Page 21 of The Secret Holiday Kiss

‘It’s changed a lot, but we have, too. An off-the-beaten-track seaside village is a different prospect when you’re an adult with pressure and responsibility. When you’re young, all you want to do is get out and see the world, and somewhere like this doesn’t feel like enough.’

‘Too true,’ Daisy murmured, as their sandwiches arrived and talk faded as they contentedly dug into the food.

‘Anyway,’ May said, once she’d eaten half her fish-finger sandwich and wiped tartare sauce off her chin, ‘Avery mentioned his treasure hunt idea to me a couple of weeks ago, so I was surprised when he denied it in the meeting.’

‘Maybe he’s got other projects in Norwich, but he got caught up with the house and now he’s realized he needs to be in two places at once?’ Daisy suggested.

‘Could be.’ May sipped her tea. ‘He goes back to Norwich every week, but I thought that was to check on his flat and pick up any post.’

‘Maybe he bumped into someone and now he’s got some unexpected work?’

‘He didn’t say anything,’ May murmured. ‘But anyway – he’s fully invested now. Now he knows he’s up against your grand ball, he’s been planning his sculptures, sourcing the wood to make them. Nothing’s going to stop him.’

‘Crap,’ Daisy whispered. ‘That means we need to be fully committed too. I’ve got my Norwich café to work on, but other than that, a few calls to check in with the repairs being done on my flat, I can dedicate the rest of my time to it.’

‘Excellent.’ Sophie pushed her empty plate aside and took out a beautiful notebook, the cover iridescent turquoise, a pink ribbon keeping her place. She opened it to a blank page and hovered her pen above it. ‘Ideas dump. Anything you can think of to make this Christmas ball magical – nothing too big or too small. Let’s go.’

Daisy sat back in her chair and smiled. Outside the window, three seagulls were squabbling over spilled chips on the green, and it reminded her how much she relished a good competition. No way was Avery and his treasure hunt going to be better than their ball, not even if he had the time to craft a hundred beautiful sculptures between now and the middle of December.

They walked back into the foyer together, and Daisy noticed that the Christmas tree was up, and that the two burly men were adding gleaming decorations to it, one working on the bottom half, one teetering on a ladder at the top. Mary, Winnie’s sister – who looked like her except her grey hair was long and straight – stood at the bottom, directing them.

‘Do you think we should get them to decorate all the trees we’re going to need at the manor?’ Daisy asked.

Sophie looked outraged. ‘Let someone else be in charge of tree design? Are you mad?’

‘Not be in charge,’ Daisy said. ‘Do the physical work. This is what you learn as an interior designer. You have the ideas, and you want to be involved in the practical side of it, but it’s much better to delegate, to let the experts turn your ideas into reality. Except, obviously, with the ball. We’re going to make the dance cards and paper chains, book a string quartet and organise some sort of fancy lighting. If there was any construction or complicated electrics needed, we’d get professionals involved.’

‘I don’t think those guys are professional tree dressers,’ May murmured. ‘I think they were hired to haul the tree to the hotel, and Mary’s roped them in to decorating it so she doesn’t have to climb the ladder.’

‘I want to be Mary when I grow up,’ Sophie said with a sigh.

Daisy laughed. ‘Well—’

‘Don’t run away,’ Winnie called from the reception desk. ‘You’ve had a delivery, young Anderly.’

‘Which one?’ Sophie said.

‘Oh goodness! I forgot – you’re multiplying.’ Winnie cackled in a way that made her curls shake. ‘Daisy. It arrived while you were in the dining room.’

‘For me?’ She walked over to the desk, and Winnie handed her a small package. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. ‘What is this?’

‘I would have thought opening it would be the best way to find out.’ Daisy jumped, because the reply hadn’t come from Winnie, or from Sophie or May. She turned around. Avery was wearing cargo shorts, a faded beige T-shirt with a rip in the collar, and his big workmen’s boots.

‘Don’t get concrete dust on the carpet or I’ll make you hoover it up,’ Winnie scolded, but her voice was full of affection.

Avery saluted, then bent down to kiss May, then Sophie, on the cheek. ‘All right?’ He paused, catching Daisy’s eye, and she sucked in a breath. For a moment, he was frozen, and she wondered if she would get a kiss too, but then he turned back to May.

‘We just had lunch,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Good. I’ve been in Norwich this morning, and the team are cracking on. I just came to check a couple of things with my employers.’ He held up a notepad and took a pencil from behind his ear. Daisy thought of the sleek iPad nestled in her bag. She hadn’t dared use it to help with ball planning once Sophie had taken out her beautiful notebook. Her digital planner felt like a betrayal in the face of her sister-in-law’s creativity.

‘Good-oh,’ Winnie said. ‘I’ll get Mary to stop harassing the decorators.’

‘Great.’ He turned back to Daisy. ‘You’re not going to open it?’

‘Not right now.’ She slipped the parcel into her handbag. ‘But call me later for an update if you want.’

‘I might do that,’ he said with a grin. ‘Looks like it could be an LP record, and you know how interested I am in those.’