‘All the new display cabinets have drawers in them, we could stash bags and bookmarks in there,’ Tom supplied in a weary voice like this was all too boring for words.
Although it wasn’t boring. Not exactly. ‘Will we really be getting iPads?’ Nina asked and everyone glared at her for the interruption. Everyone, but especially Noah – his glare was like the sharpest knife cutting Nina to the quick.
‘Once you’re digitised then ordering stock, taking care of inventory and even doing the accounts will be so much easier. Posy and Verity will be freed up to work on promotions and events as you talked about doing when you were planning the relaunch.’
Nina couldn’t help but feel slighted because hadn’t she been the one who’d kept badgering Posy about doing more events? Then along comes Noah with his navy-blue suits and his business analytics and now Posy was nodding her head eagerly and even Verity wasn’t looking unduly alarmed at the prospect of having to leave the back office on occasion.
Nina sighed and looked to Tom for solidarity but Noah had now reached the Tom part of his report and Tom was hanging onto his every word. Big whoop. They all knew that Tom was one of the main reasons why they had so many repeat lady customers of a certain age.
‘So Tom will take over the shop Twitter account from today,’ intoned Noah. Say what?!
It was hard not to flail her limbs at the sheer unfairness of it all. Hadn’t Nina taken control of the shop’s social media? Grown their Instagram followers? Asked Sam repeatedly to show her how to update the shop website? She had! Now Tom was going to take the Twitter from her just because he’d apparently posted a couple of amusing tweets while Nina had been upstairs hovering between life and death.
‘Judas,’ she mouthed at Tom, who shrugged. ‘I hate you.’
‘And then we come to Nina,’ Noah said thinly and she’d been trying to avoid looking at Noah but now he had her full attention. It was hard to believe that this cold, remote man in bespoke navy-blue suiting had held her while she slept. ‘Where to even start? Maybe with her lack of professional boundaries.’
It turned out that all of Nina’s fears about what Noah had been tapping into his iPad were entirely founded. He had noted every single time that she’d given Posy and Verity backchat, or talked about their sex lives or her own sex life, read out the dirty bits in books when there was a queue waiting to pay, eaten food while she was handling the books or serving customers. The list went on and on.
Obviously, Nina was biased in her own favour but even she would have given herself the sack. She was a terrible employee.
Nina hoped he was getting to the end of his long list of her moral and professional failings. Then they could move swiftly on to Posy sacking her and Nina going upstairs to clear her stuff out of the flat – oh God, being sacked meant being evicted too. She’d never dreamed that he would get his revenge in such a petty way though.
‘And she behaves like this because … she’s bored,’ Noah said. ‘You don’t use her talents enough. She takes it upon herself to create the most wonderful window displays,’ Noah continued and Nina looked around the room to see if he was talking about some other Nina, because he couldn’t be talking about her. ‘She’s so creative that she even designed the Happy Ever After logo but she told you her friend Claude had done it. She didn’t think you’d take the design seriously if you’d known that it was her own work.’
‘Oh, Nina!’ Posy said, sounding much crosser than when Noah had been extolling the virtues of knocking through. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
For precisely the reason that Noah had given. And Nina hadn’t even told Noah about the logo; the only person who could have mentioned it was Marianne when she’d been left alone with Noah while Nina was getting tattooed.
‘There was never a good time,’ Nina said weakly.
‘And look what Nina’s done with the shop Instagram.’ Noah held up his iPad. ‘She added two thousand followers in less than two weeks. Send her on a course so she can build on her skills, learn to code and use CMS, then she can take sole responsibility for the Happy Ever After website. You really need to start focusing on your web revenue stream anyway.’
Once again, Nina hardly knew where to look. How could it be that Noah was saying these things about her when he hated her, and with good reason too?
‘So, you’re saying that Nina shouldn’t work in the shop any more because she behaves in a completely unprofessional manner?’ Verity clarified. ‘Well, no! That doesn’t work for me. Happy Ever After would be so dull without Nina. No offence, Posy.’
