A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews. Annie Darling

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      Nina was a dearly beloved but absent member of the Happy Ever After family because she was currently road-tripping across the United States with her boyfriend, Noah, while working on the shop’s marketing remotely. She was the perfect, exuberant foil for quiet Verity, panicky Posy and Tom. Dour, sarcastic, up-himself Tom.

      ‘Well, I hope she comes back before I give birth,’ Posy lamented. ‘I would like to go on maternity leave before I actually start my contractions. Ugh! Contractions! Honestly, this pregnancy lark is one catastrophe after another. Have I mentioned my swollen ankles? Anyway, what are we going to do about Christmas? There’s so much to sort out and no time at all! We’re screwed. So very screwed.’

      ‘Not screwed. Christmas bakes are locked down and ready to go,’ Mattie said a little desperately. She wasn’t a big fan of Christmas and all these histrionics about the run-up to December twenty-fifth were giving her a leaden feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘Anyway, how long does it take to pin up a bit of tinsel?’

      ‘We’re going to have to do a bit more than pin up tinsel,’ Posy said, the tears now a steady stream. Tom inched down the banquette to distance himself from a sobbing woman, a look of pure dread on his normally quite lofty-looking face.

      ‘Help!’ he mouthed at Mattie and Verity. Mattie shrugged and Verity sighed, then leaned forward.

      ‘I was going to wait … But, well, no time like the present, and there doesn’t seem any point in delaying the news, does there, not if we’re about to start opening late every night, and it’s not a big deal, really just a medium-sized deal.’ Verity’s ramble had stemmed Posy’s tears and she was now looking quite stricken. Even Tom seemed to realise that this warranted putting down the bowl of cheesy chips.

      ‘Oh my God, are you resigning?’ he asked, which was what Posy had suspected too, if the devastated expression on her face was anything to go by.

      ‘No! Don’t be silly. Why would I resign?’ Verity asked in bewilderment. ‘What a weird conclusion to come to. Although … I suppose in a way I am resigning.’

      ‘Please, Very, my blood pressure can’t take many shocks,’ Posy moaned.

      ‘Christ, spit it out, Very, or kill me now,’ Tom snapped and for once, Mattie found herself in agreement. Verity looked up to the heavens. ‘I’m resigning …’ She paused and there was a collective intake of breath which made Mattie suspect that Verity was enjoying this a little bit too much, ‘… from my tenancy of the flat above the shop. Though I do feel rather validated that you were all terrified I was leaving Happy Ever After. It’s nice to know I’m wanted.’

      ‘For one awful second I thought I’d have to do the VAT returns on my own and my whole life flashed before my eyes,’ Mattie said and Posy reached across the table, with some difficulty, to clink her glass in solidarity.

      ‘You and me both,’ she said, then turned her woeful face to Verity. ‘When are you moving out? The new year?’

      ‘Well, a bit sooner than that. If we start extended opening hours, which will mean opening on a Sunday, then I guess it will have to be … well, the day after tomorrow, if that’s OK,’ Verity said apologetically. ‘I could leave it until the new year, but Johnny has had one of those boiling-water taps installed so I can have instant tea, and he’s had a new window seat put in my favourite reading nook, it’s very comfy, and I spend all my time round his anyway … Oh! Yeah, I would be moving in with Johnny,’ she added, as though there had been any question.

      Johnny was Verity’s beloved. A posh architect, who, much like Darcy in Verity’s favourite book Pride and Prejudice, with his ‘very fine grounds at Pemberley’, had a five-bedroom house in Canonbury and no one to share it with. Until now.

      ‘Oh! Very! Why didn’t you say something earlier?’ Posy exclaimed, grabbing Verity’s hand. ‘Let’s look at the ring! Oh … no ring.’

      ‘Because we’re not actually engaged. Just living together.’

      ‘Living in sin,’ Tom intoned, his hands in the prayer position, now that he’d eaten every single last cheesy chip without any thought for anyone else. ‘And you a vicar’s daughter, too.’

      ‘You know, Tom, that’s Nina’s line, you can’t really pull it off,’ Verity said. ‘And also, hello, welcome to the twenty-first century.’

      Mattie was delighted for Verity, she really was. Even if living with a man was her idea of hell. She tried to smile happily and sincerely while she wondered what would be an acceptable period of time to pass before she could ask, plead, even beg Posy to be allowed to …

      ‘Well, if Very’s moving out, then I’ll take her room,’ Tom said calmly, as if his living rent-free in the flat above the shop was a done deal. ‘That’s fair, isn’t it?’

      ‘Wait, no, it’s not at all fair!’ Mattie exclaimed. ‘I was about to ask if I could take the room.’

      ‘Well, you should have been quicker,’ Tom said in that patronising way of his that made Mattie want to bash him over the head with the nearest heavy object to hand. In this case, a fire extinguisher. ‘Anyway, the flat is for bookshop staff.’

      ‘The tearooms are very much a part of the bookshop,’ Mattie said icily, never mind that she usually insisted that though they were very grateful for the footfall of the romantic-novel-buying public, she was running an autonomous business. ‘Though thank you very much for making me feel part of the Happy Ever After family.’

      ‘In case you’d forgotten, I’ve worked at Happy Ever After much longer than you’ve been at the tearooms,’ Tom pointed out superciliously.

      ‘You were part-time for ages,’ Mattie said calmly, although on the inside she was raging. ‘I bet if you add up all the hours I’ve spent in the tearooms, then it would be more hours than you’ve clocked up on the shop floor. I’m in at seven thirty every morning, I don’t leave much before eight most nights, and now you want to deprive me of the two hours of sleep I could snatch back.’

      ‘You’re completely overreacting,’ said Tom sourly, even though he’d worked among women for the last four years and knew only too well that to tell a woman that she was overreacting when she was reacting just enough was practically a hate crime. ‘Posy. It’s your decision.’

      Posy burped. ‘My heartburn’s back. You two have given me heartburn and I’ve a good mind not to let either of you have the flat.’ She burped again. ‘I’m not meant to be getting stressed out, so you can sort out who gets the flat between you. Tomorrow,’ she added. ‘Now one of you go and get me another elderflower and soda, because I need to burp like no woman has ever needed to burp before.’

      ‘You’ve been burping on and off for the last hour,’ Verity ventured because she was a much braver woman than Mattie was.

      Posy sighed. Then burped again. ‘Believe me, this is just the warm-up,’ she said sadly. ‘I’ve got an absolute ripper lodged somewhere in my midsection, which is yet to make its presence heard.’

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