Love and Liability (Dating Mr Darcy - Book 2) by Katie Oliver

“Henry, darling, come here. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. You and she were playmates, years ago.”
    Henry?
Warning bells sounded in Holly’s head. Her startled gaze came to rest on the tall, broad-shouldered man who’d entered the drawing room behind her father. Her eyes widened in shock.
    Oh, no. It couldn’t be…but it was. John-and-Enid’s oldest son was…
    Henry. Alexander. Barrington.

Chapter 13
    Or, to be more precise, it was Hank, the little boy next door who’d sometimes shared her sandbox and backyard wading pool. He’d particularly enjoyed digging up bits of petrified, sand-covered cat poop, flinging them like missiles at Holly with his plastic shovel.
    She’d disliked cats — and Hank — ever since.
    “Alex?” she blurted.
    His smile froze. “Holly!”
    “What are
you
doing here?” they both asked at once.
    “Oh — you know each other?” Enid asked, puzzled. “You played together as children, but that was ages ago—”
    “Yes.” Alex glanced at Holly, his expression unreadable. “She interviewed me recently for her magazine.”
    A slim blonde appeared beside Alex and held out her hand to Holly. “Camilla Shawcross. Did I hear Alex say you work for a magazine?” she enquired. “Which one?
Elle
?
Vogue
?”
    “Erm, neither.
BritTEEN
, actually. It’s a teen magazine.”
    Her face fell. “Oh? How…nice.” She turned to Alex. “Would you be a lamb and fetch me a drink?”
    Holly stared at her. Was Camilla Alex’s
girlfriend
? Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God — you’re Red Thong!” she blurted.
    Camilla stared back. “I beg your pardon?”
    Alex shot Holly a sharp glance.
    So it’s true
, she realized.
Camilla Shawcross is the owner of the red thong that was tucked in Alex’s pocket
.
    “Did you just say ‘red thong’? What on earth are you talking about?” Camilla demanded.
    Holly cleared her throat. “Oh! Nothing. I just bought a…a red thong the other day. Love it! Wish I’d gone…erm, Team Thong, a long time ago!”
    Camilla looked at her as if she were a dead bug and turned away.
    “‘Team Thong?’” Alex muttered as Camilla disappeared into the drawing room. “What the hell are you trying to do?”
    “Sorry,” she hissed back, “but it just came out! I’m right, though, aren’t I?
She’s
Red Thong!” she accused, eyeing Camilla Shawcross’s silk-clad back.
    “Yes! No!” He scowled and ran a hand through his hair. “None of your bloody business!”
    “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Holly retorted.
    “Don’t you dare to breathe a word of this to Camilla,” he warned. “Or I’ll tell your father that you carry a raspberry-flavoured condom at the ready in your handbag.”
    She gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
    “I would,” he said grimly. “Quid pro quo, Ms James.”
    “That was a consolation prize at a hen party! You don’t think I carry flavoured condoms around with me, do you?”
    He eyed her. “I don’t know. Do you?”
    “Alex?” Camilla paused in the drawing-room doorway and cast an expectant glance back at him. “Are you coming?”
    “Yes. Yes, of course.” He gave Holly a last, warning glare and made his way to the drawing room.
    Desperate to avoid Alex and Red Thong, Holly found her mother. “Is dinner nearly ready? I’m famished.”
    “Mrs Henley assures me it’ll be just a few minutes more,” she promised. “Have a glass of something sparkly in the meantime, and mingle, darling.”
    “Mingling is the last thing I want to do,” Holly muttered. But she grabbed a glass of Prosecco from a passing tray, took a deep breath, and dutifully made her way into the drawing room.
    Relieved to see Alex and Camilla deep in conversation with her father across the room, she took a seat as far away from them as possible on the sofa.
    As she made polite conversation with Lady Blandford, Holly took a small square of Cheddar skewered with a frilly toothpick and a very lengthy sip of Prosecco.
    “I don’t know how you