“Oh, darling, you’re hilarious. But, do listen—I have a proposition for you.”
Eve frowned at the phone. A proposition was not how Florence usually spun, A request for you to bring a three-tiered topsy-turvy cake to my mother’s fiftieth birthday.
“Yeees?”
“Don’t sound so nervous!” Flo had a charming habit of noticing and immediately articulating weakness. A bit like a wolf that could talk. “It’s about your little events company. Now, I know you love to take over the cakes and things for all my parties.”
Love might be an overstatement, but Eve didn’t hate it. Fucking up a favor was nearly impossible—and people were always so pleased when they tasted her double-fudge.
Causing happiness was about the only thing that still made her sparkle.
“I thought cakes were your only real skill,” Florence was droning on, “but it seems you’ve been hiding other talents, you naughty thing. Because I’ve heard amazing things about the wedding you planned.” She paused. “Well, except for that odd rumor about your biting off a dove’s head and spitting feathers into the bride’s face, but never mind that. My point is—it’s little Freddy’s birthday in February, and he’s just given our original party planner the clap, so we need a new one. One he probably won’t give the clap.”
Little Freddy Lennox was Florence’s twenty-year-old brother. Eve considered several responses—for example, I actually just closed my company down, or, All I did was free the doves, that lying cow. But in the end, she settled on stammering, “Er—Florence, does that—well, what I mean to ask is . . . Erm, the clap is some sort of euphemism, isn’t it?”
Florence laughed. “Silly goose. Of course it is!”
Eve relaxed.
“It’s a euphemism for Freddy shagging the party planner and giving her chlamydia, darling. And what a frightful fit she’s thrown about it, too.”
“I . . . see,” Eve croaked. I see was a lovely, neutral phrase. Much more socially acceptable than Bloody hell, Florence, what the fuck is your family on?
But really. If you were going to sleep with staff, practicing safe sex seemed the very least you could do. Or perhaps she was being judgmental?
“Now, darling, we will of course be paying you—you’re an entrepreneur now!” Florence trilled. As Eve wasn’t particularly close to, well, any of her friends, none of them had a complete picture of just how many times she’d been an entrepreneur. Her failures were her own private wounds to lick, thank you very much. “And since the party’s not until February,” Florence went on, “we won’t need to start consultations until . . . September.”
Eve blinked. “That’s six months before the actual party, Flo.”
“Well,” came the frosty reply, “this is Freddy’s twenty-first, Eve. If you can’t take that fact seriously—”
“No,” Eve blurted, that disapproving tone making her stomach roil. It reminded her of being at school, when life had revolved around avoiding too much soul-shriveling attention from students or teachers. “No, that’s not what I meant. But, Flo . . . I’m not sure if I’m up to this at the moment.” Understatement of the year. Eve had rather a lot on her plate, what with today’s mild familial disowning and mild vehicular maiming. Plus, September was only a month away, and she should probably spend that month job-hunting.
She braced herself for a Hurricane Florence tantrum, and possibly for temporary ostracism from one of her many friendship groups. Instead, after a slight pause, she heard . . .
A sniffle?
“Evie,” Flo said, sounding rather damp. “Please. I know it’s a sudden ask, and Freddy can be a bit difficult, but he’s really fluffed things up with this party planner woman and our parents are going absolutely bonkers and—well, I need your help, Eve. You wouldn’t let me down, would you? Not when I need your help? It would be so terribly cruel.”
Eve bit her lip, a worried frown creasing her brow. Florence sounded quite upset, which made the stress and annoyance sloshing around Eve’s stomach swirl predictably into concern. The fact was, Flo had a problem, and Eve—her currently messy life aside—could fix it.
So after a moment’s internal wobbling, she inevitably gave in. “Oh, all right. If you need me, Flo, you know I’ll do my best. So . . . six months of party planning it is.” What were friends for, after all?
“Really?” Florence squealed. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Eve, absolutely wonderful. Knew you’d see reason.” Her tone zipped from squeaky pleasure to smooth business in the blink of an eye. “Since I’ve got you on the phone, we might as well talk details. Venues are the priority at this point, of course—when are you available for viewings? Never mind, I’ll email you an invite to the Google Calendar.”
Eve blinked. Gosh. Florence was very focused when it came to this birthday party.
And the more Eve thought about it, the more she realized this might be a blessing in disguise. Party planning was different from planning a wedding—significantly less time, less pressure—but still a job. The beauty of it dawned on her slowly, like an early-morning sun. Six months spent planning Freddy’s twenty-first, then another six months planning some other party, and she’d have done it. She’d have held down a job for a year, proved her parents wrong . . .
And maybe done them proud?
Let’s not get out of hand, here. Scraping together a couple of parties was hardly running a business like Chloe or being a professional genius like Danika. But Eve had officially secured gainful employment—even if it wasn’t precisely what Mum and Dad had had in mind—and she really, really intended to keep it this time.
Absolutely nothing would go wrong.
Chapter Five
By the time Jacob returned, Eve was beginning to worry she’d actually killed the man.
Hours had passed. The sun hung low in the sky, and several guests had already returned from their days out. She knew that the National Health Service, being currently underfunded, came with heftier waiting times, but good Lord—how long did it take to check a man’s skull and whack a bandage on him?
In the time since he and Mont had left, she’d found the (rather impressive, if terrifyingly clean) kitchen, helped herself to a sandwich (plus a teeny, tiny baked potato with beans and cheese, for dinner), and relocated to the dining room to avoid any further guests. She found undefined interactions with strangers to be incredibly awkward and had decided not to expose her delicate nerves any further. And anyway, this was a bed-and-breakfast—not a bed and make uncomfortable eye contact with the strange woman hovering in the foyer. She was here to prevent grand disasters and answer urgent requests, not to ask various hikers if they needed fresh towels.
Even if a little voice in her head suggested she was absolutely supposed to ask about the towel thing.
Oh, well.
Eve was considering calling the local hospital and demanding to know if she was an accidental murderer when she heard the distinctive heave of the front door opening. As had become her habit, she leapt to the window and craned her neck to see who was there.
It wasn’t a guest. Nor was it a rogue burglar she’d have to fight off to protect Jacob’s livelihood. No; it was Jacob himself. She only caught the barest glimpse: a head of ice-blond hair resting on Mont’s broad shoulder, and then they were gone.