The Mistletoe Pact: A totally perfect Christmas romantic comedy

by Lovett, Jo

  He shouldn’t, though. He should stay.

  He took another big breath and turned the handle of the door.

  He pulled a phenomenal effort out of the bag and smiled over at Zachy, lying on the bed against the opposite wall.

  ‘Right, mate,’ he told him, ‘we’re going to give you something for the pain and then cart you off for an X-ray and get you sorted once we know the exact damage. It hurts now but you’re going to be fine.’

  Three hours later, two and a half hours after he should have ended his shift, Dan left the hospital, not confident that Zachy was going to recover fully, but at least confident that he was in good hands, in surgery for his leg. Lisa, the orthopaedic surgeon doing the operation, was going to message Dan later and let him know how things were.

  It could have been worse. Zachy could have been more severely injured. But God. You went into medicine to try to help people and make them better. And it was shit that sometimes you couldn’t work miracles and you couldn’t do everything you wanted to.

  He aimed a vicious kick at an empty can littering the pavement. The can flew into the air and clattered against the railings separating the pavement from the road. He walked over and picked it up and shoved it into the top of an overflowing rubbish bin just along the road.

  He was pretty sure that there was some kind of metaphor for his life in there but he was too tired to work out what it was.

  Anyway, he needed to stop wallowing, go home, eat something vaguely healthy – now he thought about it, he was starving – and get some sleep.

  * * *

  Late morning the next day, Dan squeezed in a quick visit to the paediatric inpatient ward to check on Zachy. The operation had been a success and he’d definitely walk again, but he probably wouldn’t be back to football at the same standard ever again, and he might need more surgery. Heartbreaking.

  And Dan didn’t have as much time as he’d like to spend with Zachy, because over lunchtime he was meeting Hannah and her mother at a fancy private clinic along the road for Hannah’s anomaly scan.

  ‘Good afternoon, Dan.’ Hannah’s mother, a slim woman with shoulder-length, very sleek, grey-blonde hair and wearing a pale pink jacket over a black jumper and black trousers, put her hand out. ‘I’m Julia. How do you do?’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you. It’s good to meet you. How are you?’ If he’d ever planned to have a baby, he’d probably have planned to meet its grandmother well in advance of conception rather than halfway through the pregnancy. Better than not meeting her until the birth, though.

  ‘Very well, thank you. I’m looking forward to becoming a grandmother. Hannah tells me that you’re a doctor.’ Her manner was brisk but pleasant.

  After only five minutes of forced small talk – thank God for private appointments running to time – they were ushered in for the scan.

  Hannah raised her top and lowered the waistband of her trousers – both black and very sophisticated, very Hannah – and the sonographer rubbed gel onto her tummy.

  Dan felt his heart rate pick up slightly. What if something was wrong with the baby?

  Hannah, staring with extreme intensity at the sonographer’s screen, clearly felt the same way.

  ‘And everything’s fine,’ the sonographer concluded fifteen minutes later. ‘Your daughter looks perfect.’

  Hannah, Julia and Dan all beamed at each other and inside his head Dan yelled, again, It’s a girl.

  ‘Do you both have time for a coffee?’ Julia asked as they left the clinic.

  ‘I do,’ Dan said quickly. This felt like a good opportunity to make it clear in person that he’d like to be involved in the baby’s life.

  Hannah checked what looked like a slim Rolex. ‘Yep, I can do a quick one,’ she said. ‘I have a meeting in an hour but the traffic looks good and I can hop in a cab.’

  Julia was one of those women who had a way with waiters, and indeed probably with everyone, Dan suspected. They were at a table in a very nice open-all-day wine bar within only a couple of minutes of leaving the clinic and a waiter was taking their order within only about a minute of them sitting down.

  ‘Decaf latte,’ Hannah said, rubbing her tummy.

  ‘The same for me,’ Julia said.

  Dan looked at them both and at the menu. He could murder a caffeinated coffee right now. But was it rude to the pregnant mother of your child to drink caffeine when she couldn’t? He really didn’t know and he really didn’t know her well enough to ask her.

