Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,99

and not a lot else.’

Her eyes lit up that he had been bought so easily and she licked her lips and nodded before she walked out.

Chapter Twenty

Henry returned to the gingerbread house and Penny looked at him hopefully as Daisy ran off to get a few more oversized sweets.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve sorted it. She won’t bother us again.’

‘Really? Because she certainly walked off with a skip in her step.’

‘I’ve sorted it,’ Henry repeated.

He threw himself into building the house, hoisting Daisy up so she could help to attach the roof and do the icing at the top, helping with the decorations and the best placement of the big foam sweets for an aesthetic appeal. Lastly, as several teams had already finished, they added the cardboard box to the front, making a short porch, and quickly added decorations and icing to that too. He barely heard the cheers from the audience as they saw what they were doing or the good-natured calls of cheating from the other teams, his mind was only on what he had to do after this was finished. It was scummy, he knew that, and he’d probably end up with no job afterwards anyway but it was the only way to stop this before it got any further.

The other teams finished and the judges walked around to make their decisions, but he was barely aware of any of it. His heart was hammering against his chest. For their ingenuity in using the cardboard box as the porch they won first place in the design stakes, something that Daisy and Penny were over the moon about, but Henry couldn’t concentrate, could barely even muster a smile as the hamper of chocolate and other goodies was handed over. They didn’t win overall because they had been one of the last teams to complete their house. Daniel and Maggie’s team won again but Henry was so distracted he even forgot to clap. He was finding it difficult to breathe now as panic slowly set in.

Edward awarded the final prizes, said a few more words to the crowd and then suddenly people were leaving.

He looked at his watch, it was already past half past five. He needed to act now.

As the last of the crowds dispersed and people shouted out their goodbyes to each other, Henry left Penny and Daisy and marched straight over to Edward. But as he got close, he noticed that Audrey, Clara’s assistant, was talking to him. Crap. He hadn’t accounted for this. What was she telling him? If she was a friend of Clara’s then she certainly wouldn’t be painting him in a very good light for what he had said to Clara in the office the other day. But whatever she was saying, he wasn’t going to turn back or change his mind.

He approached and Edward was clearly furious. Edward saw him come closer and his expression of anger only deepened.

‘Henry, is this true?’

Henry swallowed. ‘It depends what Audrey has told you. I can certainly tell you my version if you’d like to hear it.’

Edward nodded, his eyebrows slashing down into a deep frown as Henry explained everything. He had never seen Edward so angry before, and Henry tried to imagine what he would feel if someone came up to him and said these things about Anna. Henry would most likely take a swing for them and Edward looked about ready to do the same. Finally he finished. Well most of it.

‘That’s pretty much what Audrey just told me. She told Clara that if she doesn’t leave you alone she would tell me, and after seeing Clara with you today, Audrey knew it had gone too far.’

‘She threatened me with my job if I told you, but I’d rather lose it than let her get away with that,’ Audrey said, clearly as terrified about telling Edward as Henry had been.

‘I know you have no reason to believe me,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve worked for you for one day, but I have no reason to lie to you. I want this job, I moved across the country to take this job and I would never do anything to risk losing it, but I will not be blackmailed into sleeping with her so I can keep it. Sadly I can prove I’m not lying too. Right now, she is waiting in her office for me to come and sleep with her. She told me to meet her there at six or she would tell my girlfriend that we’ve