I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,21

with Luke Palfreyman was not where she needed to be.

‘I’ll stay for a nightcap I think,’ said Jack. ‘Care to join me, Luke?’

‘Do bears ablute in the woods?’ came the reply.

‘I’ve left you some sheets and towels and things on your beds,’ said Bridge. ‘If you need anything else, check the door opposite your room, you’re in the last one on the right.’

Luke saluted her.

‘Thank you, ladies. Sleep well,’ said Jack, going behind the bar to get the drinks. He’d always wanted a bar in his house. The trouble was he worked so hard these days that all his old friends were in danger of falling by the wayside and he’d have no one to invite to it.

‘What can I get you?’

‘A double neat Glenfiddich if they have it, squire,’ said Luke.

‘Sounds good, I’ll join you,’ said Jack, lifting two glasses in turn to the appropriate optic. He settled in the next armchair to Luke, which received him like an old friend. He sighed then, a sound of annoyance. ‘I tell you, what a bloody wasted day. Plans all gone to the wall.’

‘What plans were thwarted for you?’ asked Luke.

‘Had a meeting with a Japanese chap whom I’ve been trying to pin down for months and now it’ll be May before I can either visit him or be visited by him. At the earliest.’

‘Video call him then,’ replied Luke.

‘Not how I like to do business.’

‘Sometimes you have to compromise. Takes the stress out of things. Why blow all that expense and time when you don’t have to? Have you never heard of Zoom?’ said Luke, sounding infuriatingly laid-back. He obviously wasn’t au fait with the matter of multi-million-pound business modules, thought Jack.

‘What line of work are you in?’ Jack asked him. He guessed a teacher, one of those ultra-cool ones that teenagers idolised.

‘Have you heard of Plant Boy?’ said Luke, savouring the warmth of the fire on his skin and the whisky lightly fuzzing his brain, repairing his frazzled nerves. That nightmare walk to this safe haven was still too fresh in his mind.

‘The vegetarian food firm? Of course,’ said Jack. Plant Boy was a company growing at the rate of developing cells. Who in the industry hadn’t heard of them? ‘Why, do you work for them?’

‘I’m Plant Boy,’ said Luke, as if he was announcing he was Spartacus. ‘Started the company five years ago. It’s done rather well if I say so myself.’

Which was an understatement, thought Jack as he let out an impressed breath along with the single word, ‘Wow.’

‘I do video calls all the time, it’s a perfectly acceptable way to have meetings these days, however important they are. I like being at home with my partner too much to be flying around the world when I don’t have to. Why have the technology if you don’t use it?’

Jack opened his mouth to speak, then realised he didn’t have a viable enough answer other than to say that it was the way his father had always advocated doing business, and so he had too.

‘When I do go, my fiancée Carmen usually comes with me and we make a mini break of it. I enjoy my new-found wealth, Jack. I’m master of it, not slave to it. What line of work are you in then?’

‘Scones,’ replied Jack. ‘We produce nearly two million of them every day.’

‘Impressive. Do any vegan ones?’

‘Yes, and very successful they are too.’

‘Interesting. We’re always looking to extend our vegan range. We should exchange numbers.’

Jack nodded in agreement. ‘My dad used to say there was an opportunity to do business wherever you were. And here we are, doing business.’

‘Planning to do business,’ Luke corrected him. ‘Enjoy the enforced downtime.’ He took a mouthful of scotch, let it sit on his tongue before swallowing. ‘I think I’ll sleep well tonight.’

‘This wave of vegetarianism must be like a tail wind to you,’ said Jack, intrigued by this man in the next chair. Plant Boy was massive and yet Luke didn’t have the air of someone that successful. He was far too carefree, not arrogant enough by half.

‘It is, and I have every intention of letting it propel us as far as it can. We could save the planet and it’s all good stuff and I’m biting into the profits to keep the costs down so it’s affordable to more people. Then, before I’m too old, I intend to sell up, take a stupidly early retirement and hopefully spend my time with my new wife, children and a