night before echoed around her head.

      ‘Of course. I’ll tell him,’ she said, mind reeling, but Cheryl had already hung up.

       Tyler, what the hell are you doing?

      ***

      Lucas was already at the dining table when Dory walked in for breakfast. Had already been there a while, in fact, even though he could have done with another hour in bed. He hadn’t wanted to miss her.

      His father sat at one end of the table, engrossed in the paper. Felicia was nowhere to be seen, although she could certainly be heard.

      ‘What do you mean it hasn’t been delivered?’ Felicia reached an almost shriek on the last few words, and Dory froze in the doorway.

      Lucas raised an eyebrow at her and, for a moment, she stared back, before she shook her head and slipped into the chair she’d been sitting in for dinner the night before. Had she spent the night berating herself for giving away too much to him? Probably. Dory seemed the sort to overthink things. Not that it mattered, at this point. Too late now, sweetheart.

      ‘What’s going on?’ she asked across the table, voice low, presumably so she didn’t interrupt Felicia’s high-pitched rant at poor Freya.

      ‘Looks like the Christmas tree hasn’t turned up,’ he explained, helping himself to more eggs. ‘Mother always wants to leave it until the last minute so it looks perfect for the party.’

      ‘I didn’t expect to see you for breakfast.’ Dory glanced at him under her lashes as she reached for the coffee pot.

      ‘I bumped into Tyler late last night,’ Lucas explained. ‘He didn’t look as if he was likely to be up early this morning, so I figured you might need some moral support.’

      ‘That was nice of you,’ Dory said, surprised.

      Lucas shrugged. ‘Just another two days to go,’ he said. ‘I figure we’ve got to stick together.’

      Dory smiled at him. ‘Sounds good to me.’

      Lucas looked away, reaching blindly for the plate of croissants. Dory’s smile was bad for his resolve. And whatever happened next, he needed to do this properly.

      He’d been up for hours after Dory went to bed, looking through all the photos responsible for her presence there that holiday, and reading every single gossip column that went with them. Frustratingly, the lighting was so bad in the photos it made the details hard to make out, and with only Tyler facing the camera, identifying the woman from behind was tricky. But Lucas had spent a lot of time over the last day observing Dory, and coupled with Dory’s strange admission about her deal with Tyler, he was almost certain that she wasn’t the woman in the photo.

      Which meant that she – and Tyler – were lying. But why? And who the hell had Tyler actually been with that he thought bringing his assistant home for Christmas was a better idea?

      ‘They ran out!’ Felicia stormed into the room, hands waving in disbelief. ‘How can a Christmas tree supplier run out of trees?’

      ‘They’re out of all trees?’ Patrick asked, looking up from his paper for the first time that morning.

      ‘Well, no. They offered us a small seven-footer.’ Felicia dropped into her chair. ‘As if that would fill the space in our hallway.’

      Dory’s face was an image of carefully studied concern, when Lucas knew she actually had to be thinking, who calls a seven-foot tree small?

      ‘So, what are we going to do?’ Patrick asked. ‘Can we demand some sort of recompense?’

      ‘Perhaps. But that doesn’t solve our tree issue.’

      ‘Oh dear,’ Dory said, looking surprisingly sympathetic. ‘Shall I pour you some coffee?’

      Felicia looked surprised, but nodded. ‘And quite honestly, I don’t have time to deal with this today. There’s so much to do before the guests arrive!’ she said, sitting down and adding cream to her coffee. ‘The caterers will be here any time now to start prepping, and you have to supervise them, you know. No idea about garnishes, some of them. It’s quite exhausting. But how can we have the party without a tree?’

      ‘It all sounds very difficult,’ Dory said. She wasn’t looking at him at all, Lucas realised. He’d expected maybe an eye roll, or secret smile, at his mother’s problems, especially after their conversations the night before, but there was nothing. She must suspect he knew the truth. He needed to ask her. He needed to know what was going on.

      Because if Dory wasn’t actually dating Tyler… well. A whole world of possibilities opened up.

      And Lucas knew just how to take advantage of them. ‘I’ll go and fetch you a tree. Eight or nine foot, right?’

      Felicia blinked at him. ‘Well, I don’t know where

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