The Twelve Dates of Christmas Read Online Free

of him. She begged him with her eyes and her tears to make it better, to fix this horrible misunderstanding.
    He shuffled his feet. He looked so uncomfortable.
    The girl sniggered: ‘This is awkward.’
    Claudia tore her eyes from Seth and whipped around to face her. ‘What? What? I don’t care if this is awkward for
you
, you … complete … cow!’
    The girl laughed, like any good woman-hating female would. ‘You don’t get to be involved,’ Claudia spat, and turned back to Seth, frantic to salvage something from this confrontation, and too demeaned to risk looking at her again.
    Seth was chewing his lip.
    Claudia felt desperation seeping from her and hated herself for it. ‘Why don’t you care?’ she implored, searching for some kind of reassurance that he did, and at the same time acutely aware of how embarrassingly needy she sounded.
    He said nothing. He just looked at her, a sad expression on his oh-so-familiar face.
    ‘You don’t care … ’ she whispered. ‘It’s all just … okay … SCREW YOU.’
    ‘Claudia,’ Seth purred half-heartedly, ‘of course I care.’
    She turned her back on them all. She was humiliated. She walked away from the person who knew her the best and cared about her the least.
    Turning the corner, Claudia’s legs carried her just far enough down the road that she could no longer hear the noise and revelry from the pub. Then she crumbled against a wall, her face in hands. She felt like an idiot. She’d wanted to come across as strong, to give him a piece of her mind. Instead, she gave them all a good laugh.
    She vowed that she would not let her fear of confrontation humiliate her like that again. She was going to change, never again be a scared little woman, and next time she saw him she’d let him know.
    The alcohol, pain and confusion made her head swim. Her body needed to buckle with tears but her eyes were dried out, and all she could do was take deep, unsteady breaths, inhaling the sickly-sweet smell of wine gums and limoncello.
    There was too much in her brain. She hated Seth for everything he’d done and for everything he hadn’t lived up to. So how could she love him as well, and desperately want this all to go away and for him to come back, to choose her and for them carry on with their life?
    Her phone tinkled with the sound of reindeer bells; her festive text message alert. Seth?
    She dragged her phone from her clutch bag.
    It was Nick.
    You’re ace, you know that, right?
    She smiled. Maybe – not now, but in the future – she’d be okay. She had Nick. And Penny.
    Every inch of her still felt beaten, but Nick’s message was like some strong arms lifting her upright. It was time to go.
    Claudia sprawled her way through Covent Garden Tube station, her pink-rimmed eyes looking blankly ahead but hiding a runaway train of thoughts. She made it to the platform with just enough time to shove all her anger against one of the train’s closing doors until it huffed, conceded and sulkily let her in. The carriage was
nearly
empty; Claudia plonked herself down in the middle of a line of blue seats and let out a massive sigh.
    The train was nearly empty.
    Diagonally across from Claudia a late-teenage couple canoodled shamelessly, coming up for air only to glance smugly around the carriage to see who was jealous of their steamy relationship. Urgh. Claudia glared at them.
    Their pointy, pale faces and matching floppy haircuts also made them look like brother and sister. The girl giggled coquettishly as the double-denimed hipster dribbled on her neck.
    Claudia wanted to vomit on their heads. She really wanted to. She sighed again, loudly.
    With the smug look of Angelina Jolie bagging Brad Pitt, the girl fluttered her hair in the boy’s face and he stroked it.
    It sent shivers down her spine and Claudia curled her upper lip. Why were they so annoying?
    ‘Urgh,’ she grunted.
    The boy looked over and flicked his Bieber-hair out of his eyes. The girl whispered something and