Page 39 of So This is Christmas

SOPHIE

Sophie wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking for. All she knew was that she was getting colder by the minute, it was already dark and once again she was on her own.

Amber had ruined everything.

Instead of Jennie being told gently, kindly, by people who cared for her, Amber’s deliverance of the facts must have ripped her heart to shreds.

Since Sophie had talked to Walter, especially about Jennie and the way she felt, Sophie had started to see how much blame she’d placed on herself, she’d begun to realise that she should’ve let it go before now.

It was the only reason she was able to say what she’d said to Jennie.

And even if Jennie never gave her the time of day again, she hoped Jennie could find a way to move forwards and let some of her own guilt go.

Amber should’ve been an actress, really.

She was good at pretending to be somebody she wasn’t, someone who cared about other people and their well-being.

How could she do something so vindictive today?

Not just to Jennie but to Walter, to Nick.

What else had Amber said after she’d fled the Wynters’ apartment?

What other accusations had she made? Was she sitting there with the Wynters right now, a part of their lives in a way Sophie had thought perhaps she could be?

There were no lengths Amber wouldn’t go to, were there? How had she even known Jennie was here in Vienna?

Perhaps Amber had been eavesdropping again – she was very good at that.

Sophie was tired of it all. She didn’t have the strength to fight it. She never should’ve come here.

She stopped when she came to a street vendor and bought a cup of coffee, if only to warm up. She wanted to go back to her accommodation but at the same time she needed to be out here where nobody could find her. Not that anyone would bother looking, not now they thought she was a liar and a thief.

She sat on the steps of an old building and went to pull her phone from her coat pocket.

Not finding it, she set her coffee down on the concrete, took off her gloves and fished in her bag.

She unpacked everything, her hands stiff in the icy air, before it dawned on her – she’d left her phone at the Wynters’ apartment, in the living room, having taken a photograph of the fireplace, the tree, the stockings and the new personalised baubles.

In those moments she’d been thinking that things might well change when Jennie knew their connection but she’d never expected things to unfold the way they had.

She had another swig of coffee but misjudged how much was in the cup and the liquid burnt her lower lip.

How was she supposed to go back and get her phone? She couldn’t face it. She couldn’t face them.

She trudged back to her apartment hotel.

The woman at the front desk was nowhere to be seen.

Sophie went upstairs, switched on the lights and rinsed out the dregs from her cardboard cup before dropping it in the recycling bin.

She’d go and see the Wynters tomorrow morning and get her phone back and hoped by then it would only be Walter she’d have to face.

He’d tell her how bad this was, what else Amber had said, how Jennie was feeling.

But did she really want to know? All three of them could’ve stopped her leaving today, but instead they must have believed some of what Amber was saying to let Sophie walk away rather than throw Amber out.

The fact she’d lost the Wynters’ trust in an instant was almost too heartbreaking to bear.

Thankfully she had an iPad with her so at least she wasn’t stuck without any technology or link to the outside world, and when she checked her emails she had one sitting there in her inbox from Hayden.

She wrote a nice, long message back telling him how wonderful Christmas with the Wynters had been, that they’d had enough snow in Vienna that the city had turned into a winter wonderland, that she was loving being away for the first time in years.

And then she lay back on the bed staring at the ceiling. Vienna was beautiful but it was never a place that made you feel so good, was it? It was the people.

She must have lain there for almost an hour before she came to a decision. She sat up, grabbed her iPad and went online to book a flight, keeping everything crossed that the snow was minimal enough that it didn’t affect the airlines.

When she was done she got up, opened the chest of drawers and then the wardrobe and began to pack.

Early tomorrow morning she was going home. Back to England. Away from all of this, back to the person she was and had always been. She’d apologise to Walter for leaving so abruptly. But leaving Vienna was for the best.