‘Nope.’ Because she really didn’t want him to see just how much she had invested in Victoria’s wedding. Perhaps too much, she was beginning to realize. But it was Victoria. Her best friend. The person she’d turned to whenever things had got bad, or gone wrong, or … For everything, really.

Henry pulled the Jeep onto the turning towards the next place on his list.

His list. The one that he had found when she had been panicking in the restaurant. She couldn’t be mad at him for that. It’s just that she wasn’t used to being the ‘rescued’. She was used to being the ‘rescuer’.

The Jeep wasn’t exactly a purebred white horse, but she felt very much like the damsel in distress right now and was still marvelling that it was Henry coming to her rescue.

He pulled into the car park of a sprawling warehouse with a corrugated roof. Lily cast him a highly dubious look.

‘We’ll just see what they have. If it’s not right, then we’ll move on to the next.’

She reached for her bag in the footwell of the car and before she could grab the handle, Henry was there, car door open, hand outstretched. The small touch of chivalry warmed her and she smiled for the first time since his fatal announcement.

‘Thank you.’

‘Anytime,’ he said. ‘Come on. I have a good feeling about this place.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Aim high, Lily Atwell. Aim high.’

He guided her in front of him, through the swish of the electric doors and almost ran into the back of her when she pulled up short.

She took in the sprawling space in front of her. The shelves were stocked full of so many different things: plates, cutlery, knives and forks, glasses, and all manner of tableware which led on to lighting, where tiny fairy lights twinkled and solar-powered pathway lighting glinted between large trails of plastic floristry and hurricane candle lamps. Swathes of white silks and tulle hung from wooden lattices. Finally, she let out a gasp of pleasure.

‘This is it! It’s perfect,’ she cried, ignoring the hushed, ‘Thank God,’ that Henry expelled. She picked an aisle and began to walk down it, trying to work out what they were going to need, beginning to feel a little overwhelmed, even as her earlier panic receded.

‘Where do we start?’ she asked.

Henry snagged a large trolley, and joined her. ‘We get one of everything you think you’re going to need and then we’ll just multiply by, you know,’ he shrugged, ‘whatever is required.’

‘That simple, huh?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘You do a lot of party planning in your line of work?’

‘Nope, I’m just naturally gifted at whatever I turn my hand to.’