  ‘And the same for me too,’ he said.

  ‘So I’ve been very pleased to meet you, Dan,’ Julia said. ‘I wondered whether you two thought it would be a good idea to discuss before the baby’s born how much time you each want to spend with her.’ Dan wanted to high five her. Of course it would be a good idea, but Hannah had been busy with work and not available to chat since she’d dropped the pregnancy news bombshell. ‘I don’t want to interfere but, for the sake of my granddaughter, I do think that you should have these conversations sooner rather than later.’ Dan didn’t just want to high five, he wanted to kiss her. Of course they should discuss things now.

  ‘Mum!’ Hannah gave her mother the evil eye. ‘I think we’re probably adult enough to work that out for ourselves.’ Although she hadn’t managed to engage with Dan so far.

  ‘I’d love to be involved and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how much time you thought she might spend with me?’ he said.

  Hannah cleared her throat and said, ‘If I stay in London, I’d be very happy for her to spend close to half her time with you, however you’d like to play it, as long as we both think it will work well for her emotional needs.’

  ‘Great,’ said Dan. That was a lot better than he’d been expecting. It was fantastic, actually.

  ‘But there’s a possibility—’ Hannah folded her hands together and looked at Dan’s left ear ‘—there’s a possibility that I – we – will be moving to New York, for work.’

  What?

  God. God. Not so fantastic.

  ‘When would that be, darling?’ Julia was frowning.

  ‘An opportunity’s come up at work recently.’ Hannah was some kind of high-flying investment banker. Corporate finance. Dan wasn’t totally sure what that involved other than apparently insane working hours, almost longer than a junior doctor’s. ‘We’re restructuring our team globally later in the year and I might move to New York with the baby to head up our team there after my maternity leave.’

  ‘What’s the…’ Dan paused, to give his voice a chance to stop sounding so croaky. What’s the likelihood that you’ll make the move?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Hannah was looking at his right ear now. ‘It’s a great opportunity. But of course it might not be the best thing for the baby, and I have to think of her too now.’

  Of course it won’t bloody be the best thing for the baby, Dan wanted to yell. How will she spend time with her father if you move to America? ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, I would of course very much appreciate an update as soon as you’ve decided.’

  ‘Of course.’ She took a long sip of her coffee and then looked at her mother rather than back at Dan.

  ‘I will of course be very sad if you move to New York,’ Julia said. Dan looked between the two of them. Julia was twisting her hands together, looking at her daughter, and Hannah was looking at her coffee cup. ‘But I will of course support you. And I’d love to see my granddaughter as much as possible. I would visit and I presume that Dan would too?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Dan said. ‘And…’ God, he needed to phrase this well. ‘This is a bit of a shock. I wondered if we could perhaps discuss your decision together, a little at least, for the baby’s sake?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. Absolutely.’ Hannah pulled her sleeve up and checked her watch again. ‘I think I ought to go now. The traffic’s looking worse.’ There were literally no moving cars on the road outside.

  ‘Of course.’ Dan would have another go at speaking to her another time. He go
t his wallet out. ‘I’ll get these.’

  Julia shook her head. ‘My treat.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ Dan said. ‘It’s been great.’ It hadn’t. It had been shit. He was pretty sure that he was going to be absolutely devastated if he had to live on the opposite side of the Atlantic from his daughter.

  Sixteen

  Now – April 2022

  Evie

  ‘Evie, this egg’s got a present inside it.’ Autumn shook it hard. It did sound like there was something clunking around inside there. ‘Look.’ Autumn pointed at the side of the personalised box. ‘It says “gift”. That means “present”.’ Very good point. Evie hadn’t spotted that earlier. She looked at her watch.

  ‘I’m late,’ she said. ‘I’ll open it later. Thank you for pointing that out. Night. Love you. See you in the morning.’

  Evie gave Autumn a hug, grabbed her phone, purse and keys, and sprinted out of the house. Her phone rang as she was walking down the lane.

  ‘Hi, Matthew. Happy Easter.’

