As she disappeared back into the kitchen, Ella felt a kind of warmth flush through her body. She had one agenda for the next two weeks – organising the star-studded event and keeping Roman occupied as much as she could, to get him through his time without Megan. Hopefully then they could both get their lives back on track.

Chapter Twelve

Ella hadn’t wanted last night to end. After working all afternoon at her flat they’d headed over to Roman’s house and before they knew it, it was already past 9pm. They’d spent time talking with Gianni, discussing a possible menu and the overall timing of the food. As soon as they had that all worked out they set to work on the line-up of the evening.

Like a pro, Roman had brought in a flip-chart from his office and Ella listened to all of Roman’s advice about what they needed to do to make this night a success.

They scanned over each page of Dolores’ book and made a list of potential artists. Ella recognised a few names that Dolores had mentioned during their conversations. ‘Blossom Rose is a must.’ Ella twizzled the book towards Roman and tapped the name. ‘Blossom was with Dolores when she first got discovered. Fingers crossed she’s in good health and will be able to make it. And there’s Frank Divine, he was the one who pulled Dolores up on stage and got her recognised.’

Roman jotted the names down on the flip-chart alongside their numbers.

‘Who else?’

‘Gracie Davies was always a regular at The Lakehouse, put her name on the list too.’

For the whole time Ella was working alongside Roman, she had a smile on her face that couldn’t be contained and warmth radiated through her body. She was enjoying every second of planning this event.

After an hour they had a long list of potential names scrawled on the pad in front of them. ‘There’s way too many names there, all those people would fill a festival,’ remarked Ella.

‘You’re right, but what we do is start at the top. I’ve tried to list them in some sort of order. We need to focus on the ones who performed with Dolores or had a connection to The Lakehouse in some way. We need to see the magic working between all these people. Some of these names may already have commitments, so we make the first call outlining the event, giving them all the details, when and where etc., and if they are available. Then we look back through the list. We have to decide how many songs they might sing, would they sing a duet with Dolores, what’s the meaning behind the song, what’s the relevance to the night? Everything has got to be right.’

Ella’s head was whirling. She blew out a breath. ‘It’s like a military operation.’