‘Paddy insisted I follow Peyton on social media and like all her posts. There’s an awful lot of wedding ones and I saw she’d tagged you in them.’ He gave a shrug. ‘She has quite a lot of followers and knows a lot of people. I just wondered if you were getting anything from that. I hoped you might be, anyway.’

I tilted my head. ‘What are you up to?’

‘Up to?’ He looked genuinely confused.

‘Yes. You’re being nice, and thoughtful. It throws me when you do that. You’re easier to deal with when you’re being your normal self.’

‘My normal self.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who’s to say this isn’t my normal self?’ he asked, echoing the very thought I had earlier. His propensity to keep doing that was another thing that threw me.

‘The fact you keep digging about my way of working and living my life. Anyway,’ I said, clearing my throat and deciding it would be safer to change the subject. Lorcan’s deep blue eyes were currently locked onto mine and a fluttery sensation tickled my stomach, flitting about in a manner that was definitely not in any of my schedules! ‘And yes, I’ve just got a definite booking off the back of someone seeing some of Peyton’s posts, and have three more enquiries from them too. She’s quite the influencer. I had no idea.’

‘She is. I’m glad more people are noticing your business through it. That’s good.’

‘It is. So much of business is word of mouth, isn’t it? Unless you’re some massive corporation, obviously.’

‘True. You’ve done a great job picking up the pieces with this wedding. It can’t have been easy and Peyton was a wreck when the original plans fell apart. They thought the whole wedding was in place and that woman just legged it with their deposits.’

‘I’d never heard of her. How did she talk Peyton into using her?’

‘She’s a con artist. That’s what she does. She targeted their wedding because she knew there was big money involved. Said all the right words, promised all the right things and Peyton was bowled over.’

‘And Patrick didn’t suspect a thing?’

‘Nope. Neither did I. I didn’t get on with her. Just couldn’t take to her for some reason but we all put that down to me being a grouchy eejit.’ He smiled a self-deprecating half-smile.

‘Glad it’s not just me, then.’

He flashed me a grin. ‘Definitely not. But there was just something about her…’

‘You had a gut feeling.’

‘I suppose that’s what it was, yeah. Hindsight is such a punch in the face. I should have known.’