Christmas Lights
A Festive Lesbian Romance
Amelia Andrews
Copyright © 2019 by Amelia Andrews
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
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Chapter 1
“I’d like to propose a toast,” Claire announced. She stood at the head of the crowded table in the Red Lion pub and held her wine glass aloft. “To my best friend, Millie!”
Millie could feel the heat on her cheeks as everyone at the table turned to look at her. She didn’t like being the centre of attention, especially considering that she had only just met this particular group of people.
“She’s taken the plunge and left London to make a new life up here in the Midlands and I’m so proud of her,” Claire continued. “And I’m glad that I have a new flatmate in time for Christmas, especially one who brings with her excellent taste in beer. To Millie!”
Everyone raised their glasses and toasted, “to Millie!”
She looked around the table and thanked them all, still trying to remember everyone’s names and relationships. Claire had introduced them all in one go when they entered the pub over an hour ago. Millie had known right away that she’d not remember a single name. It had been too stressful a day to be remembering names.
She’d made the decision to leave her old job and life just three weeks ago. When she’d phoned Claire and told her of her vague plans, her best friend from university had jumped at the chance to have Millie share living accommodation with her again.
Not surprising as Millie had done most of the shopping, cleaning, and sorted out the bills too.
Claire said it would be just like the old days. Millie hoped it wouldn’t. The old days were nothing but revision, terrible parties, and a constant fear that she was about to fail one of her classes.
Living with Claire had been the only thing that had gotten her through university, they’d gone from complete strangers to best of friends in just a few days and then lived together for nearly four years.
That had been two years ago, but they’d stayed in touch even when Claire got her dream job two hundred miles up the country and had to leave London, and their crummy old flat.
Claire loved living in Bromford, she’d settled quickly into her job and made a ton of friends. Millie always knew she’d be fine, she was always outgoing and friendly and people were instantly drawn to her.
“So, you went to university with Claire?” the man sitting next to her asked.
“I did,” Millie confirmed.
“What was she like?” He asked. “Mike, by the way.”
Millie was relieved he’d said his name as she would have either had to ask or have wondered for the rest of the evening who he was.
“Pretty much as she is now. Life and soul, loud…” she looked at her best friend. “Drunk.”
Mike laughed. “Ah, it’s Christmas, she’s allowed a drink or two.”
Millie smiled. “Er, no, it’s only just December. She’s got another twenty-odd days yet. How do you know her?”
He sipped at his overflowing beer. “I met her about a year ago at a protest. There’s a laboratory nearby that used to do tests on animals, I say used to because we put a stop to that.”
That sounded about right. Claire had gotten Millie interested in politics and had dragged her to many protests while they were at university, so she wasn’t at all surprised to find out that Mike had come into Claire’s life through politics and activism.
“That’s brilliant,” Millie said. “I remember in uni, there was a company near the campus that was hiring immigrants to wash cars. They were paying them about five pounds a day! Claire found out and reported them to the police and then she got a group of people together and we protested outside. Local paper turned up and reported on it, it was great.”
Mike grinned. “It feels good to do something positive like that. Saving our little corner of the world.”
Millie nodded in agreement and sipped at her cider. It had been a while since she’d been politically active. Of course, she voted but beyond that she’d been lax about attending rallies and protests. In London, there was always a protest of some sort happening but for some reason, she’d stopped attending them. Too busy, she often told herself.
“Well, she’s done it again!” a man announced, marching into the pub and straight up to their table. “Nightingale wants to kill off Christmas!”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Okay, calm down Bobby. What have you heard?”
Bobby paced the length of the table, he was clearly furious about something.
“Calm down? You won’t be able to calm down when you’ve heard this,” Bobby promised.
“Just tell us,” Mike instructed before taking another sip of beer.
“No Christmas tree this year,” Bobby announced.
Claire stood up again. “No way!”
