Chapter Thirty-Three
‘Come on, we’ve got a cake to finish.’ Ella had spent the evening, while attaching raffle tickets to bottles, racking her brains as to how she might decorate her cake and sometime in the early hours of the morning, an idea had popped into her head. An Easter bonnet. And she had all the equipment to do it, thanks to Magda and her white witch kick. Ella frowned, looking at the box. Her decision to make a cake had been hers alone and not influenced by anyone.
She’d cover the cake in white icing and dot it with sugar paste flowers, with Cuthbert, Herbert, Englebert, Bertram and Catherine peeping out from under the petals.
The internet was a wonderful thing. When she drank her first coffee of the morning, she’d already researched several techniques to make the spring flowers. Her own mice characters she could do quite easily.
She’d rolled out the first sheet of icing when she heard a rattle and looked up to see Devon, Dex at his heels, coming down the front path with another box of bottles. Twin emotions warred; the desire to avoid him and stay safe, fighting against the inescapable lift of her spirits at the sight of him.
She opened the door to see him dump the box on the step.
‘There’s another one in the car,’ he said over his shoulder as he took four paces down the path. Dexter wandered in through the open door to greet Tess and the two of them fussed over each other.
At leasttheywere pleased to see each other.
She picked the box up and carried it into the kitchen, putting it on the table next to the laptop.
Devon appeared in the doorway with the second box, his face uncertain as he gave her a direct look. ‘Where do you want it?’ Dexter and Tess were chasing each other’s tails with unabandoned joy which Ella felt was distinctly out of place at that moment.
‘Here would be great,’ she nodded and turned her back on him, indicating the table
He popped it on the table.
‘Thanks, that’s good.’ She gave him a perfunctory smile.
‘So,’ Devon loitered despite her lack of welcome, ‘Patrick?’
‘I told him that I knew what he’d been up to, that he’d been stealing from me. My publisher sent me my royalty statements. Turns out I earn enough from the Berts to support myself. I think it’s enough to rent a place in London and I can probably get my old job back at the art supplies shop.’
‘You’re going to go back?’
‘I expect so,’ said Ella firmly. ‘So, we’ll both be moving on.’
Devon’s eyes narrowed. ‘I guess you’re right.’ He rammed his hands in his pockets and stood for a moment, as if he might say something else.
Ella swallowed and avoided his gaze. Letting him go was harder than she thought it would be. She didn’t want them to part on bad terms but she definitely couldn’t let him go back to Marina for the wrong reason.
‘Devon, listen. I think I might be able to help you.’
‘Help me? How?’
‘I think Marina’s been conning you, too.’
His head lifted sharply. ‘That’s a very strong word.’
Ella clenched her hands together, not quite as confident now, and then turned the laptop screen towards him.
‘Look.’
He scowled down at the screen and then paused as he scanned the spreadsheet.
‘Marina part owns the production company that makes her programmes,’ explained Ella. He lifted his gaze to hers, his expression guarded. ‘Which means she has a conflict of interest.’ She gulped and raced on, ‘The production company wants to make the programmes as cheaply as possible so that they can maximise their profit.’
‘And what do you hope to gain by telling me this? That I’m as gullible as you were with Patrick?’
She winced, feeling the icy hauteur of his words.
‘That’s not it at all. I wanted to help.’ His studied lack of attention made her pause, but she kept her cool even though she was shaking inside. ‘She’s using your joint property for filming but it’s her company making the profit. At the very minimum, it, the company, should be paying a location fee or rental for the hire of the consulting rooms. Look,’ she pointed to the figures in the final column, ‘I did some rough estimates of how much the production company would have had to pay over eight seasons if they had to pay for studio space. It’s a lot of money.’