  ‘Hey. Happy Easter to you too. I’m missing you.’

  ‘Missing you too.’ Eek. She wasn’t really, if she was honest. She’d had a lovely day with her mum and Autumn, and now she was on the way to the pub for a pre-wedding summit with Sasha and Lucie and Sasha’s other bridesmaid, Dervla, a university friend of Sasha’s. They were planning to discuss all things weddingy, eat pub food and drink a lot of Prosecco, with the bonus of not having to get up early tomorrow because it was Easter Monday, and Evie was really looking forward to it. It was lovely going out with Matthew, but it was nice to have the opportunity to see her mum and Autumn and her friends on her own sometimes, so it felt like it had worked out well that he’d had a golf weekend planned for ages.

  Matthew had a lot of golf trips planned. He wasn’t going to be able to make it to Sasha’s wedding because he had a golf week in Tenerife arranged for then.

  He also had a lot of golf stories, like the one he was telling now, not as interesting to your non-golfer as they probably were to people who had any idea about the rules and under-par and irons and all those things. It was nice listening to his enthusiasm, though, and watching his eyes twinkle when he joked when they were together in person.

  ‘Ha, hilarious,’ she said when he’d stopped talking after what she was pretty sure was a punchline.

  ‘Yeah, I know. Golf’s a fantastic game. Different every time. Anyway, enough about me. Have you opened your Easter egg yet?’

  Evie screwed up her face as she rounded the next corner along the green to go up the lane past the church towards the pub. Autumn must have been right. Clearly, there was a present in there, and she couldn’t thank him for it without knowing what it was.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a really busy day with Mum and Autumn and I thought I’d save it. I’m going to open it this evening when I get home from the pub.’

  ‘Okay, well I hope you like it. The egg. Have fun this evening.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Wow. If he was like this over an Easter egg, what would he be like over a birthday present?

  ‘Okay,’ Sasha said three hours later. She put her pen and notebook down and glugged more Prosecco. ‘So that’s favours sorted. Thank you so much for doing those, Dervla. And Evie, I’ll let you know what dates they have available for menu tasting. And Lucie, thank you so much for sorting all the place settings.’

  ‘I know what I was going to ask,’ Lucie said. ‘What have you decided about Max and Dan?’

  ‘We drew lots. Dan’s walking me down the aisle and Max is doing the reading and the speech.’ Sasha and her siblings still had very frosty relations with their father since he’d left their mother for another (older) woman three or four years ago.

  ‘Perfect,’ Lucie said. ‘Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll be up at the crack of dawn with the kids.’

  ‘Me too, actually,’ Dervla said.

  ‘Stay for another one, Evie?’ Sasha said.

  ‘Definitely,’ Evie said.

  When the others had gone, Sasha said, ‘There’s something I thought I should tell you, about Dan.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘He’s expecting a baby with his ex.’

  Evie choked on her Pringle and Sasha whacked her hard on the back.

  ‘Ow,’ Evie said.

  ‘Sorry. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, you didn’t hit me that hard.’

  ‘I meant about Dan,’ Sasha said. Yep, Evie had known that she’d meant about Dan. And she was not okay about it but she didn’t want to say that. Because why wouldn’t she be okay? It was nothing to do with her.

  ‘So, um, what’s the due date and how long were they going out and… everything, really?’ she said, trying to sound normally gossipy rather than suddenly desperately miserable.

  ‘I’m not sure about dates. And apparently they only went out for a few weeks, so it was a huge shock. And Dan wants to be involved in the baby’s life but the mother, Hannah, might move to New York.’

  ‘Wow,’ Evie said.

  ‘Yeah, bit of a nightmare for him. Not how you want to start a family in an ideal world.’

  ‘Happens to a lot of people, though.’

  ‘Yes. Oh, God, Evie, I’m sorry,’ Sasha said. Evie’s mum had never known who Evie’s father was and Autumn’s father, Jack, wasn’t exactly around.

  Evie really didn’t mind about Sasha saying that wasn’t the way you wanted to start a family. She was right; it wasn’t. She really did mind about the fact that Dan had had a relationship straight before he came out to Vegas by the sounds of it. Or maybe even while he was there. No, surely not.

