Christmas Eve Marriage. Jessica HartЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER ONE

      NOTHING.

      Thea closed the fridge with a sigh and began investigating the kitchen cupboards, but they were equally empty of anything remotely resembling breakfast.

      What a great start to the holiday! A nightmare journey, an unfriendly neighbour, less than four hours’ sleep, and now nothing to eat.

      ‘Have a fortnight in Crete, she said,’ Thea muttered her sister’s words as she bent to peer. ‘You need a break. It’ll be beautiful. Nothing to do but read, relax…starve to death…’

      ‘What are you doing?’

      Clara’s voice made Thea straighten and push her tangled hair away from her face. Her niece was at the bottom of the stairs, looking sleepy and tousled and very sweet in a baggy pink T-shirt. There was no doubt that it was a look that was easier to pull off after four hours’ sleep at nine, when you had peachy skin and a nice, firm little body, than at thirty-four, when peachy skin and a firm body had never figured largely among your assets in the first place.

      ‘Trying to find some breakfast,’ she said, yawning.

      ‘Oh, good. I’m hungry.’

      ‘Me too,’ said Thea glumly.

      Nothing new there, then. Easy to tell that she and Clara were related. You’d think they’d be too tired to be hungry. It had been nearly half past five before they got to bed that morning, and it was only just after nine now. Any normal stomach would be daunted by a nightmare trip, arriving in a strange country and utter exhaustion, but Martindale stomachs were tougher than that! A massive asteroid could be hurtling towards earth and her stomach would still be going, Mmm, nine o’clock, no wonder I’m a bit peckish…Bacon and eggs would be nice, or perhaps a little croissant before the end of the world…Oh, and make that a double cappuccino while you’re at it.

      She hadn’t even lost weight over Harry. It wasn’t fair. All her friends lost their appetites the moment they hit an emotional crisis, but the misery diet never worked for Thea. She just went in for comfort eating on a massive scale.

      Not that there was much chance of eating now, worse luck.

      ‘I can’t find anything to eat,’ she told Clara. ‘I think we may have to go shopping before breakfast.’

      Clara’s face fell. ‘But there aren’t any shops here. We’ll have to drive all the way back to that town we passed last night, and it’ll take ages. It’s miles away.’

      ‘I know.’ Thea grimaced at the memory of their hair-raising journey through the hills in the small hours. ‘I’m not sure I can face those hairpin bends again, let alone on an empty stomach,’ she said with a sigh.

      ‘What shall we do?’

      ‘Well, first I think we should ring your mother and ask her why she booked a villa in the middle of nowhere, instead of a nice beach apartment near shops and restaurants!’

      Clara grinned. ‘She did say it was isolated.’

      ‘It’s that all right.’

      Thea eyed the view through the kitchen window without enthusiasm. Rocky hillsides, olive groves and the spectacular peaks of the White Mountains in the distance were all very well, but right then she would have sacrificed