I'm Not in Love (Once Upon a Winter Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

as high as it would go so that she’d know as soon as Gina was back safe, and even though she was expecting it to go off, she still jumped when it bleeped the arrival of a text. When she checked, however, it wasn’t Gina, but the paramedic who had lost his watch. As Ross had suggested, they’d taken a photo of it earlier and sent it to the number the man had left, and the text he sent back now confirmed that it was indeed his watch and that he was delighted they’d found it. Hannah replied that he could come whenever he wanted to pick it up. It was nice to have done a good deed for him when he was always doing them for other people.
    It was later, as she was beating the crumbs from her living room rug and wondering just how they kept ending up there when she rarely ate anything in that room, that the car pulled up outside her gate. Not her own sunny little Citroen or Ross’s sleek Range Rover, not a car belonging to anyone she knew for that matter. It was a sexy looking black Audi with personalised plates bearing initials that she didn’t recognise either. The windows were tinted to a degree that made Hannah wonder whether they were entirely legal, so she had no way ofpreparing herself for who might emerge from the car. As hers was the only cottage in the immediate vicinity, she had to assume that whoever it was had come specifically to visit her.
    The engine stopped, and there was a moment of suspense before the driver’s door opened. Out stepped a slim blonde woman, immaculately turned out in a calf-length navy woollen coat, her hair pinned into a neat chignon. Hannah gave an involuntary gasp as she recognised the figure, and before she had time to fully process the information, another, more familiar figure, got out of the passenger side to join her. Physically he looked a lot healthier than he had the last time she saw him – certainly a lot less bedraggled – but there was something sombre in his expression, a strain that made Hannah want to run and hug him. He looked like a man whose mind was still not altogether as it should be. He looked very unhappy. And considering what circumstances she had encountered him in on Christmas Day that must mean he was very strained indeed.
    The woman extended a hand as Hannah opened the gate for them. ‘Hannah, I presume?’
    ‘Hello…’ Hannah glanced at Tom as she shook the woman’s hand. What did she call him now? She gave him the brightest smile she had in her reserves, and the one he returned was like the sun breaking through clouds on a stormy day – bright and glorious. But as fast as it had appeared, it was swallowed up again by greyness. He seemed to be tussling with some inner turmoil, and looked extremely uncomfortable, as if he’d rather be anywhere else. There was no reason for either of them to feel awkward, really, so why did it feel like that? She wondered if her face told the same story. ‘I’m Martine,’ the woman continued. ‘I’m so pleased to finally meet you. Mitchell has told me so much about you.’
    Hannah forced another smile. ‘Mitchell… so at least I have a proper name now. We had to make do with Tom on Christmas day, at the whim of my niece, I might add.’
    ‘So I hear!’ Martine laughed. Even her laughter was elegant and musical, though Hannah couldn’t help but feel it lacked warmth. She shook away the thought. Jealousy was an ugly emotion, and she was feeling it in buckets right now, even though she knew she had no right to. This woman was so impeccable, so together, so obviously successful that Hannah would challenge any other woman she knew not to feel a little bit of envy. She and Mitchell made a handsome couple. ‘It sounds as though it was quite an adventure.’
    Hannah looked at Tom, who was now Mitchell, as she answered. His name was awkward and alien to her when she tried to attach it to him. She liked him better as Tom. ‘It was. How’s the head now?’
    ‘It’s on the mend,’ he said.
    ‘So…’
    ‘Oh, his