Christmas Is All Around

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

It took less than forty-eight hours for Charlotte to be proven wrong.

It was Monday morning, and she’d escaped from the flat to a coffee shop down the street, where she was attempting to make sense of her inbox—which she’d been ignoring with increasing guilt since her arrival the week before—and create some sort of work schedule for herself for the week, to ensure she didn’t fall behind on any of the remaining commissions on her calendar for the month. This time of year was busy; her online shop made five times as much in December as it did in January, and while she’d drastically scaled back the number of commissions she offered in the past year or so, given the increasingly lucrative business she was doing with various brands, she still liked to accept a limited number each month, usually booked months in advance. It was a lot to keep track of—hence the inbox hell she currently found herself in—but, fortunately, two years earlier she’d finally accepted the inevitable and hired an assistant to help with customer emails, maintenance of her website, and general admin, which was an absolute godsend.

She opened her inbox that morning to find an email awaiting her from the creative director of Perfect Paper, a luxury wallpaper company, which had reached out several weeks earlier, interested in a potential collaboration. Charlotte had sent over some sample sketches, but hadn’t yet heard anything back; now, however, there was an email sitting there, inviting her to a meeting with the team in New York the first week after New Year’s, at which they could discuss Charlotte’s vision for the line and she could present more detailed samples. Her heart pounding, she replied, looping in her assistant, Sarah, to work out the details, and then clicked out of her inbox, reaching for her phone to text Padma.

Charlotte : Got invited to meet with perfect paper after new year’s

Padma : !!!

Padma : Omg. Definitely telling Andrew we have to hold off on redoing our bathroom, then, so that we can use MY BEST FRIEND’S WALLPAPER LINE to decorate it!

Charlotte : Nothing confirmed yet!

Padma : Crossing all my fingers!! And toes!!!

Charlotte set down her phone, smiling. Padma had gotten married that spring, and she and her new husband (a fellow lawyer; thoughts and prayers to their hypothetical future children) had bought a house in the suburbs that they were in the process of renovating. They were still an easy train ride from the city, but Charlotte had undeniably seen them less, these past few months, and she liked the thought of a pattern of hers on their walls, a reminder of her place in their lives. Not that she’d ever voice that thought aloud, of course—she never, ever wanted to seem like she needed attention, extra care. She’d spent her childhood trying to ignore the drama of the family that surrounded her, and maintained her status as the most low-maintenance friend to everyone she knew. No temperamental, needy artist type here . If her life felt a bit smaller and quieter, now that her very closest friend lived in New Jersey and spent a lot of time discussing the struggle to find a reliable plumber, this was nothing she’d ever mention to anyone. Shaking her head at this thought, she returned her attention to her inbox, opening her planner to the page for a new week, uncapping her pen, and beginning a to-do list.

A couple of hours later, she shut her laptop, her eyes beginning to cross, and tugged her now-cold coffee toward her, draining the dregs of it and contemplating ordering another. She glanced over her shoulder, registered the queue at the counter, and instead opened her sketchbook to pass a few minutes while she waited for the line to shrink. She glanced out the window and began a rough sketch of the scene before her: a row of terraced houses, most featuring winter greenery wrapped around the wrought-iron railings on their front steps, each door sporting an enormous wreath. Charlotte had never had an exterior-facing door, thanks to an entire adult life spent in various apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but having caught a glimpse of the prices of the wreaths on offer at the Christmas tree vendor at the end of Ava’s street, she decided that if she ever did possess an exterior door, she would not be spending a week’s grocery money on a circle of shrubbery.

These cheerful thoughts distracted her enough that she didn’t notice that she was no longer alone until she heard the faint thunk of a ceramic mug set down on the counter, and she turned, startled, to see Graham Calloway settling onto the stool next to her.

“Hello?” she said. The what are you doing here? was, she thought, clearly implied.

“Good morning,” he said, then nodded at the mug he’d set down before her. “That’s for you.”

She lifted it and sniffed suspiciously.

“I didn’t poison it,” he added.

“Ha,” she said darkly, taking another sniff. It seemed to be plain black coffee—in other words, exactly what she would have ordered for herself. “How did you know what to order?”

“I’ve been watching you for the past three hours,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I’m calling the police. It’s nine-nine-nine over here, isn’t it?”

“I asked the man at the till what you’d ordered,” he said, lifting his own cup to his lips. She could see from the tea bag dangling from the small teapot he’d set down before him that it was peppermint tea. This seemed irritatingly virtuous compared to her own possibly problematic caffeine habits.

