.

      For my sister, my tree-decorating and singalong partner. Love ya, Kat.

       Twenty-five days to Christmas

       Chapter 1

      Eloise stared so hard into the camera that Cara tapped on her iPad screen, wondering if the connection had cut out. But then her twin blinked.

      “What do you mean, you’re not coming home for Christmas?”

      Cara’s face twisted. She knew Eloise would react like this. She’d braced herself for a screaming match, for tantrums, for tears and threats of never speaking to her again.

      But she plastered on a big smile, noticing that her lipstick needed touching up. “I mean, technically, I will be. I’ll just be there a bit … later. It’s not the end of the world!”

      She really didn’t see what the big deal was.

      Eloise pursed her lips, eyes closing, head tilted down. It was a look of grave disappointment, punctuated by a slow shake of the head. She looks exactly like Mum when she does that, Cara thought.

      “That’s not the point. Christmas is – well, it’s Christmas. It’s the whole holiday season. My tree’s been up for weeks. And you’re going to spend Christmas morning on a bus.”

      “It’s not like there’s much public transport running on Christmas Day. And it’s the cheapest fare I could get,” Cara admitted, before she could second-guess telling her sister that part. It wasn’t as though she didn’t spend a bloody fortune already, living in London. She rented one room in a five-bedroom house. Three bedrooms, technically – but who needed a dining room, or a loft, when you could convert them to bedrooms and rent them out at extortionate rates to desperate graduates trying to kick-start their careers?

      Predictably, Eloise let out a snide bark of laughter, her phone screen tilting back towards the sky before she realigned it with her face. “Oh, of course. I hope you remembered to get yourself on Santa’s Naughty List this year, Car, or you’ll have to go buy that lump of coal to warm the house yourself.”

      Not for the first time in this conversation, Cara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. But her cheeks did colour, and her jaw worked furiously. So what if she was trying to save money? (And by save, she really meant ‘not be broke’.) And so what if she wanted to go all out proving herself in her job to try and get a promotion in the New Year? Dave Steers was leaving his editorial role in January and she knew for a fact they were going to recruit internally, and they were looking for someone with fresh, new ideas. Which could be her.

      She’d worked so bloody hard over the past eighteen-odd months since graduating. Just four months into the job at the online lifestyle magazine and they’d run with one of her pitches to work with a handful of vloggers she’d suggested. Then, just a few months ago, they’d let her head up a campaign with a hugely popular mental health charity (an idea she’d pitched in the first place), with Dave Steers lending her a hand.

      He knew she was gunning for his job. So did everyone else.

      And if they wanted someone to fill his shoes while he was out of office for the week leading up to Christmas – well, she was more than happy to stuff on eight pairs of socks and fill those shoes.

      Eloise was ranting at her while Cara tried to get a handle on her temper and not say something she regretted. Eloise was prattling on about her lack of Christmas spirit (Had she even worn her reindeer antlers yet this year? Her Santa hat, at least?), her workaholic attitude, the fact that they’d barely seen each other since that mini-break to Amsterdam in October their parents got them as a late birthday present, and