The man nodded slowly, in a way that made Olivia think he didn’t believe her, which was exasperating because she was telling the truth. It was all good. Definitely.

“So the cupcake. Would you like it in a box?”

“You have boxes?” He sounded delighted, making Olivia smile again, and she went to fetch one of her many boxes.

“Tea on the Lea,” he read off the front with satisfaction. “Very clever.”

“Well, at least it rhymes. But I didn’t come up with it. My mother did.”

“Your mother?”

“It was her shop originally, but I took it over six months ago.”

“So has this shop been in your family for ages? Should there be a sign over the door, ‘Established in 1854’ or something? ‘Purveyors of Tea to the Queen’?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Sadly we have not supplied the Queen with anything. And my mum started the shop ten years ago, after she retired. It was always a dream of hers, to own a little shop like this.”

“Kudos to her for following her dreams.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“And is it your dream as well?”

Goodness, this was getting rather personal. “It’s become my dream,” Olivia said firmly. “I love baking, and I’m happy here.” Which, for some reason, made it sound as if she wasn’t. As if she had to convince herself, which she didn’t. “Anyway.” Olivia took a length of silver ribbon she usually saved for her wedding cake orders and wrapped it around the box, tying it with an elegant bow. “There you are. That will be two pounds fifty.”

“Why don’t you charge me five pounds?” the man suggested as he handed over his debit card. “Really, I insist. It’s practically a crime otherwise.”

“Two pounds fifty,” Olivia repeated firmly. “But if you come back again, I might have upped the prices by then.”

“I certainly hope so. Do you make cupcakes every day?”

Olivia thought of Mallory’s idea. “Actually, I’m running a promotion,” she said a bit recklessly. “The Twelve Days of Cupcakes. A different flavour of cupcake every day in the run-up to Christmas...and if you buy one on each of the twelve days, you get a free one at the end. But you have to come every day.” For some reason her heart had started beating fast as she said all this. She gazed at him, eyebrows raised. “What do you think?”

“That’s an absolutely cracking idea. Simply cracking.” He grinned. “Count me in.”

Olivia’s heart flipped over. She was being ridiculous, of course. She didn’t even know this man and he was, it had to be said, a tiny bit on the eccentric side, with his enthusiastic manner, his endless scarf. But still. There went her heart. She reached for the card reader, unable to keep from glancing at the name on the debit card as she pushed it into the reader. Simon Blacklock. What a perfectly appropriate name—like something she’d read in an Austen or Brontë novel. Very Wuthering Heights-ish.