Encouraged by the shouts of the audience—there was a particularly noisy group of Santas up front—he moved on to the town hall. Its straight lines made it slightly easier, although the roof with its clock tower was tricky. He didn’t look at Nora, didn’t want to be distracted.He moved on to the neighboring buildings. One more wall. Shit, the glue wasn’t coming out properly. He glanced up and saw that Nora had only a couple of walls of the final building left to do. He squeezed the tube harder, spread a thick line of glue along the wall, fixed it in place, threw down the tube, and raised his arms to the cheers of the audience. It was all a little surreal, with all the Santas in front of him. Nora looked up, smiled to acknowledge her defeat, then calmly finished off her section while Ted congratulated Henrik.
Carefully they carried the two parts of the silhouette to a bench at the front of the stage and joined them together on a wooden tray. They decorated it with frosting and surrounded it with cotton wool to represent snow. It would take pride of place in the main window of the patisserie. Nora tucked a couple of battery-operated strings of fairy lights among the cotton wool and switched them on; the result was magical. An idyllic winter townscape with tiny lights sparkling in the snow.
Henrik suddenly noticed a large dressing on her hand. She held it up when she saw him looking. “I’m blaming my defeat on my injury,” she murmured.
“Louder, please,” Ted said, holding out the microphone. “What happened?”
“I burned myself with some oil just before I came out.”
“Oil?” Henrik raised his eyebrows, and when he saw the little smile playing around the corners of her mouth, he laughed. “Let me guess—you were making deep-fried waffles.”
She nodded. “I thought the display counter looked empty without them.”
He was still laughing, and Ted looked inquiringly at him. Henrik spoke to the audience. “I thought I’d persuaded Nora to give the waffles a pass this year.” He turned to her. “You’ve worked day and night this week to fill all your orders, and in the short break between filming at the patisserie and this competition, you decided to deep-fry waffles.”
A few people laughed. Nora smiled and slowly shook her head at Henrik.
For a second he tried to resist the urge to kiss her, but it was impossible. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her in front of everyone. He pulled her to him and gave her a long kiss.
The cheering that followed almost burst his eardrums. He held her tight, kissed her harder. He really was falling in love with this woman.
The kiss took Nora by surprise, but she kissed him back. She loved these kisses—they were almost too good to be true—and that was what frightened her.
He pulled away and whispered in her ear, “I want to show everyone exactly how I feel.”
The audience was still cheering. She looked at him in embarrassment, but couldn’t help smiling.
But they had to talk. She’d been truly stunned by what he said that morning. She hadn’t wanted to leave like that, but she needed to be alone. She was entirely unprepared for what Henrik said; she had assumed all along that he was looking for something temporary. Nora had thought he saw her as nothing more than a fling, a bit of fun. The suggestion that they should carry on seeing each other was totally unrealistic.
She looked at him. “Can we talk?”
He gazed at her for a long time. “Sure.”
They left the square and walked down to Espresso House. Normally, Nora boycotted the chain, but she needed some caffeine to keep her on her toes. She didn’t want to let herself get swept up in any romantic nonsense. She bought a large coffee, blew on it, and took a sip. Reluctantly she had to admit that it tasted pretty good.
They continued strolling, and she took big gulps of her steaming coffee, hoping the caffeine would help her say the right things.
“I’m sorry I just took off this morning, but ... Why does everything have to happen so fast between us?”
He shook his head gently. “It doesn’t have to get serious. Not yet.” He held her gaze as he spoke. “What I said this morning, I ...” He broke off, glanced at the church they were passing, the church he had recently assembled in record time. “I didn’t mean we have to become an exclusive couple right away; I just meant I’d like to continue to see you after we finish filming.”
That’s what she wanted, too, of course, but it was alltoo much. The loneliness she had lived with for so long wasn’t easy, but she had gotten used to it. If she let someone in now—really let them in—what would happen?
And yet she had never allowed any man to get as close as Henrik. That had to be significant.
But no, this was too big. Too scary.
“I don’t know. Maybe this was just a one-off fling that got out of hand.”
He frowned. “A one-off fling that got out of hand? Do you really believe that?”
“I live here in Västervik, and I’m struggling to keep the patisserie going. You live in Stockholm, you have an entire baking empire, and you’re famous.” She shook her head. “I think you’re just imagining that this is worth pursuing. Maybe it’s a way of getting over Bente?”
His expression darkened. “This is about you and me, no one else.”
“I think you’ve been seduced by the idea of life in a small town, and your dream of running your own bakery. As soon as you get back to Stockholm, you’ll forget about me and all of this.”
He gazed at her for a few seconds. “You often talk about what’s genuine and authentic, and you seem to believe that anything to do with you and the patisserie is authentic, while everything I stand for is superficial. As far as I’m concerned, what’s happened between us is genuine and authentic. And I’m very sorry if you don’t feel the same way.” He lingered for a moment, then turned and walked away.
