Cupcakes and Christmas: The Carrington’s Collection: Cupcakes at Carrington’s, Me and Mr. Carrington, Christmas at Carrington’s (36 page)
Authors: Alexandra Brown
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Romance
What is your guilty shopping pleasure?
Bags! Bags, bags and more bags – I’m addicted to them, hence Georgie works in Women’s Accessories (my other dream job), even my husband has become a connoisseur of bags, he knows all the types, names, what’s in, what isn’t and for an ex-bodyguard from Belfast I’d say that’s pretty impressive. Bags to me represent memories, the significant moments in my life – I have a beautiful rose pink Anya bag which my husband bought for me on my first Mother’s Day after we adopted our daughter. I have a gorgeous emerald Dior top handle bag that I spotted in duty free at Hong Kong airport on the way home after our honeymoon six years ago, and I still use it every weekend. I have a gold beaded Fifties clutch from a charity shop that smells of nostalgia, lipstick and had a handwritten note inside from a man called Cyril – it holds glorious memories from my clubbing days, and there’s even my old Ministry of Sound membership card still in it, circa 1993.
As a child growing up in Brighton, I have happy memories of wandering around Hannington’s, a magnificent department store on the corner of East Street. It was a place where nothing bad ever happened or so it seemed to me. It smelt of Revlon lipstick and Chanel perfume (the glorious old one). It exuded luxury, from the Art Deco tearoom to the attendant in the Ladies powder room; even the open gilt-caged lift fascinated me. So my first thank you goes to Hannington’s, I couldn’t have written this without you.
Kate Bradley for laughs, chats, tears and being everything I hoped for in an editor, but most of all for making my dream come true. SCREAM.
Penny, Claire, Jaime and all at HarperCollins for their support, talent and patience.
Jackie Collins for giving my teenage self an escape when I really, really, really needed it, and also for tweeting me last year. FAINT.
Lisa O’Carroll for giving me my first break and liking my writing enough to actually pay me proper money to write a newspaper column every week for two years.
My wonderfully kind and generous author friends, Victoria Connelly, Miranda Dickinson, Elizabeth Haynes, Sue Hunter, Lola Jaye, Chrissie Manby, Jacqui Rose and Sasha Wagstaff – your emails, chats and fabulous cheerleading is so very much appreciated.
Caroline Smailes for being such a dear friend, your patience astounds me and the Poundland chat will never ever leave me. NEVER. Not that I’m bothered, of course x
Lisa Hilton and Rachael Hale for reading those early drafts, girls I made it out of the cellar, now where’s that paper bag to go over my head?
Carla Berryman for being excited and making me crack up with your ‘Loub-for-a-phone’ pic.
Jadzia Kopiel for changing my life, you’re the wisest woman I know.
My lovely, supportive father-in-law, Dr Brown, for sharing the memories of his family’s department store, Brown’s in Newtownards, I hope I’ve captured a whiff of the memory.
Yeeman To, for being a fantastic sales assistant and telling me all about it, your generosity is very much appreciated and any exaggerations or fabrications are totally down to me.
C and L for bringing my beautiful, vivacious and funny daughter, QT, into my life while writing this book.
QT for making me whole again, I love you sweetheart with all my heart xoxoxo. Oh gawd, I’m going to cry.
My husband Paul, aka Cheeks, for ‘knowing’ it would happen, for the plot brainstorming sessions and for telling me what happens next when I had no idea and just wanted to run away and stuff my face with cake. I love you, now go and get me a cheeky box of macaroons …
And you lovely reader for picking up this book and actually buying it. I really really hope you love it, that it makes you laugh, that it makes you cry but most of all you tell everyone you know just how fabulous it is, and yes, I have no shame but then would you if you once did a running bodyslam at the hottest actor on earth, only to fall flat on your face and have the whole thing posted on YouTube by someone who is no longer a friend, natch?!? Hmm, exactly!
1
.
Cupcakes at Carrington’s
perfume is Jean Paul Gaultier Classique.
Me and Mr Carrington
Table of Contents
It’s Monday morning in Mulberry-On-Sea and to say that I’ve come down to earth with a bump would just be a massive understatement. A crash landing, more like. On this feeble excuse of a spring day, I’m about to start work in Carrington’s department store and don’t get me wrong, I love my job running the Women’s Accessories section. But it’s a trillion miles away from sunning myself beside an infinity pool on an exquisite Italian hillside, with a Parma Violet cocktail in one hand and Tom, aka hottest man alive for sure, in the other. And that’s exactly what I was doing this time last week.
‘Georgie! Baby cakes, I’m literally
dying
to know what happened next …’ Eddie pants like he’s just run a half marathon to catch up with me as I pull back the metal cage door of the staff lift and step inside.
‘Oh, it was just another week in paradise, you know how it is …’ I say, shrugging nonchalantly.
