Flawless Read Online Free PDF

shops and cafés. There was a palpable sense of belonging, so much so that as asingle girl Scarlett never felt uneasy walking home alone late at night, as she would have elsewhere in the city.
    Fresh & Wild was closing up as she arrived, but Will, the manager, took pity on her bedraggled state and let her in anyway. “As long as you’re quick,” he added, holding Boxford’s leash for her while she darted inside, slipping through the empty aisles, all beautifully hung with holly and mistletoe for Christmas. “The football starts in an hour, and I’m not missing kickoff for anyone.”
    Five minutes later, armed with some smoked tofu, leeks, expensive organic chocolate, and a quarter of a pound of lean minced beef for Boxie—a terrible extravagance, especially at these prices, but he’d been such a patient boy today she decided he deserved it—she was off again, head down against the wind, walking back toward Ladbroke Grove and the beckoning warmth and comfort of her apartment.
    Having ploughed almost all of her savings into the business, Scarlett’s two-bedroom conversion in a dilapidated Victorian villa was at the distinctly cheap and cheerful end of the market. But with her flair for color and innate sense of style, she’d transformed it into a haven of warmth and homeliness, her refuge from the cut and thrust of the jewelry business and from life in general. A passionate hater of minimalism, in jewelry as well as interior decor, she’d crammed the flat with colorful treasures from her travels. African masks and brightly woven textiles from Mexico and Bolivia were thrown together with a carefully selected handful of inherited antiques: an inlaid mahogany-and-walnut desk of her grandmother’s, Victorian and over-the-top ornate; a library full of ancient atlases and bound maps that she loved chiefly for their dusty, leathery smell; and in the so-called master bedroom, her pride and joy, a Jacobean four-poster hung with vintage lace-and-linen curtains, so big that she couldn’t fit so much as a bedside table next to it and had to climb out the foot of the bed every morning.
    As soon as she’d squeezed through the door, dumping her shopping bags unceremoniously on the hall floor, she ran to fetch two towels from the bathroom, one for Boxford and another for herself. It was a further five minutes before either one of them was dry enough to progress through to the living room, Scarlett having shed her boots, coat, sweater, socks, and sodden jeans and wearing nothing but a red tank top, matching bra, and pair of M&S white cotton underwear. Happily, the flat was already toasty warm. Having grown up in a draughty castle in Scotland, central heating was one of the few ecologically unsound luxuries in which Scarlett indulged to the full, and she didn’t hesitate to turn on the gas fire full blast so that Boxford could settle down comfortably in front of it on his favorite tatty armchair.
    “Bloody bills. Honestly, don’t they know it’s Christmas?” she grumbled, going back into the hall and scooping up a huge pile of brown envelopes along with a smattering of white ones—Christmas cards, probably—and carrying them into the kitchen along with the groceries. Flicking the radio on to Classic FM for the carols and lighting a Diptyque Myrrh candle, the ultimate smell of Christmas, she set about warming Boxford’s mince and chopping leeks for herself, intermittently opening post as she went.
    Making the cardinal sin of opening the white envelopes first, she was punished when the first one turned out not to be a Christmas card but a letter from her mother, Caroline.
    Looking forward to seeing you, darling
, it began, unconvincingly.
I’m writing to remind you to pick up my food order from Harrods before you drive up, and all the decorations from Peter Jones. You can help me with those when you get here. Pa’s been complaining that the parlor looks awfully drab.
    Scarlett felt the first stirrings of annoyance prickle