The lead up to Christmas was a mad time for Jess; she had an event on nearly every night, dinner-parties for rich City businessmen, and her biggest money-maker, the annual Christmas party for AG Technology at the Grosvenor House Hotel. This involved entertaining 1000 employees with a comedian, live band, and four-course dinner. She loved the buzz of an event of this size; the stress of it almost ran her ragged but the rewards allowed her to take the majority of January off.
A day hadn’t gone by when she hadn’t thought about Dan but she had managed to take Emma’s advice on board. Even though she’d sometimes had to almost sit on her hands, she hadn’t contacted him in any shape or form. She carried on her routine of going to the gym, seeing friends and planning events for next year.
She was going to spend Christmas with her sister Phoebe and husband, and her two beautiful nieces this year. Her dad and his partner Maria were going to France to stay with friends, and her brother was travelling around Australia.
Christmas Eve arrived and Jess started to pack up her car for the drive to her sister’s. She wondered what Dan was up to. It wouldn’t be a very happy Christmas for him, she thought. Even if they had managed to sort it out, it would be hard for Alex to trust him now. She threw the last bag into the boot and went back into the house to make sure everything was locked. Noting that she had forgotten to switch off her laptop, she quickly checked for any new messages. She looked at the screen and did a double-take. Her heart began to beat faster as there, sitting in the inbox, was what she had been waiting for, for the past three weeks.