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.

Suddenly, all those hours of wishing they’d hurry back turned into a desperate wish for them to not be here. Because it finally occurred to Eve that Jacob coming back probably meant Jacob ripping her a new arsehole for, you know, running him over. Which she would richly deserve.