“ I’M JUST SO miserable,” said Fintan again.

Flora looked at him. Time was running short. She’d hoped and hoped and hoped that he would perk up, come back to himself for long enough to consider taking the job on. But he was listless and sad and nothing could motivate him. If it was ever going to happen, she knew, there was only one person who could do it.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Well, I suppose I could help out a bit.”

“We’ve been through this! It’s called interfering .”

Flora gave him a big-sister look.

“And I thought you were on your fancy maternity leave.”

Flora chose to ignore him. “Look. You love doing all the food and stuff, right? That’s your area. Best of everything. We have a little money. And even if we lose it all, well, we never had any to start with, right?”

Fintan shrugged. “But this is Colton’s dream.”

“And his dream was to have the absolute best of everything, right?”

Fintan nodded.

“Well. You go do your part. Find the best chef, get the best local ingredients, make sure the food is amazing. Let me handle the rest.”

Fintan stared at her. His entire demeanor changed. Flora could tell he really didn’t want to accept, but also that he really, really needed to.

“Yeah, I’m not going to do much, ” she said. “But I’ve got experience with hygiene regs, fire checks, all of that now. I can help you out when Joel has got Dougie.”

She didn’t dare even hint that she might quite like having a project while Joel and Dougie were carrying on their massive love affair.

They both looked around. The dining room still seemed huge. But Fintan’s face showed something she hadn’t seen for a long time: a tiny bit of hope.

Chapter 4

S o it was that Flora came to be interviewing her own staff at the Seaside Kitchen. They were doing a brilliant job during her maternity leave and the place was as bustling and jolly as ever, she observed, not without a touch of envy, and young Malik, who’d been drafted in to help, seemed competent and popular too.

Flora sat the girls down.

“I feel like Paul Hollywood,” she grumbled. “Not necessarily in the good way.”

The girls looked at her expectantly, Iona cheerful, Isla terrified. Flora smiled encouragingly.

“The Rock needs kitchen staff, and the Seaside Kitchen needs looking after just as normal till I get back.”

Iona frowned. “By ‘looking after,’ do you mean making too many giant custard creams and then secretly eating them by yourself by the cold storage?”

“Uhm, no,” said Flora, blushing.

“Do you mean going behind the larder to snog your boyfriend?”

“I . . . I do not mean that,” said Flora, biting her lip a bit. “And this is insubordination.”

“Well, not if I’m going to be management. Is Isla going to be management too?”

“I think I’m going to regret this,” said Flora. They were just young girls, after all. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.