“The savings I’ve had to use anyway. It’s still pretty much cost half because the cancellation was less than three months before. And he forgot that it was me saving up for it,” Sorrell said, managing to pull off the last patch of wallpaper rather viciously.
“What did you tell him? Please tell me you didn’t offer to lend him any money?” Gwensi’s voice was pleading.
Sorrell cringed. She knew what her friend thought of the relationship between her and James.
“I sent him screen shots of the invoices I’d still had to pay and then a photo of the statement that showed it was me paying everything in.” She sat down on the bare floorboards.
“Did he respond?”
“Not for a few hours. Then he texted back to apologise and just said he couldn’t go through with it. And that he’d repay me what he took. That’s been it.” It didn’t really hurt anymore. In fact, it hadn’t hurt as much as it should’ve. Any pain or upset that she’d felt at being pretty much jilted had been buried under the complications of renovating a building to become a hotel, one that already had bookings; one that should’ve been well on the way to being ready to open, only her fiancé hadn’t been organising anything. Instead he’d been taking the cash he said he was using to pay the deposits on tradesmen and spending it on God knows what. Thankfully, it hadn’t been a massive amount of cash, but when she’d arrived six weeks ago, she’d expected to find the hotel well on the way to being completed. He’d promised her she would be surprised when she saw it. She had been surprised: just not in the way she’d hoped.
“Do you know where he’s living?” Gwensi said.
“No.” Sorrell had a good idea, but she wasn’t telling Gwensi. There would be no telling what she’d do if she decided to pay him a visit. “I want him to stay as far away as possible so I can move on, get this hotel up and running and then sell it.”
“Good plan. Then you can come home and set up what you wanted to do in the first place.”
And there lay Sorrell’s other problem: being a hotelier hadn’t been on her bucket list, but she had no idea what else to do. She was a trained therapist, working with children who had suffered trauma, but after a couple of difficult years she had needed a change. Gwensi had always been keen on the idea of them setting up their own practice and Sorrell couldn’t find the heart to tell her that her ambitions had changed. She just didn’t know what they had changed into.
“I have a long way to go before any of that. At the moment I want to go down into the cellars, dig a hole and crawl in there until everything’s magically done,” she said. “Maybe take a case or twelve of wine in there with me.”
“Ells, it isn’t that bad. The photos you sent last week showed how much it’s come on. When the extension’s completed it’ll be good to go,” Gwensi reassured. “And you’ve kept within your budget.”
Sorrell sighed, wondering if she could crack open a bottle of wine now she had the last of the wallpaper off. “Just. I got lucky with the furnishings. Although the extra for labour is going to finish off what I was going to use to start the annex.”
“One thing at a time. There’s always the possibility of someone investing, or wanting to rent the area to start their own restaurant. Severton’s becoming quite a trendy place to visit—one of those stupid music magazines of Rich’s said that a festival was being planned there and it could rival Glastonbury in the future.” Gwensi mentioned her boyfriend for the first time.
Sorrell was surprised she had managed so long without saying his name.
“That would be a bonus. What if it all fails and no one stays? What if the wedding is a disaster? I can just imagine my chef telling me she can’t start because she’s had a better offer. Or the furniture I’ve ordered never arrives and I can’t afford any more. Or—”
“Ells, you need to deal with the here and now and stop inventing problems. Are you done for the night?”
“Just.”
“Then go and get in bed with a cup of tea, maybe add a drop of whisky and read that book I mentioned. Forget about everything for a few hours because it’ll all still be there in the morning,” Gwensi said.
“No wine?”
“No. An early night. Drink tea. Book and bed. Now go. But before you do—how hot were your visitors?”
Sorrell rolled her eyes even though there was no one there to see. “One was charm personified, the other was having a tantrum.”
“But how did they look? Did the farmer have muscles or was he more of a country bumpkin?”
“I’m taking your advice and diving into bed with a book. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Sorrell hung up, not in the mood to reiterate her descriptions and elaborate on them. In a moment there would be a message hitting her phone asking for a Pinterest board to be made up with celebrities who looked similar. It would go ignored. She didn’t have time to notice how well-fitted his T-shirt had been, or the stubble on his jaw. She didn’t want to have time to notice because after what had happened with James, the only men on her radar were builders, decorators and the book boyfriend that was waiting for her in bed.
Chapter 3
Aghost, a zombie and what looked like Tim Burton’s corpse bride—although Zack had seen Sadie Grace this shade of blue before after an incident with an ink pen—pooled at his feet and stared up at him with wide and hungry eyes.
“Daddy said you would take us to the village after we’d visited all the old people.” The ghost sounded oddly creepy.
“And he said you’ll let us eat all the sweets. Why did that woman give us toothbrushes?” Sadie Grace said, her mouth opening to display the fact that she was a toothless corpse bride.
Zack shook his head. “Daddy said the sweets had to last you until Christmas and Mrs Pearson gave you the toothbrushes because she used to work for a dentist and she knows brushing your teeth is important.”
“But I don’t really have any teeth to brush.” Sadie held up the pink toothbrush with a Disney character at its base.