‘None taken,’ Posy said. She’d been lolling back against the counter but now she hurried back to Nina’s sofa. ‘A day without Nina making completely unacceptable personal remarks is like a day without sunshine.’
‘I couldn’t get through a working day without Nina providing a bit of light relief and saving me from some of the more handsy customers,’ Tom added. ‘You can’t hide her away in the back office doing boring techy stuff.’
All this support was quite unexpected and Nina felt the tell-tale throbbing of her tear ducts because she was off her game and still getting over flu and her workmates loved her. They really loved her. And Noah …
‘I agree. The shop would descend into chaos without Nina,’ he said and now Nina noticed that he’d lost the puckered, frigid cast to his face. That he was looking at her now but would then quickly avert his eyes as if he didn’t have the courage to gaze at her for longer than a few seconds. ‘Nina has the back-cover blurb for pretty much every book in the shop memorised, along with the reading preferences for all your regular customers. She’s the only person who knows exactly the right spot to thump Bertha when she’s playing up and she can charm a queue of grumpy customers waiting to pay into actually apologising for being grumpy. Nina is the heart and soul of Happy Ever After.’
‘Oh,’ Nina said. She couldn’t say much more than that so she said it again. ‘Oh …’
‘I know this because it’s my job to analyse businesses,’ Noah said. He blinked. Then put down his iPad on the shelf behind him. There was silence, expectant, almost pregnant with promise. Noah smiled. It was a crooked, broken smile, which was a match for Nina’s crooked, broken heart. ‘It’s my job, you see, to find solutions to problems and I’ve realised that loving you is only a problem if I make it into one.’
‘What?’ Posy said. ‘What is he going on about?’
‘Shut up,’ Verity hissed at her.
‘You will never know how many times I was all set to tell you about Paul,’ Nina said with a throat that suddenly felt like she’d swallowed an elephant. Just saying her brother’s name punctured the sweet joy that had swelled inside her when Noah had said that he loved her. ‘But when we were together, it was so special that I didn’t want to do anything to break the spell. Then the longer I kept it secret, the harder it became to tell you because I knew that once the truth was out, it would ruin everything. I handled the situation terribly but it wasn’t meant maliciously. You have to believe me.’
‘I do believe you,’ Noah said and surely he wouldn’t be looking at her like that, softly and tenderly, if he still thought she was a cruel, mean-spirited witch.
‘And for what it’s worth, Paul is truly sorry, sickened even, by what he did to you at school.’
‘Well. That’s something. Look, I can’t see your brother becoming my best friend, but I’ll never be able to let go of the past, if I don’t let go of my resentment,’ Noah said. ‘I mean, there are parents who manage to forgive the people who’ve killed their children, even when they haven’t shown any remorse. And it’s not like Paul’s murdered anyone, has he?’
‘He really hasn’t and honestly, if you play it right I reckon you’ll get free plumbing for the rest of your life,’ Nina said, then her expression sobered. ‘But I don’t expect you to act like nothing had ever gone down between you two, because it did and it’s important not to brush that aside. All I’m asking is that you let him take you out for one reall
y hideously awkward drink so he can apologise in person.’
Noah nodded. ‘I could do that,’ he said and his face, which had unscrunched itself, scrunched up again. ‘I didn’t mean it when I said you were incapable of love.’
‘But you were right in a way,’ she said with a sob. ‘I think I’ve always been afraid of falling in love because I’m afraid of being trapped again, but when I’m with you, I don’t feel trapped at all.’ Nina leant forwards. ‘After you found out what I’d done, all the deceit, all the lying which, again, I really am so very sorry about, I was convinced that you hated me. And the worst thing was that I couldn’t blame you for hating me. I hated me! If I’d thought I could change your mind, I would have given it my all. Actually, what did change your mind?’
‘I don’t like to resort to cliché, but my God, could you two get a room?’ Tom sniped even though no one was asking him to stay and watch.