“I’ve been told never to accept drinks from strange men,” she said primly, unable to resist taking a sip anyway. It had been a particularly early morning, after Alice awoke the entire flat at four and then refused to go to sleep again.

“You were probably told not to get into cars with them, either,” he said, raising that eyebrow at her again. She was pretty sure that he found himself very charming, and she was therefore determined not to.

“You don’t have any brothers, do you?” she asked.

His brow furrowed slightly. “Er, no.”

“I figured,” she said triumphantly. “You’re pleased with yourself the way only a straight man raised in a household full of women could be.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“Are you certain?”

She looked at him stonily. “Very.”

He sighed, then rubbed at the back of his head in a way that left his dark hair slightly rumpled. He was dressed casually in jeans and a cashmere sweater, a wool coat carefully hanging from the back of his stool. She wondered what he did for a living—everything about his clothing screamed money, despite what he and his sister had mentioned about the family finances on Saturday.

“I didn’t actually seek you out merely to buy you a coffee and irritate you,” he said, taking another sip of tea and then setting down his cup.

It was her turn to raise a brow. “Oh?”

“No. I wanted to speak to you because I’ve been thinking about Eloise’s idea of commissioning artwork for the shop at Eden Priory after she mentioned it in the car the other night.”

Charlotte frowned. “I don’t—”

He raised a hand. “Let me make my proposal, all right?”

Charlotte was not generally a fan of men interrupting her, but she bit back her impatience and instead nodded, taking a sip of coffee. “Okay.”

“I looked up your website yesterday,” he said matter-of-factly. “I thought it was extremely impressive.”

Charlotte knew this already—she didn’t tend to suffer from impostor syndrome—but said, “Thank you.”

“I understand that you have plenty of work to occupy you, but I was curious how many customers you have in the UK, given that you ship from America.”

“I have some,” she said carefully. “The shipping is expensive, but especially if you’re ordering more than one print, it’s not prohibitive, I don’t think.”

“But I’m guessing most of your customers are still based in America?”

She nodded. She had stats on it, and tended to devote a day every six months or so to looking at all the data on where her business was coming from geographically, as well as the portion that found her from Instagram compared to web searches.

“I’m wondering if you’d be interested in having your work stocked in our shop at Eden Priory. It’s not much to speak of at the moment, but I’m trying to get in a new line of products—works from local artisans, honey from a chap in the village who has his own hives, that sort of thing— and to focus the shop a bit more specifically on art, given my great-great-grandfather’s career. I don’t know what your rates are for wholesale, and we could work out all the details later, but if you’d be willing to do us a series of prints on a holiday film theme, then in return I’ll stock your other art year-round.”

Charlotte’s mind raced; her prints were sold in some brick-and-mortar shops in New York, Boston, and a handful of touristy towns elsewhere in the Northeast. Graham’s proposal, however, would open her art up to a new consumer market—because while she did have British customers, she knew that the cost of international shipping definitely limited the number of them. But if her artwork was sold in a gift shop, year-round, at a famous house once owned by a famous artist, full of art-loving visitors passing though looking for something to take home with them from their visit…

It was a really tempting offer. Except…

“How many of these Christmas prints do you want?” she asked, resisting the urge to grimace on the word “Christmas.” It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done a holiday-themed commission, of course, but the Christmas, Truly connection made her even less enthusiastic about the idea than usual.

“Five,” he said. “I’ve written up a list—well, Eloise has,” he amended with a wry twist to his mouth, and reached into his back pocket for his phone, pulling up his notes app. He passed it to her.

“I don’t think I’ve seen any of these movies,” she said, scanning the list with a frown. Except Christmas, Truly , of course—but the less said about that, the better.

“I, unfortunately, have seen most of them,” he said, a bit wearily. “Sisters,” he added darkly, seeing her raised eyebrows. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen any.”

“I wasn’t kidding about hating Christmas,” she said, equally darkly, and his mouth curved up a bit. “Are all of these in London?” she asked; she recognized the neighborhoods listed for a couple of them, but the others were unfamiliar.

“No, a couple of them are in villages—none too far, but it would probably be easiest to drive.” He paused, clearly weighing his words, and then added, “I could take you—if you wanted.”

She glanced up from studying the list on his phone. “Don’t you have to work? I’d probably want to go on weekdays, just to avoid crowds.”

Another, briefer pause. “Not at the moment. Eden Priory’s my sole focus right now, so I’m already driving to and from Hampshire a few days a week—I don’t mind adding another few outings into the mix. I’d like to take a look at them, anyway—see if they’ve done anything to capitalize on their film connections in a way that we could replicate.”

