‘I’m so sorry, Nick,’ Sue said, between her fingers. ‘I don’t know what came over me, I’m just overwrought and overemotional, but I had no right, no right to try and … pull your beard … out. I’m sorry!’

‘Not to worry,’ Nick said, taking a seat in a chair. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve been manhandled by a lady, and I hope it won’t be the last. Still, not usually quite so vigorous with their attentions … not even that lady from Minsk.’

‘I just don’t know what to say.’

‘Where do you want us?’ Tamsyn’s protégée Kirsten and a boy she’d dragged into helping, Ben, turned up in full elf regalia, including the stripy tights and ears, which Sue found oddly comforting.

‘Sue, don’t say anything,’ Nick said. ‘It’s fine. Now let me and the elves get on with the business in hand. I imagine that Petal, Meadow and Forest are our first customers?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Santa!’ Meadow was the first to run in, in full fairy outfit. ‘How have you been? How’s the North Pole? Did you bring me a real fairy, like I asked?’

‘Sue.’ Blake beckoned her over to the door. ‘Are you OK? I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to make sure you were OK. I think I may have overstepped the mark a little last night.’

‘I’m fine,’ Sue said, looking back at Nick, who was now discussing the exact physics behind flying reindeer with Petal. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘Look, I know you think that I’m Mr Hollywood, and well, I am, but being incredibly rich and talented, not to mention as good-looking as I am—’

‘Oh, shut up.’ Sue repressed a smile.

‘It doesn’t mean that I didn’t mean the things I said last night, or said them out of some misguided sense of pity. I really did want to kiss you. And I want to kiss you again. Let me take you out, after Christmas. We’ll go and see a movie, but at a regular movie theatre, not in Monaco. And I promise it won’t be one of my films, how does that sound?’

Sue took a breath. ‘My husband is coming back today.’

If she hadn’t been there to see the expression of disappointment and hurt on Blake’s face, Sue didn’t think that she would have ever believed it. But it was real, he was real.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, then. There’s nothing more to be said. Except that I hope you will be happy, Sue. I really enjoyed meeting you and I hope that our friendship will continue. I’d miss you too much for it not to.’

‘And I you,’ Sue said.

‘Mum!’ Forest’s yell interrupted the moment before Sue could say too much. ‘Mum, Santa says that he doesn’t deliver live mice!’