Dorothea Mackenzie stared at the screen, willing the words to change. They didn’t. She tried blinking. Nope, still there, in all their guilt trip inducing glory.

My dearest Dory,

We went to choose the Christmas tree yesterday, sweetheart, but it wasn’t the same without you. I think Mum was a bit sad decorating it without any of you kids around, but Molly and Tim don’t get in until the 24^th, and she didn’t want to leave it that late. She had ‘Lonely This Christmas’ playing on a loop. A call from you would definitely cheer her up – especially if you happened to mention your flight times (hint hint!). I can come and collect you from the airport any time on Christmas Eve, just let me know. I’ve not taken any taxi bookings the whole day, just in case.

Love and mulled wine

Dad x

A definite two-prong attack. Clever. First mentioning Mum beingsad, which they all knew meant big eyes and deep sighs and very brave smiles, and which he knew Dory couldn’t stand. And then not taking any bookings of Christmas Eve, a night that promised time-and-a-half for a Liverpool cabbie, and usually some pretty good festive tips, too.

All this despite the fact she’d told him a month and a half ago she wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Hell, she’d already posted all their presents.

“They’re bringing out the big guns now, then?” Tyler said, reading over her shoulder in that way he knew she hated. “How are you going to get out of that one?”

Dory shifted her computer screen so he couldn’t see. There wasn’t a lot of point; she was pretty sure IT would send him up every email she’d ever received or sent if he asked. But it was the principle of the thing. “Aren’t bosses supposed to be less…” She trailed off still in search of the right word to describe everything Tyler wasn’t.

“Charming? Handsome? Awesome?” he guessed.

“Intrusive.”

“Hmm. And I thought assistants were supposed to be more fawning, generally.” He wagged a finger at her, mock sternly. “Don’t think you can get away with anything, just because you’ve got that cute British accent thing going.”

Dory was starting to suspect that her accent was the only reason he’d hired her. It certainly wasn’t to fawn over him, since she’d made it painfully clear at the job interview that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, the exact phrase she used was ‘I’m not the kind of assistant who fetches your dry cleaning and straightens your tie. I’m the kind of assistant who makes your workload lighter.’

Dad always said she wasn’t great with subtle.

Of course, for the brief three month period when she’d had an assistant of her own, back at her last job – her Dream Job – she hadn’t been exactly fawned over either. More insulted actually.

Maybe her assistant hadn’t liked the accent. Liverpudlian was an acquired taste, Dory supposed.

“Was there something you actually wanted?” Dory asked. “A report that needs writing, or a meeting to set up?”

“Yeah, I need you to pull up the publicity shots from that charity event in Washington D.C. last week. See what people are saying about the cause, the people involved, that sort of thing.”

“You mean you want me to check that they caught your best side in the photos.” She’d been Tyler’s assistant for six months now. She knew what really mattered to him, and it often had little to do with the multi million dollar restaurant chain he stood to inherit, or its subsidiaries – even if he was the CEO.

“That too,” he admitted with a grin. “Send them through when you’ve got them.”

He swept off back into his office, and Dory turned back to more important matters than whether or not Tyler’s eyes looked red in some photos surely no one really cared about.

Like how to break it to Dad that she really, really wasn’t coming home for Christmas.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go back to good old Blighty. Her stomach rumbled at the very thought of Dad’s Christmas dinner and Mum’s mince pies. She was nostalgic about beating her siblings at Monopoly while they drank their way through a bucket of mulled wine, until they all ended up writing each other IOUs for ridiculous sums of rent. She wanted a soggy Christmas day walk after the Queen’s speech, and turkey sandwiches while watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

But she couldn’t.

Working for Tyler Alexander had a lot of perks, but unfortunately the pay wasn’t one of them. It paid the rent, got her invited to some pretty cool parties, and provided the entertainment of working with Tyler, scion of the Alexander family and generally fun guy to be around. But it didn’t stretch to holiday period flights to the British Isles.

Of course, she couldn’t tell Dad that. Especially since her parents still believed she was working at the aforementioned Dream Job.

She should have told them by now. It wasn’t going to get any easier, after all. But she just hadn’t found quite the right way to break it to them yet. And yeah, okay, maybe a part of her was still hoping she’d get back the life she moved to the States for, before anybody back home noticed that she’d let it slip through her fingers. Dream job, devoted, successful and richfiancé, Manhattan penthouse apartment… Now she shared a shoebox of a flat an hour’s commute away, put up with Tyler’s daily demands (while still refusing to deal with his wardrobe in any way) and didn’t even want to think about dating. And, as if that weren’t enough to make her miserable, she couldn’t go home for Christmas.

With a sigh, Dory pushed her chair up to the desk again and rested her hands on the keyboard. How was she going to do this?

She glanced at the office door. When in doubt, blame Tyler.

Dear Dad

I wish I was there to see the tree – send photos? And you know ‘Lonely this Christmas’ is Mum’s favourite. She’d be listening to it even if I was there. Which, unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to be. You know there’s nowhere else in the world I want to be on Christmas Day, but I’m afraid work is crazy and I can’t get the time off to even fly there and back and say hi at the airport! Maybe in the New Year…

She stopped. Things weren’t going to be any better in January, and there was no point pretending that they would.

Deleting the words, she clicked onto the internet browser and brought up the travel website she used whenever Tyler needed to jet off somewhere at short notice. Typing ‘New York’ and ‘London’ into the starting point and destination fields, she held her breath while it did its magic.

When the price range appeared on the screen, she winced, and closed the tab. No way. Even if she was willing to give up food and shelter for the foreseeable future, there wasn’t enough money in her back account to get her halfway across the ocean.

Her hand drifted to the locked top drawer of her desk, entirely of its own accord. It knew what she kept there, hoping that the lock and key would protect her from temptation. She kept it at work so she didn’t have it on hand in her weakest moments. Like late at night, watching QI repeats on her laptop with a large glass of wine, and feeling homesick.

In that drawer, tucked away behind her stationery supplies, was the emergency credit card her father had insisted she get, before she’d left for New York with Ewen.

She’d never used it, but she knew the credit limit was high enough to get her a ticket home. She could use it, have a few days with friends and family, then return to New York with nobody any the wiser as to her current fall from perfection. It was an ideal solution – she’d keep up appearances, and get to go home for Christmas.

Except she’d be paying off the trip for the rest of her life. And what would she do if there really was an emergency and she couldn’t pull out the magic credit card to get her home?

Sighing, Dory pulled her hand away from the drawer. Dad had a rule about credit cards, one he’d drummed into her repeatedly before she left for university, and on every visit thereafter.

It’s not an emergency unless someone is bleeding, or there’s a real chance of decapitation.

She could probably get away with a more general risk of death than decapitation but still, neither applied in this case. The only thing at risk was her pride. And perhaps her relationship with her parents.

If she asked, if she confessed all, she knew Mum and Dad would try and find a way to pay for her to go home, but they didn’t have the money any more than she did. And it would be a one way trip. If she left New York, broke and desperate, she wouldn’t be coming back. And she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

• Text Copyright © 2013 by Sophie Pembroke
• Cover Art Copyright © 2013 by HarperImpulse
• Permission to reproduce text granted by HarperImpulse. Cover art used by arrangement with HarperImpulse. All rights reserved.