The Christmas Swap, стр. 36
“Good morning, everyone. Uh, Happy Christmas.”
“And to you, too, Alan,” said Susan. “Would you like a cup of tea, love? Or some Christmas cake?”
“Oh, thank you, no. I just … might I have a word with you, Chloe?”
She’d been dumbstruck until that moment, then snapped out of her reverie. “Uh, yeah, of course.” She gawped at Susan, who threw her a lifeline.
“How about you two talk privately, and Max and I will go and get a start on Christmas lunch?” Susan jerked her head unsubtly at Max, who harrumphed a little as he got out of his chair again. He gave a tight smile in Archer’s direction and closed the door to the room quietly behind him.
“Hello,” said Archer. He seemed nervous, anxious even.
“Hi.” Chloe licked her lips, also a little nervous. She hoped she looked okay. She hadn’t given her appearance any thought that morning, and she felt almost naked standing in front of Archer barefaced and in her PJs.
“Sorry, I would have called, but stupidly I didn’t get your telephone number yesterday.”
“Right.” They stared at each other awkwardly, like they were in a Jane Austen novel, or something. Any moment now, Archer would ask if she wanted to take a turn around the drawing room. The thought made her snigger softly, breaking the tension of the moment—for her, anyway—but Archer’s expression remained fixed and Chloe realised he must have come with bad news. She stopped sniggering.
“What is it?” she asked. She barely knew the man, but there was obviously something going on. Oh, god, maybe he got back together with Madison. She couldn’t stand it any longer. “Please, what?”
Archer shook his head quickly, his eyes dropping to the floor. “Chloe, I …” He looked up, meeting her eyes. “I’m so very, very sorry, but it appears that we’ve been papped.”
“What?” She’d heard him, but her mind struggled to comprehend the word.
“Papped. You see, there are photographs of us on the internet, um … kissing.”
“Ohhh,” she breathed out. A thousand thoughts flew about her head in an instant. The one that landed was, Well, this definitely is a Christmas to remember.
Chapter 16
Jules
“Where’s the turnaround point?” asked Jules. She and Ash were running along the Yarra River the morning of Christmas Eve. Ash had set a decent pace, and Jules loved the feeling of the fresh morning air in her lungs, the sunshine on her face, and the rhythmic movement of her muscles. God, she missed running outside, but in her part of the world, she had been relegated to a treadmill for a couple of months now. It was either run inside or risk hypothermia.
“Depends. We can either chuck a uey up at Flinders Bridge”—Ash pointed to the bridge up ahead that was busy with morning traffic—“or keep going and cross over near the tennis centre.” Jules knew she was talking about the huge complex where they held the Australian Open. She’d always wanted to go to a Grand Slam tournament, but so far, she’d only seen them on TV.
“And how much further is the tennis centre?”
“Adds a couple of Ks onto the run, I reckon.”
Jules thought of all the Christmas indulgences that were coming up. “Let’s do the whole thing.”
“Okay.”
They ran in silence for a moment. “Hey, what’s that yellow building with the clock tower?”
“Flinders Station. Come on, we can take a little detour.” They approached Flinders Bridge and jogged up a steep set of stairs. At street level, a bustling crowd of people milled about outside the train station. There was a tram stop in the middle of the street—a busy one—with at least a hundred people standing on the platforms waiting for trams into and out of the city.
“I can’t believe how busy it is on Christmas Eve,” said Jules, jogging on the spot next to Ash as they waited for the light at the pedestrian crossing.
“Yeah, it’s not a public holiday or anything, so some of these people will be heading to work. The others are probably doing last-minute Christmas shopping.”
There was a mix of people—families, couples, groups of friends, people in business attire and uniforms—but most were casually dressed, so Ash must have been right about the Christmas shopping.
The light finally turned green and Ash took off. Jules followed closely behind, once again in awe of how the petite Aussie negotiated the crowd with ease. She figured that you probably got used to it if you lived here.
Ash shot off to the left, then rounded a corner just past a large building with signs saying, “Taxi Kitchen”. They emerged into a large open space and the sight was so unlike anything she’d ever seen before that Jules stopped short. It took a moment before Ash realised she was running alone and came back for her.
“Impressive, huh?” she asked. “It’s Fed Square—Federation Square. Don’t you love it?”
Jules’s eye scanned the open space, which was shaped less like a square and more like a giant amoeba, clocking the mottled brickwork as it undulated up and away from them to the right and formed a set of wide steps to the left. There was a stage with a huge screen above it on their right, and the buildings surrounding the square looked like something out of a science fiction film. Panels, which could have been lifted straight from a space station, met with glass panels at irregular angles. She could have sworn there was a location like this in one of the episodes of Picard. Maybe they had filmed it here.
“It’s awesome,” she said, finally finding her voice.
They were on the move again, this time at a brisk walk, as Ash pointed out the various buildings, the most intriguing of which was named ACMI—the Australian Centre for Moving Images. “Hey, that’s on Chloe’s list,” she said, eliciting a grin from Ash.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I’ll