Valerie snickered. My opinion of her was not improving at all.
“No, mother, she’s my girlfriend. We spoke about her on the telephone.” Neil wrapped his arm around my waist. “She’s here from New York to stay with me while I go through treatment.”
“Hello, Mrs. Elwood,” I said, extending my hand.
She shook it and smiled pleasantly up at me. “Very nice to meet you, Sophie. You came all the way from New York?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me, I’m not the queen,” she laughed. “Call me Rose.”
“Okay, Rose,” I said, and when I looked to Neil, he seemed pleased.
He gave me an encouraging smile and turned back to his mom. “Where’s Fiona?”
“She should be right behind me,” Rose said, using a little joystick to maneuver her chair closer to the seating area. “She let me out by the door. I’m sure she’s struggling to park that ridiculous new van. Emma, come see your old gran.”
“I’m just going to go check on her,” Neil told me, dropping a kiss on my forehead.
“Go on,” I told him with a laugh. “I don’t think they’ll eat me.”
But then I saw Valerie, a little round cup of punch cradled in her hand, headed straight toward me. “So, Sophie. Emma said you and Neil reconnected through work?”
“Yeah, I worked for Porteras.” Did she not know this? Neil said Rudy had told her all about our relationship and my dismissal. I’d been fired from the company for conspiring with a rival publication. It didn’t seem like any of this should be news.
“Oh, right, right. You’re the one who was going to help sabotage my magazine.” She smiled brightly and sipped her punch. “Merry Christmas.”
Okay. I probably deserved that. I didn’t argue with her that I wasn’t the one who had planned to give away the subscriber list, because she probably wouldn’t believe me. And I wasn’t going to get mad at Neil over Valerie knowing about it, because she was his business partner. It would have been a total dick move for him to not warn her that the woman he was dating— okay, call it what it was, moving in with— was just fired from their company for shady ethics.
Valerie had every right to dislike me. And I didn’t really have any reason to dislike her, apart from the fact that she’d had a baby with Neil, something I had been totally unwilling to do.
So, I just nodded and said, “Merry Christmas,” back. Either she would come around and like me, or she wouldn’t. But I wasn’t going to be uncivil, especially when I was the one in the wrong.
Neil came back just as I was considering some way to make my escape without appearing rude.
“Fiona has arrived,” he announced, smiling at my expression as our eyes met across the room. There was nothing that could have made me feel better in that moment than his smile, and my entire face lit up brighter than the Christmas tree, I’m sure.
Fiona was short, slim, and the spitting image of her brother, albeit with softer features. Her short blonde hair would have looked like an awkward growing-out phase on anyone else, but she wore it with style, pushing it back from her face with one hand and making an exaggerated expression of frustration. “Sorry, everyone! That van is such a nightmare. I’m used to parking the Jaguar, it’s less than a quarter of the size.”
“Well, I’m terribly sorry my stroke inconvenienced you,” Rose said dryly.
“Where’s Michael?”
“Running behind as always,” he called from just outside the door. He slowed his steps from a jog as he entered. “Sorry, everyone. I was on the phone with mom and dad. They just got back from brunch with the Consul General of Denmark, and I wanted to catch them while we were still both on Christmas day.”
“Yes, well. If we’re all here,” Neil said, clearing his throat.
Dinner was served in the dining room. We’d been at the house for two days, and I’d yet to see it. It was at the back of the house, connected to the drawing room from the music room. The music room was, as far as I could tell, just the same as any of the other living rooms in the house, but this one had a piano forte in it. I was feeling very poised and fancy, with all these poised and fancy people, up until the second we stepped through the doors and I saw where we would be eating.
“Oh my god.” I halted, and nearly got crushed under the wheels of Rose’s chair.
The walls and floor of the dining room were marble, shades of ivory and pale brown. Let me reiterate: the walls were marble. Enormous framed tapestries hung on the wall, rosy-cheeked, well-groomed shepherds and shepherdesses frolicking in pastoral scenes. Two large chandeliers hung over the long table in a blaze of light magnified by the gilt mirror over the wide white fireplace.