Page 34 of Coming Home to Maple Tree Lodge

It was her worse nightmare coming true. Her dream job, her future, now coming apart at the seams. Worse still, she wouldn’t have anywhere to live either when he threw her out. She would be both homeless and jobless. Her career wasn’t just on a temporary hold, it was at a complete and utter end.

‘I spoke to your ex-boss just half an hour ago,’ he told her. ‘So, do you want to tell me exactly what’s going on around here? Why have I hired someone who’s been given the sack? Why have you lied to me? To my family? To Hannah?’

On the last word, he gave the lump of rotten wood keeping the door open a kick in anger. It slid across the floorboards and the front door swiftly closed with a click.

‘Well?’ he asked.

But despite everything that he had just accused her of, Lily suddenly had a more pressing problem on her mind. ‘You’ve just closed the door,’ she told him, peering around him to double check the horrible thought that she now had.

‘Yes, I’m aware of that, thank you,’ he replied in a cool tone. ‘Don’t you think we’ve got bigger things to discuss?’

‘Bigger than being stuck in here, you mean?’ she asked.

‘Stuck?’ Ben’s eyes widened before he spun around to reach out to the door. Lily watched as he felt around where the door handle would normally be and slowly realised what Faye had already told her. That there wasn’t one.

He turned back around. ‘Well, that really isn’t an issue, is it?’ he said, patting the back pockets of his jeans. And then his front pockets. Before patting the back pockets once more.

‘I haven’t got my phone either,’ Lily told him, with a heavy sigh, thinking of her mobile, which she had left in the kitchen on charge. ‘I mean, with no signal outside of the hotel there was no point taking it out for a walk, was there?’

Ben’s mouth turned into a flat line as he pressed his lips together. ‘So we’re trapped in here, are we?’ he asked, sounding as if she were the last person that he wanted to be with at that moment.

She nodded slowly. ‘Yup.’

She didn’t know what was worse. Being stuck in the boathouse alone or with Ben. Although one glance at his scowling face and she had the answer to that question. She would much rather have been stuck in there by herself!

17

Lily watched as Ben tried once more to open up the door by pressing his fingertips into the door frame. But with the door being completely smooth and having no handle, it was an impossible task.

‘Believe me, I’m not thrilled about being stuck in here either,’ Lily told him, sinking down to perch on a nearby table.

Ben turned around to scowl at her. ‘I’m not sure I can believe anything that you say any more,’ he replied.

She gulped, the guilt of her lies made her feel sick to her stomach. ‘Look, I understand why you’re upset,’ she told him in a small voice. ‘But can you let me at least try and explain why I lied about still being employed by Haubermann?’

Ben looked at her for a long time before coming over to sit down on a nearby crate, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

‘Go on then,’ he said, piercing her with his brown eyes.

She took a deep breath, trying to find the right words to convince him that she wasn’t a bad person. She had thought that by lying she could safeguard her future career but she had only ended up making everything worse.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began, finally speaking the truth from her heart. ‘I thought I was protecting you and your family by lying about my job but the truth is that I was only thinking of myself. I’ve been fighting for so long to be recognised for my talent as an interior designer. It’s been incredibly frustrating, to be honest. I did all the work but Hans took all the credit for everything.’

Ben frowned but didn’t say anything.

‘Then two weeks ago it all came to a head,’ she said, forcing herself to carry on into the silence. ‘He had promised me a partner position and I thought that all the sacrifices would be worth it. But Hans announced that he had changed his mind and made me redundant instead. With less than two years at the company, the pay-off was almost worthless.’ She dragged a hand through her hair. ‘I was devastated. All those years of hard work. All that effort, all those years of wasted opportunity and for nothing.’

She was still so incredibly disappointed with what had happened.

‘What do you mean he took all the credit for your work?’ asked Ben.

‘Hans has no creative talent,’ she replied. ‘None at all. So he gets us junior assistants to create the designs and then steps forward right at the end to tell the customer that it was all his own work.’

‘That’s awful,’ said Ben, looking aghast. ‘You should sue him.’

‘Apparently there’s a tiny clause in our contracts that doesn’t allow for that,’ she told him, with a shrug. ‘Which is another lesson learned – always read your contracts from start to finish.’ She tried and failed to raise a smile.

‘So why did he sack you?’ he asked.