She took the phone from Roman. ‘Hi, Boss, we’re working like busy bees. Everything seems too good to be true, but it really is all slotting together with no hitches at all.’ After speaking with Callie for a further five minutes, she hung up and gave Roman his phone back.

‘Callie and Flynn are worried. For the next few days there’s severe weather warnings and a storm looming over us. The bookings at The Lakehouse are virtually non-existent, so Gianni has suggested we round up the locals to get a few bums on seats so he can do a practice run of Dolores’ menu for the big night. He’s literally charging for the cost of the ingredients in exchange for feedback, and asked if we can post about it in the community groups. He knows it’s short notice but hopefully we can entice a few of the villagers out into the dark dreary night.’

Taking a sip from her drink, Ella opened up her emails and spotted one from Flynn. She twizzled her screen towards Roman. ‘Look at all these old photos and stories that the locals have sent in. It’s amazing that everyone is getting on board. We need to go through all of these and put them into some sort of order.’ Ella meant business and she was really enjoying getting her teeth stuck into this project… and spending time with Roman was an added bonus.

For hours Ella and Roman were on and off the phone, listening to the songs that the artists were going to sing on the night and organising everyone’s memories into an order. All afternoon they laughed and joked and bounced off each other, and before they knew it Ella nudged Roman’s elbow. ‘Look!’ She nodded towards the French doors of the balcony. ‘It’s pitch black outside and just gone 7pm!’ exclaimed Ella, thinking the time had flown by. Her stomach growled with hunger and they both laughed. ‘Do you fancy some food, or have you got plans?’

‘The only plan I have is going home to an empty house and cooking for one. What do you suggest?’ he asked, putting his pen down and raking his fringe out of his eyes.

‘Shall I call Meredith and see if she will plate us a couple of pie and chips from the pub? I’ve still got a few things to do on this,’ she looked towards her laptop, ‘before I completely down tools.’

‘That sounds like a perfect plan.’

Ella phoned across to Meredith, who was more than happy to plate up a couple of meals for the hard workers, and fifteen minutes later Ella hurried across to the pub leaving Roman to set the table. Callie was having tea at Julia’s this evening and wouldn’t be back until late, so that meant they could leave everything sprawled out over the table.