A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews. Annie Darling

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      ‘So, tree, presents …’ Mattie prompted, because the other notable thing about Happy Ever After brainstorms, apart from the noise levels, was how quickly they got off-topic.

      ‘Yes! Presents,’ Posy nodded. ‘Customers can choose to pay for an extra book which we’ll distribute to residents at the care home around the back of Coram Fields. Nina went in to see them yesterday.’

      ‘Big fans of Regency smut,’ Nina reported from her sofa, which she was sharing with Tom, who had barely glanced in Mattie’s direction, though he was eyeing up her cake tiers avidly.

      ‘Sounds good,’ Mattie said. ‘I’d have to look at costings, but maybe if they donate a book then they can have a free cup of coffee. What else?’

      ‘Well, that brings me nicely to my next idea,’ Nina said, glancing down at her iPad. ‘I was looking for a way to create a synergy between the bricks and mortar and the social media side of the business. Really grow our brand awareness and core message.’

      ‘Eh?’ Posy asked, and she spoke for all of them. Noah and his business analysing skills were obviously rubbing off on Nina if she was bandying about words like ‘synergy’ and ‘brand awareness’.

      ‘It’s not just about driving customers to spend shedloads of money in Happy Ever After over the festive season,’ Nina exclaimed.

      ‘But it’s a lot to do with that,’ Verity said firmly. ‘Last year we took twenty-three per cent of our annual profit just in December. So, let’s make the spending of shedloads of money our top priority.’

      ‘Yes, but we also want those customers to understand what Happy Ever After is and we want to give them an experience that delivers our brand message,’ Nina insisted.

      ‘It’s like I don’t even know you any more.’ Sam directed a sad look at Nina. ‘Could you please make a completely inappropriate and deeply personal remark?’

      ‘I’m building up to something, guys,’ Nina said.

      Tom groaned and splayed out his legs like he was in mortal agony. ‘Sometime before next Christmas would be great.’

      There were murmurs of agreement at this. Mattie really wished that she’d given it another half hour before she’d come through. She could have made her flaky pastry for tomorrow and had it chilling in the fridge.

      ‘You are a tough crowd,’ Nina said cheerfully. ‘What I was building up to … can I at least get a drumroll?’

      ‘Kill me now and the last beats of my heart can be your drumroll,’ Tom said. He was in quite the snipey mood tonight, Mattie noted, as Little Sophie and Sam obligingly stamped their feet.

      ‘I’m talking about a Mistletoe Photo Booth!’ Nina said with a flourish. ‘We’re going to hire a special photo booth and people, only on receipt of a Happy Ever After purchase, can go into the booth with the one they love and take a picture smooching under the mistletoe. They’ll also get a digital download of their picture, which they can upload to their social media accounts. How exciting!’

      ‘A photo booth? Won’t that take up a lot of space?’ Posy wondered.

      ‘Not if we’re going to take out two of the sofas anyway. Besides, photo booths don’t take up that much room.’

      ‘Sounds expensive.’ Verity looked pained at the prospect of extra expense.

      ‘Not that expensive. I’ve already spoken to the guy who handles the account and given him all the Happy Ever After artwork, because the booth and the pictures will all be heavily branded. Anyway, you have to spend money to make money, so I said that you’d send him the deposit by tomorrow, Very,’ Nina said briskly. ‘Lots of people want one of these booths but we decided that it works best with the Happy Ever After brand. Because mistletoe equals kissing and we’re a romantic fiction bookshop. Come on! Let’s get excited about this! Whoo!’ Nina punched the air.

      ‘Maybe whoo …’ Posy tapped her chin with her magic marker as she thought about the possible benefits of the Mistletoe Booth. ‘It’s quite sweet, really, isn’t it? We get all these men looking put upon as their partners browse our shelves, but they’d soon cheer up if they were pulled into a photo booth for a sudden kiss.’

      As far as Mattie was concerned, the whole thing: mistletoe, public displays of affection, pulling people into a small dark enclosed space, was ghastly.

      ‘You do know that kissing someone without their consent, even if there is mistletoe involved, technically counts as an assault?’ she pointed out and watched in satisfaction as jaws dropped.

      ‘Oh no, we can’t have any assaults in the shop. Absolutely not,’ Posy said, aghast.

      ‘Unless … well, maybe we could get people to sign a consent form,’ Verity suggested, but Nina was flapping her hands and screwing up her face in protest.

      ‘Nobody likes a Scrooge, Mattie,’ she said censoriously. ‘Happy Ever After customers love romance, so obviously they’re going to love a passionate smooch under the mistletoe. Jesus, don’t be such a buzzkill.’

      ‘Well, I hate to be another voice of dissent,’ Tom said, though actually being the voice of dissent was one of his reasons for living. ‘But if this monstrosity comes to pass, I’m not having anything to do with it. I don’t want our older ladies getting ideas. You know, sometimes I think they ask me to climb up the rolling ladder to get books down from the top shelves solely so they can ogle me.’

      Mattie couldn’t help snorting. ‘Ha! Who’d want to ogle you?’ It came out much harsher than she intended, and all those present turned to give her a hard-eyed stare.

      ‘We’ll move on from the Mistletoe Booth for now,’ Posy decided wisely. ‘Verity will need to see a full breakdown of the figures and I need to know exactly how it’s going to work, because it’s all sounding a bit complicated to me. Now, Tom, I can’t wait to hear about all the exciting things you have planned for the shop Twitter in the run-up to Christmas.’

      ‘I’ve reworked the Twelve Days of Christmas with a romance theme and I’ll tweet a line a day, starting on the thirteenth of December,’ he said in a bored voice. ‘Oh yes, there’ll be all manner of festive hi-jinks. Our favourite Christmas romance novels, one of those stupid Twitter hashtag games where we replace a word in a book title to make it more Christmassy. Like, Pride and Presents, To Thrill a Mockingbird, Me Before Yuletide, blah blah blah, we can give the best ones a prize. Then obviously we’ll have a new Twitter avatar, where the picture of the shop sign we currently have will be adorned with fat robins gaily cavorting. Et cetera and so on.’ He finished up with his weariest sigh yet.

      ‘Oh my God, Tom! That would all be fantastic,’ Posy said, struggling to write all Tom’s ideas down on her flipchart. ‘I don’t know why you sound like you’re being tortured beyond all measure.’

      ‘Because the stench of rampant commercialisation makes me sick to my stomach,’ Tom said, and Mattie could just tell that he was about to go into one of his rants about the dangers of capitalism or neo-liberalism or some otherism that he didn’t like. There’d also be lots of multi-syllable words that no one else understood.

      ‘Dude, if you don’t like rampant commercialisation then СКАЧАТЬ