You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(15)

“Just tell me she respected our kids’ privacy.” Kayla had fought hard for that.

“She respected their privacy. No sneaky photos included, no personal anecdotes. Just a generic lie saying how charmants your enfants are. As though any children are charming.”

“And the catch?”

“She doesn’t disparage you, exactly, but you’re portrayed as a simple soul, an ingénue in Paris kind of thing.”

“Small-town girl doing the best she can?” It was true. Ignoring the magazine, Kayla returned her focus to her neatly sectioned burger, took a bite. “Does she mention having the hots for my husband?”

“Of course not, she’s far too cerebral for that. It’s actually wonderful publicity given the shit we’ve been dealing with lately. Simone may be a salope, but she’s a great writer.”

Kayla concentrated on swallowing what felt like a golf ball. “That’s all that matters, that we get some real benefit from it.”

“Hold that thought.” Dimity flicked through the pages. “It’s very hard to take a bad photo of you,” she said. “She must have really trawled for this.”

“Oh, great.” Steeling herself, Kayla pushed her plate to the side and accepted the magazine. The picture was from her high school yearbook, taken at a Halloween party in the school gym. She was dressed in a voluminous clown costume and blowing out her cheeks to camera. Next to her Jared was a dark-haired James Dean. Really? A bad photo was the best Simone could come up with? Amateur.

“What does the caption say?” Calmly, she returned the magazine to Dimity. “Hootie and the blowfish?”

For too long, she’d allowed herself to be intimidated and undermined by people whose values she couldn’t respect. It stopped now.

“Walker is sweetly loyal to his wife, Kayla, whom he met in high school,” Dimity translated. “The couple are trying to live a normal life with their young children, but rock marriages are notoriously unstable.”

“Thank you.” Kayla retrieved her cell. “That makes me even more determined to prove that French ’ho ’ho ’ho wrong. Excuse me a sec.”

She texted Jared:

Hey, Bob, it’s Betty. Can’t stop thinking about you. Maybe we could fit in another date before Christmas. I’ll text you details of where and when in a couple of days.

Her cell chimed an incoming text a minute later.

Yes.

Funny how empowering a single word could be.

Smiling, she looked up to see Dimity chewing through the last of her fries.

Dimity looked at her, then at the fry in her hand and dropped it. “I am so sorry.” She wiped grease off her fingers like it was blood on a murder weapon. “I thought you were finished.”

“I am now.” Since she had returned from New Zealand where Zander was convalescing with his Kiwi love, Elizabeth, Dimity had been jumpy and distracted. Very distracted, if she was stuffing fries down her diet-conscious throat. “Are you missing him very much?”

“What…who?”

“Zander. You guys worked together a long time.”

“Oh, him. No. We still work via Skype most days.”

So, something else then. Kayla tried again. “You look pale, are you sleeping?”

“Just wired from working too hard.” Dimity gestured for a waiter to take their plates away. Kayla knew she was flat out organizing advance promo for the release of In Bed With A Rock God, the confessional Zander’s fiancée Elizabeth had written. “I just had a brilliant idea.”

“How many is that today?” Kayla asked. Brilliant ideas were Dimity’s stock in trade, so commonplace her friends took her genius for granted. As the waiter cleared their table, Kayla ordered a piece of chocolate cake, two coffees, two spoons.

“Six…but that’s not important. I could give you part-time work.” Dimity smirked as Kayla refocused. “Scheduling, confirming interviews, proofing press releases. And since you’re in the band family, I don’t have to worry about screening sensitive material.”

“I’d love that.” Kayla got up and hugged her. “I’m not cut out to be a rock star’s arm candy.”

“You’ve got to find a way to get over that incident in Paris,” Dimity said. “That security guard was an ignorant cretin.” She waited until Kayla had retaken her seat. “This industry is full of shallow people who think skin-deep is the right weight—don’t buy into it.”

“You’d have way more credibility if you were less obsessive about your own diet,” Kayla said dryly.

“It’s because I don’t have a healthy relationship with food that I appreciate someone who does,” Dimity said. “Have you ever told Jared what happened?”

“No, and I’m not going to.” She got hot and embarrassed even thinking about it.

“If you two are trying to reconnect, you need to talk about it. It’s really affected you.”

“Tell me again about the dotterels you saw in New Zealand,” Kayla said.

“If you want to change the subject, say so.” Dimity was all offended dignity. “What did you think of Joy Bar last night? I’m thinking of booking it for our Christmas party.”

Kayla shuddered. Like she was ever going there again. “Wait, how do you know that’s where we had our date?”