“That’s what the word is, it’s on the Bromford Gazette website. No tree, too expensive. Cuts, cuts, cuts. Bloody austerity. Honestly, I could throttle that woman.”
Millie turned to Mike. “Who’s he talking about?”
“Kay Nig
htingale, she’s the head of the local council. Conservative,” he explained. “We call her Nightmare Nightingale.”
“She’s gone too far now,” Claire said, still on her feet and now addressing the table. “Is it much to ask that we have a little Christmas spirit in these dark months? A tree, that’s all we want. Like every other town in the country, a tree with a couple of lights. How hard can that be?”
The group at the table started to murmur and call out in agreement.
“She thinks we won’t react, that’s what she thinks. Well, we need to show her that she’s wrong. Bromford may have its faults, but we have community spirit. And if she thinks that we’re going to take this laying down, then she’s got another thing coming! Right?”
People cheered in agreement and Millie joined right in. It felt good to be in the thick of things again. And really, what kind of large town didn’t have a Christmas tree? It seemed ridiculous that they couldn’t scrape together a few pounds for such an essential symbol of the season.
Claire stood on her chair and started addressing other people in the pub, making them aware that their Christmas tree was under threat and encouraging them to join her for a protest.
Millie couldn’t help but smile. She missed this.
Moving out of London was definitely the right thing to do, she’d only been in town a few hours and she was already on a mission.
Bromford needed a Christmas tree.
Chapter 2
Professor Kay Nightingale slumped in her high-backed office chair. In one hand she tightly gripped a stress toy in the shape of a globe, in the other she held her mobile phone to her ear.
“What I’m saying, Jonathan,” she attempted to force some kindly professionalism into her tone, “is that I would have preferred it if you called my office to clarify some of the finer points before you published the story.”
“We did try to call, but you were in a meeting,” Jonathan replied. “And we thought the people had the right to know.”
Kay rolled her eyes. She’d been in just one meeting that day. Of course he’d try to call then. Not that it should have been an issue, he could have spoken to her PA, called back later. But no. He wanted to push out an inflammatory story. So typical of him.
“Of course they have the right to know, it’s just that I would have preferred that they knew everything.” She sat forward and looked at the sensationalist story on the website of the local newspaper. “This makes it sounds like I am personally going to come into everyone’s house and steal Christmas presents from under the tree. And, I don’t see why it’s necessary to have my photo on this story.”
“The memo we saw came from your office,” Jonathan said.
Kay sighed. The leaks from the Town Hall office were becoming worse and worse. It was getting to the point where she might as well allow a journalist to sit in her office and live report on everything she said and did.
“Yes, it was from me,” Kay explained slowly. “And it was my decision, but there were factors that went into that decision that I feel people need to know about.”
“Well, we can do a piece on that for you,” Jonathan offered. “I could come in and see you, sometime next week?”
“That won’t do me much good now, will it, Jonathan?” She glanced at her desk phone, already all the lines were lit up with flashing red lights. No doubt all of the usual suspects calling in to complain. She’d spent two days preparing a press release in the hope of preventing exactly this scenario. Only for someone in her office to send a private and confidential memo straight to Jonathan and his team.
And then for Jonathan to do his usual, skew the truth.
“Sorry, Kay,” he said, not sounding at all apologetic. “I have to admit, we’re already seeing great traction on this story. Lots of hits to the site and Twitter is going nuts.”
“I’m so pleased for you,” Kay replied sarcastically. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
She slammed the phone down and threw the stress ball across the office. It bounced uselessly off the wall and rolled along the floor. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she’d hoped.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” she called.
Steven, her personal assistant, stuck his head around the door. “Your email account is getting out of control,” he told her.
“I bet it is. Just keep the out of office on and we’ll construct a better reply to send them all when we have time.”
He looked down at the floor and noticed the stress ball. He stepped into the room, picked it up and placed it on the holder on her desk.
“I’ve put the press release on the website,” he said.