She was curious about the circumstances that led to this mysterious abundance of free time, but since it was none of her business, she instead asked, “How soon would you need these? I have some deadlines while I’m here.”

He looked unconcerned. “There’s not enough time to stock them in the shop for this Christmas, so I’m looking ahead to next year—if you did the art while you were in the country this holiday season, that would give us plenty of time to get them printed and advertise it in advance of next Christmas.”

“ If I agree,” Charlotte reminded him, feeling a bit contrary, and he leaned back on his stool, crossing his arms over his chest as he studied her.

“Is there something I could tell you that would convince you?” he asked bluntly. “Or we can start haggling over the money, if that’s what will do the trick?”

At that moment, the door to the coffee shop burst open, and Ava and Simone materialized, bundled up in coats and clutching baby Alice, who was wearing some sort of hooded onesie that made her look even more like a marshmallow than usual. “There you are!” Ava said brightly, and then her gaze slid to Graham, and her smile widened. “Well, hello .”

“Dear god,” Charlotte muttered. “Graham, this is my sister, Ava, and my niece, Alice, and Ava’s mother-in-law, Simone. This is Graham—the one who gave me a ride home the other evening.”

“We’ve met,” Ava said, beaming. “He stopped by the flat to see you, and I told him where you were.”

Charlotte hadn’t even paused to wonder how Graham had found her at this specific coffee shop. She frowned at her sister. “Should you be giving out my whereabouts to strange men?”

Ava’s eyes widened innocently. “He seemed so trustworthy,” she said, passing her chubby offspring off to Simone without a second glance so that she could dedicate her full attention to Charlotte and Graham. “Besides, we know where he lives. If you went missing, I’d make Kit drive us to Hampshire and batter down the door until you were handed back to us unharmed.”

“I don’t think that would have been much use if I’d already been murdered and left in a ditch,” Charlotte said severely.

“Charlotte, I don’t think such a handsome man would possibly murder you,” Simone said, batting her eyelashes at Graham, who smiled back at her.

“Have you heard of Ted Bundy, Simone?” Charlotte asked, crossing her arms. “I think we might need to study serial killers, just so you don’t find yourself stuffed in someone’s trunk.”

“I feel I should note that I’ve no intention of murdering anyone, and my car boot isn’t big enough for a body,” Graham said calmly, taking another sip of his virtuous tea.

“Of course you aren’t a murderer,” Ava said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Your family’s house is so nice!”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I do think your reasoning is a bit flawed,” Graham said dryly. “Have you studied much English history?”

“It was never my strongest subject,” Ava said, offering him a downright flirtatious smile. Alice gave a squawk in Simone’s arms, recalling Ava to the fact that she was not alone, but in fact married; in the company of her child and mother-in-law; and on a mission. “You’ll forgive us for stealing Charlotte away, won’t you? We’re going ice skating and then to tea at Fortnum’s.”

“Of course,” Graham said gravely, as though Ava had just informed him that they were headed to a state funeral. He glanced at Charlotte, his eyes alight with unholy glee, and mouthed, Tea at Fortnum’s?

Charlotte stared grimly back.

“I’ve never been at Christmas before!” Ava said brightly. “I’ve heard the crowds are awful, but I want to see their window displays.”

Charlotte contemplated drowning herself in the dregs of her coffee.

“Ready?” Ava asked, and Charlotte nodded like someone about to head to the gallows, took one last sip of her coffee, and—envisioning the lineup of other Christmas horrors that awaited her in the next few weeks, and weighing how desperately she wanted to escape them—tore the corner of a page out of her sketchbook and scribbled her number on it. This she handed to Graham.

“I need to finish up another commission I’m almost done with tomorrow,” she told him, “but I’d be free to get started on this on Wednesday, if you were able to take me to one of the villages that day.”

He glanced down at the number scribbled on the paper. “So that’s a ‘yes’?”

Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at Ava and Simone, distracted by Alice. “If I go on an excursion with you, I’ll have an excuse not to go to the Christmas market in Hyde Park with Ava and her in-laws that day.”

He pocketed the slip of paper, and leaned toward her, speaking in an undertone that only she could hear. “I feel as though I’m being used.”

“That’s because you are,” she told him briskly, then shoved her sketchbook into her shoulder bag, pulled on her coat, and Ava swept her from the coffee shop and into an afternoon of Christmas hell.

She didn’t allow herself to look back.