‘Shut up!’ Posy and Verity snapped in unison but Nina hardly heard them, she only had ears and eyes for Noah, who took a step forward.
‘Well, I’ve spent a week reading up all the many, many notes I’d written about you, and incidentally, you made the two weeks I spent analysing Happy Ever After the most entertaining two weeks of my career. So even though I was very angry with you, I began to miss you.’ Noah let out a shaky breath.
‘I missed you too,’ Nina admitted. ‘I missed you so much that it hurt.’
‘You made me realise that actually I’m not the king of compartmentalisation. In fact, since we met, I haven’t stopped thinking about you, looking forward to spending time together, and then I had to spend nine days without you. Knowing that you had flu, which was all my fault because I dragged you on an enforced march across open moorland.’ Noah’s eyes had never looked so green and fathomless. ‘People can die from the flu, you know.’
‘It was my fault though for not having a sensible all-weather coat,’ was a sentence that Nina had never imagined that she’d utter. ‘All that time that I wanted passion and drama and a love that knew no bounds, but that wasn’t real. Cathy and Heathcliff aren’t real. But we are, we were real.’
‘And we could be again, couldn’t we?’ Noah asked, hope putting colour in his cheeks and a hitch in his voice.
Over the last few weeks, Nina had had lots of time to contemplate just how lacking in bravery she was. She hadn’t ziplined or kayaked. She couldn’t go more than three rungs on the rolling ladder without someone standing underneath to cushion her if she fell. She might want adventure, but there was plenty of evidence to suggest that she was allergic to adrenalin. And for all her longing for a coup de foudre, she’d dated a succession of losers, safe in the knowledge that none of them would ever steal her heart.
She was a coward.
‘Nina …’ Noah faltered. He took a step back. ‘Do you think we could start again?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to start again.’
There was a shocked intake of collective breath from their audience. ‘Harsh,’ Posy muttered. ‘So harsh.’
‘Fine,’ Noah said. He turned away as if he couldn’t bear to look at her and picked up his iPad. ‘Well, at least I know where I stand now.’
No, Nina would never jump from aeroplanes or hurl herself off bridges attached to a rubber rope. And she was never going for another walk across open moorland, because she wasn’t that kind of brave.
She was another kind of brave.
‘I don’t want to start again …’
Noah shut his eyes. ‘You already said that.’
‘… I want to pick up right where we left off,’ Nina said and she stood up and the eight steps that she took to Noah were the bravest steps that anyone had ever taken, even people who liked to walk on hot coals. ‘Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same.’
Then she kissed him or maybe Noah kissed her. Either way, they were kissing and Nina’s arms no longer ached because they were holding him and her lips were no longer dull because Noah’s mouth had brought them back to life. And Nina’s heart … Oh, her heart! It was no longer broken and empty but full of love.
Eventually, when lack of oxygen started to become an issue, they broke apart to the sound of applause from Posy and Verity, and Tom saying in scandalised tones, ‘I’m writing you up in the sexual harassment book, Nina, for flagrant and public displays of affection.’
‘That was so romantic,’ Posy said rapturously.
‘And I loved it when you quoted Wuthering Heights,’ Verity added. She stood up. ‘Now are we done here because it’s gone eleven and we really should open up the shop?’
‘Stick a fork in me, I’m done,’ Nina declared and she swooned a little but it was wasted on Noah because he’d already picked up his precious iPad again.
‘Almost done,’ he said, looking at his screen and Nina didn’t know how she could go from wanting to kiss him to wanting to hit him. ‘Just one more suggestion. Or more of an order really, Posy. You’ll have to give Nina a six-month sabbatical starting in May because we’re going to road trip across the States.’
It was perfect, even down to the gobsmacked look on Posy’s face. It just needed one more act of bravery from Nina.
