His Christmas Acquisition by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online

to the Secret Santa gift exchanges and an elaborate buffet lunch which would be prepared by Ryan’s caterers.
    On the home front, Jamie was stoically putting up with a sister who had decided to throw herself into the party season with gay abandon. She tagged along to all the Christmas parties to which Jamie had been invited, flirted outrageously with every halfway decent-looking bachelor, and in the space of a week and a half collected more phone numbers than Jamie had in her address book. There was, ominously, no mention of Greg. If they were in contact, it certainly wasn’t via the landline. Jamie had stopped asking because the response of tear-filled eyes, followed by an angry sermon about the valuable space for which she was still searching, was just too much of a headache.
    A tree had been erected and Jessica had enthusiasticallybegun helping with the lights, but like a child, had become bored after fifteen minutes, leaving Jamie to complete the task. Clothes were left strewn in unlikely places and were retrieved with an air of self-sacrifice whenever Jamie happened to mention the state of the house. The consequence of this was that Jamie’s peaceful existence was now a round-the-clock chore of tidying up behind her sister and nagging.
    Of course, Jamie knew that she would have to sit her sister down and insist on knowing when she intended to return to Scotland, but like a coward she hid behind the Christmas chaos and decided to shelve all delicate discussions until Boxing Day at the very least.
    There was also the hurdle of Christmas day to get through. Ryan had, totally unexpectedly, accepted Jessica’s foolish invitation to lunch and, with the prospect of three people cutting into a turkey that would be way too big, Jamie had invited several other members of staff to come along if they weren’t doing anything.
    Three guys from the software department had taken her up on the invitation, as well as a couple of her girlfriends whom she had met at the gym when she had first arrived in London.
    Jamie anticipated an awkward lunch, but when she mentioned that to her sister, Jessica had smiled brightly and assured her that there was no need to worry.
    ‘I’m a party animal!’ she had announced. ‘I can make any gathering go with a bang, and I’ve got loads of party hats and crackers and stuff. It’ll be a blast! So much better than last year, which was a deadly meal round at the in-laws’. I can’t wait to fill Greg in when the last guest leaves.’
    ‘I’m surprised you even care what he thinks,’ Jamie had said and was vaguely reassured when her sister had gone bright red.
    Not that she had dwelled on that for any length of time.Most of her mind for the past week had been taken up with the prospect of Ryan descending on her house for Christmas lunch.
    And now the day had finally arrived. It came with dark, leaden skies and a general feeling of anticlimax; although some snow had been forecast, it appeared to be in the process of falling everywhere else but in London.
    From downstairs came the thud of music, a compilation of songs which Jessica had prepared during her spare time. Peace seemed a distant dream. At eight-thirty, Jamie had thoroughly cleaned the bathroom, which had been taken over by her sister in a series of undercover assaults, so that each day slightly more appeared on the shelf and in the cabinet.
    Now, sitting and staring at her reflection in the mirror, Jamie wondered how much longer she would be able to cope with a very hyper Jessica.
    Then she thought about her outfit: a long-sleeved black dress that, she knew, would look drab against the peacock-blue of Jessica’s mini skirt and her high wedges that would escalate her height to six feet.
    By the time the first guest arrived, Jamie was already settling into her role of background assistant to her life-and-soul-of-the-party sister.
    Every nerve in her body was tuned to the sound of the doorbell, but when Ryan eventually appeared, she was in