  ‘Honestly, nothing to be sorry about. I know you didn’t mean that in a bad way. Of course it isn’t what he’d have planned. So when did he and Hannah split up?’

  ‘Definitely before Vegas. I think that might have been why he was keen to go.’

  Right. Right. So Evie had been a rebound one-night stand. And there was totally no reason that she shouldn’t have been. He’d been single. She’d been single. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Clearly there was nothing wrong with it.

  She was still really pissed off, though.

  Why, though?

  They’d both been single. He’d done nothing wrong. End of.

  She shouldn’t be pissed off.

  ‘Game of darts for old time’s sake?’ she said.

  ‘Wow,’ Sasha said ten minutes later. ‘You’re chucking those darts like they’re murder weapons.’

  Evie nodded. Yup. She was feeling murderous. She flung another one.

  ‘OMG,’ she squealed. ‘Bloody bullseye.’

  ‘You’re a darts superstar,’ Sasha said. ‘We’re going to have to get you back from London as a secret weapon.’ Sasha had periodically been putting serious effort into trying to persuade Evie to return to the Cotswolds from London ever since she moved a couple of years ago. ‘Maybe you should have drunk more Prosecco when you were playing regularly.’

  Nope. It wasn’t the Prosecco. It was anger. And the anger, Evie realised as she pulled her darts out of the board, was fuelled by hurt. That Dan had had something big with someone else. Jealousy, maybe. Which was absolutely ridiculous, because she was with Matthew and he was lovely. And any jealousy wasn’t just ridiculous, it was stupid. Nothing serious was ever going to happen between her and Dan, so she couldn’t let any feelings she might have for him ruin her relationships with other people.

  * * *

  ‘Close the curtains, Autumn,’ Evie groaned the next morning. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven. You said I could wake you up at seven.’

  ‘Did I?’ Why hadn’t she said eight? Or nine? Or ten?

  ‘Will you open your Easter egg present now?’

  ‘I’ll open it at eight. Come back then. Love you.’

  Autumn was back what felt like about three minutes later, brandishing the egg and a big plate.

  ‘Is it really already eight?’ Evie asked.

  ‘Yes. Look, I brought
you a plate so that you don’t make a mess if the chocolate cracks.’

  ‘You’re very clever.’ Evie sat up in bed and took the egg while Autumn bounced up and down on the end of her bed. She took the egg out of its blue foil and gave it a little smack against the plate. ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s a key,’ Autumn said. ‘Why has he given you a key?’ She bounced herself down onto her bottom and shuffled forwards and inspected the plate. ‘It’s got a message on it. “Twenty-two A Hartfield Road”. What’s that?’

  That was Matthew’s address. On the back of the address message he’d written, So that you can come and go as you like.

  Wow. Giving someone a key was huge. And unnerving.

  Nice, of course.

  But very unnerving.

  At least he hadn’t asked her to move in with him. She definitely wasn’t ready for that.

  Evie thought about Dan and his baby and about Matthew and how nice he was.

  ‘That’s a strange present,’ Autumn said. ‘Grown-ups do boring things.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Seventeen

  Now – May 2022

  Dan

  Dan’s phone buzzed. Sasha. She was up in London for the May bank holiday weekend and he’d seen her for lunch yesterday.

  ‘Hi, it’s me,’ she said. ‘You got any plans for this evening? Working? Going out?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Perfect, perfect, perfect. We need someone extra for a quiz night. I’ll text you the details. It starts at seven. See you then. There’s curry. Don’t eat.’

  He experienced a wave of annoyance that reminded him of being about twelve and furious with his bossy little sister. He should text her and say he wasn’t going.

  Although, Sunday evening. It had been raining all day, he’d had a depressing text from Hannah earlier, saying that she was still thinking about next steps but that New York in the autumn was looking likely, and he’d been planning to catch up on some admin this evening but really didn’t fancy it right now. A quiz night wouldn’t hurt to take his mind off things.