“Great. I’m sure that not even one person will actually read it. All they will see is the fact that they are not getting a tree this year, the reasons behind it are irrelevant.”
She pulled her laptop closer and closed down the website, determined not to give them another second of activity for their analytics account. “Do we know who leaked the memo to them?”
Steven shook his head. “Sorry, it’s hard to pinpoint.”
“Fantastic,” she said sarcastically.
“You have that meeting in twenty minutes, with the trustees,” Steven reminded her.
She closed her eyes and took a slow breath in, and then released it. It was another meeting which she wasn’t entirely looking forward to. Budgets had been cut and it was up to her to tell people that they weren’t going to be getting the funds they were expecting.
It was a fine balancing act and for some reason, everyone seemed to think that because it was Christmas she’d be able to access some secret bag of money. As if the fact that it was December meant that the penny-pinching would somehow come to an end and she’d be able to provide everyone with everything they wanted. As if she were some kind of fiscal Santa. Of course, things didn’t work like that. And it was up to Kay to explain the facts to them.
“Okay, thank you, Steven. Can you get me the minutes from the last meeting?”
“Sure, I’ll… leave your emails for the rest of the day?”
Kay nodded. Thankfully, she had two email accounts. One that she used for day to day work, and one which the general public had access to. The general public one would be nothing but messages accusing her of being Scrooge for the rest of the day.
“Yes, we’ll come up with something tomorrow. Hopefully, this will have died down by then.”
Steven made a face that indicated that he didn’t believe that would be the case at all. Kay sucked in a deep breath, she had the rest of the workday to get through. Dealing with something as minor as a Christmas tree would have to wait.
Chapter 3
Millie flopped on the sofa and closed her eyes. She was shattered. It had been a long, long couple of days. The day before, Claire had kindly driven down to London and helped her to pack up all her belongings. Well, the few she was keeping, anyway. Then they’d driven the three-hour journey back to Claire’s flat. Now Millie’s flat, too. For now, at least.
Property prices were cheaper in Bromford so she hoped that she’d soon be able to do something she would never have been able to afford in London; live in her own place.
In the meantime, Claire had told her she could stay as long as she wanted. Especially if she cleaned. Claire hated cleaning, she did it but she grumbled endlessly while she did.
Millie had been dragged to the pub on Friday afternoon to meet Claire’s friends. And then she’d spent all day Saturday unpacking and running around town with Claire meeting yet more people. She was looking forward to a relaxing Saturday evening in.
“Here we go,” Claire said as she entered the lounge.
Millie opened her eyes and saw her holding two mugs of coffee. She reached out and took one gratefully.
“Thanks, love.”
“No probs, it’s been a bit of a day, hasn’t it?” Claire said, taking a seat beside her.
“It really has. Was it only this morning that we were packing up
my stuff? Feels like a week ago,” Millie said.
“It was only three weeks ago that you decided to move,” Claire pointed out. “You don’t hang around, do you?”
Millie chuckled. “You know me, when my mind is made up.”
“What made you finally decide to give up on London?” Claire asked.
It was the question that Claire had tactfully not asked since Millie first brought up the suggestion that she might be done with London. While Millie tried to tell Claire everything, sometimes she needed a little time to process things.
“A few things,” Millie admitted. “You know I hated my job. And then there was Kirsty, and that whole mess.”
“What happened there?” Claire asked carefully.
Millie sighed. It had been a whole year since she’d broken up with Kirsty. More than enough time to get over someone, except that Millie didn’t do relationships like other people did them. She dove straight in, feet first, and no looking back. She was in love with Kirsty and planning the rest of their lives together. Unfortunately, Kirsty was busy cheating on her with some woman called Sally.
When Millie had finally found out, she’d been devastated. They’d broken up immediately but the scars had remained. During the next twelve months, she’d occasionally dated but she’d always had a nagging voice at the back of her mind, wondering if they were being faithful.
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