‘Absolutely a real-life prince. Dolores could have her pick of anyone. There were rumours he asked her to marry him, but who knows? The Lakehouse had magic back then. I just wish we could recreate a little bit of that now.’

‘It’s still early days,’ reassured Ella with hope in her voice. ‘Sometimes these new ventures take a while to build momentum.’

After they finished looking through the album, Wilbur returned to the bar. Ella sipped on her drink, deep in thought. ‘This restaurant has so much potential, and I can see why it was so special back in the day, with its exclusive club. There’s got to be some marketing ploy Flynn can use to get people in through the door – buy one meal, get one free?’ suggested Ella, looking out through the window. Flynn was still chatting to Roman, but Ella noticed the conversation looked quite serious. For a split second Flynn placed his hand on Roman’s back before walking towards the restaurant. Roman appeared to look troubled as he blew out a breath and placed his cap back on his head, leaving Ella wondering what the conversation was about. He then checked his watch and stepped back on to the boat. Right on half past the hour he tooted the boat’s horn, a sign to tell everyone who wanted to sail back to Heartcross that the boat would be leaving any minute. Ella’s eyes were drawn to him again. She couldn’t help it, there was something about him.

‘Flynn doesn’t want to go down that route, he wants to keep everything classy, upmarket.’

Ella didn’t answer, she was still watching Roman.

‘Earth to Ella.’ Callie nudged her arm. ‘Oh look, he’s waving at you now,’ mocked Callie, giving Roman a salute through the window. ‘He must have realised you were watching him.’

‘Give me strength, I was not watching him,’ replied Ella, shaking her head, but she knew she had been and was trying to play the situation down. Within seconds the boat had disappeared under the weeping willows and was now out of sight.

‘Cocktails is what we need,’ Callie looked over towards the bar and caught the eye of the waiter.

‘Callie, we can’t. I can’t afford to be extravagant, I need to watch every penny,’ Ella replied despondently.

‘This one is on me,’ insisted Callie and within minutes of choosing, they were halfway down their cocktails that were filled with crushed ice, squeezed fruit accompanied by fresh herbs and, of course, alcohol. Ella sucked on her straw; the alcohol zipped through her bloodstream only after a couple of sips. ‘These are great cocktails, maybe Flynn needs to do a cocktail hour?’

‘We’ve got a marketing meeting next week to put ideas forward, so why don’t you suggest it? You’d have thought, with the tourist population in Heartcross, it would be packed to the rafters in here.’