She took the iPad out of Noah’s hands. Had a good mind to throw it a great distance, but instead she placed it carefully on the nearest flat surface. Then she took a deep breath, took Noah’s hands, and her heart was pounding but when she looked up and saw the tender look on his face that she thought she’d never see again, she no longer needed to be brave. It was actually the easiest thing in the world.
‘I absolutely love you,’ Nina said. ‘And when I’m in, I’m all in. Is that going to be a problem?’
‘If it is a problem then I don’t want to find a solution to it,’ Noah said and he took Nina in his arms again.
By now, Verity had flipped the shop sign to open and the first customers were streaming in. Posy was muttering about the threat of knocking through like she wasn’t going to get over it any time soon, Tom was tutting furiously as he stepped around Nina and Noah and Verity was wondering aloud if anyone planned to do any work that morning.
But neither Nina nor Noah took any notice. They only had eyes for each other.
‘We’re going to end up getting matching tattoos, aren’t we?’ Noah asked in a good-humoured but resigned voice between kisses. ‘Some appropriate quote from Wuthering Heights?’
‘You can count on it,’ Nina assured him. ‘I’ve already got it narrowed down to three possible contenders. But you have to be certain. I mean, tattoos are forever.’
‘Forever isn’t nearly long enough,’ Noah said and even though all three of Nina’s colleagues were now moaning at her to do some work, she ignored them and, reaching up on her tiptoes, pressed a heartfelt kiss to Noah’s lips.
After all, what better place to pledge undying love to each other than in a shop called Happy Ever After?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my wonderful agent, Rebecca Ritchie, though the word ‘wonderful’ doesn’t really do her justice, and Hélène Ferey, Jennifer Custer and all at AM Heath.
Also, many slightly awkward hugs to Martha Ashby, my editor, for always knowing what I’m trying to do with a book even if I haven’t realised it myself and thanks to Jaime Frost, Emma Pickard and all the team at HarperCollins.
Look out for Annie’s next book, Under the Mistletoe at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
Coming autumn 2018
Click here to pre-order now 978-0-00-827568-6
If you enjoyed Nina’s story, why not try the other Little Bookshop books?
Click here to buy The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts now 978-0-00-817312-8
Click here to buy True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop now 978-0-00-817315-9
Happy Ever After – where true love is only a page away …
BECOME A
VINTAGE QUEEN
Get Nina’s retro glam look from these five websites.
www.collectif.co.uk
Reproduction vintage inspired fashion from perfect little black dresses to leopard print cardigans and all things Hollywood glam.
www.freddiesofpinewood.co.uk
Purveyors of vintage-style denim and casualwear and the place where Nina got her Land Girl-style dungarees.
www.scarletragevintage.com
There are many places online to buy good quality (and not so good quality) vintage, but my favourite is Scarlet Rage with lovingly sourced vintage fashion from the 1920s through to the 1960s.
www.rocketoriginals.co.uk
While Nina might prefer her shoes skyscraper high, other vintage girls head for Rocket Original for shoes reproduced from genuine vintage designs, including saddle shoes and the most wonderful wedge sandals you ever did see.
www.whatkatiedid.com
Even the most dedicated vintage shopper might baulk at buying second hand undies but there’s no need thanks to What Katie Did and its beautiful vintage-inspired lingerie and hosiery. From bullet bras to seamed stockings, they have it all.
TOXIC ROMANTIC
HEROES
Passionate on the page, you’d block them in real life …
1. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights
Yes, he can brood like no other but he’s the kind of emotionally manipulative charmer that would have your friends calling an intervention.
2. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice
‘I must tell you how ardently I love and admire …’
Yeah, yeah, jog on, Haughty McHaughtyface.
3. Rupert Campbell-Black from Riders
Kind of loses his brash appeal when you do a google search to find out the real-life inspiration behind Jilly Cooper’s politically incorrect shagger extraordinaire. (Google at your peril!)
4. Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre
Reader, I didn’t marry him because, ugh, issues much?
5. James Bond
In real-life the super sleuth would be up on sexual harassment charges faster than he could shake a martini.
Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop Page 30