‘Well, if your post-sex glow and lack of real tan is anything to go by then you definitely went to your happy place, sprawled across the Venetian four-poster bed all week long. Dirty girl.’ Eddie follows me in to the lift, shuts the cage door and presses the button to take us up, then takes a sip of his Costa coffee before winking and giving me a saucy up-and-down look.
‘Stop it. Do you really have to embellish everything quite so extravagantly?’ I shake my head.
‘Oh, why not. Certainly livens up this boring place.’ He pulls a face.
‘Mulberry-On-Sea isn’t boring, it’s just … well, it’s pretty and quaint,’ I venture.
‘Exactly.’
‘And homely,’ I quickly add, but he’s not convinced. ‘And what about the new marina … All those super yachts are bound to bring a bit of glamour to the area.’
‘Hmm, maybe. Anyway, enough of Mulberry. I want to hear all about your fabulous adventure in Italy. I still can’t believe Tom turned up out of the blue to surprise you like that! He sure gets my vote. Swoon.’
‘Nothing happened. And I always use SPF 50, I’m very fair-skinned, if you really must know.’ I turn to check my brunette bob in the mottled mirror on the lift wall, wishing again that I could magic myself back in time. But I can’t. And there’s nothing more depressing than returning from a sun-soaked idyllic holiday full of fabulous moments wearing flip-flops to then shoehorn your feet back into last winter’s boots because it’s blooming raining. I brush the front of my drizzle-covered mac as if to underline the point.
‘Don’t be coy. Sam told me everything went to plan and Tom turned up right on cue, I just wish I’d been there to witness the look on your face. Bet you couldn’t keep your hands off him, and who can blame you? I mean, he is delicious, in a ridiculously beautiful, chiselled Henry Cavill kind of way. All messy dark curls and velvety brown eyes nestling in those extra-long dark lashes. Such a shame he isn’t gay.’ Eddie pouts. I smile at the memory – Tom in black Daniel Craig-style trunks, his naturally tanned body all solid, muscular and magnificent. His lips on mine, his fingers entwined in my hair, his cheeky grin, his divine chocolatey scent, his … Stop it. I have to get a grip. It’s the only way. I’ll pop otherwise. I’m convinced of it. Unadulterated lust that can’t be acted upon right away will do that for sure. Send me insane. ‘Such a shame he’d disappeared by the time I got there. Why didn’t he stay for the duration?’
‘He had a family matter to attend to in Sicily; his mother is Italian,’ I explain, trying once again to push away the nagging creep of doubt.
‘Hmm, so he was already en route when he decided to detour via Lake Como to bring you a cocktail by the infinity pool …?’ Eddie says, amplifying my fear that Tom turning up to surprise me wasn’t really the most romantic thing a man has ever done for me AT ALL.
Well, we’ll see. I intend on grabbing my chance to be with him with both hands … one on each bum cheek as my best friend Sam says. She’s the reason I was in Italy – to be bridesmaid at her wedding to the lovely Nathan on a hilltop overlooking Lake Como, with my Dad giving her away. Her own dad, Alfie, had passed away just a few months earlier. Emotional doesn’t even come close to describing the moment she appeared to say her vows - stunning and breathtakingly beautiful in a raw silk ivory goddess gown, her blonde corkscrew curls loose around her shoulders and a pretty bouquet of assorted wild flowers in her arms.
Sam is a true Queen of Hearts, the ultimate matchmaker so she never could resist playing Cupid, and knowing that I’d been lusting after Tom ever since I first clapped eyes on him in the staff canteen a few months ago, she had secretly arranged for him to turn up – her wedding gift to me, she had said. Of course, I didn’t know he was actually Tom Carrington then; he went undercover, pretended he was just another sales assistant. All part of his plan to assess the store from the ground floor as it were, before buying it from his Aunt Camille, whose grandfather was the original Mr Harry Carrington, aka Dirty Harry, on account of his philandering ways with the showgirls from the old music hall on Lovelace Road. And it really was a perfect moment. It’s just a shame Tom could only stay for a few hours and now I’m back here in Mulberry-on-Sea, while he’s still there in Italy.
‘And what about Carrington’s other gorge guy, James?’ Eddie steps forward to scrutinise me.
‘What do you mean?’ I reply.
‘Well, not so long ago you were besotted with him.’
‘Hardly.’ I frown, and he gives me a look. ‘The way I feel about Tom is totally different. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Besides, James and I came to an understanding, we’re just good friends now.’ A short silence follows. ‘You know, Eddie … I think Tom really could be my one.’
‘Dreamy. And I truly hope so, because if there’s anyone who deserves to bag their prince charming, it’s you, flower. Especially after that slutty skank of an ex, Brett, or whatever his name was. I never liked him,’ Eddie sniffs, pulling a face.