Penny hurriedly closed the drawers, hiding the diaries from sight. She’d come back and clear them all out later. ‘Just making sure I don’t throw out anything important,’ she replied. She indicated the box of photo albums. ‘OK if I take those home with me?’

Ned shrugged as if he couldn’t care less what she did with such precious family mementos and this irritated Penny afresh. But before she could say anything, her father spoke again.

‘The car just pulled up. Elle’s back with the verdict.’

Chapter 11

Elle stood outside the hotel and watched the windows gleaming. She had never truly known how much she cared about the place, and now that it was being pulled from her reach, she did.

She wondered if her realisation about Rob was the same, but it had taken longer, and was possibly more devastating. How could she have thought that they could be friends or work together on this? Or maybe, she told herself savagely, maybe, like an idiot, you thought that something might happen between the two of you. That old feelings might flare up. Well, he’d made it quite clear that would never happen. Hadn’t he just said himself that she was completely unlovable?

Now, trying to pull herself together, she prepared to tell her father and sister the bad news.

‘It’s almost lunchtime. Where have you been?’ exclaimed Penny from the doorway. ‘And what happened to your nose? It’s all swollen.’

‘I crashed in to someone in the street,’ said Elle. ‘It’s a long story.’

Penny looked around out front. ‘Where’s the car? I hope you didn’t forget to bring the cats,’ she said when Elle didn’t reply straight away.

‘There was no point,’ said Elle. ‘You’d just have to take them home again.’

Her sister looked at her blankly.

‘We didn’t get the loan, Penny,’ Elle said, seeing her father watch impassively from the hallway. ‘It’s all over.’

She looked from Penny whose eyes were brimming with tears to her father who appeared to have had the wind knocked out of him. ‘I’m so sorry, I did everything I could. I stayed up most of the night making a business plan and outlining the best course of action and—’

‘But we have been banking there forever!’ Penny cried. ‘That has to count for something.’

Elle studied her hands, wishing that she was somewhere, anywhere else except for here right now. When the silence became too deafening, she looked at Ned. Both were staring at her as if they were willing her to say something else, anything.

Her poor sister collapsed into a chair silently, crying.

‘Penny, I know this is hard.’ Elle reached out to grasp her sister’s hand as her own voice broke. ‘I am just so sorry.’