Page 40 of Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle

Ollie laughs, like proper belly-laughs, and both his arms slide around me from behind in a tight hug. ‘With you by my side, I can put up with him.’

He nestles closer and bends so his head is alongside mine. ‘He thinks I messed up the flight booking on purpose so I could show off my castle to Dand and Halston. As though having everyone for Christmas is a big ploy to win favour rather than sheer, unadulterated panic.’

His chin is on my shoulder and his cheek is resting against mine, and I reach up and stroke his face blindly, my thumb brushing over his jaw. ‘We’re going to have to be extra careful around him. He knows something’s up.’

‘He’d like something to be up, all right. He wants that promotion and he’ll go to any lengths to get it.’

I look around to make sure no one’s listening and then turn to hiss in his ear. ‘What, like paying someone to be his wife and hiring fake children?’

‘Touché.’

I lose myself in the closeness as ‘Silver Bells’ comes on and we sway on the spot to make sure we don’t stray into the path of any more wayward mistletoe, but with his height behind me, his arms around me, and his woodsy and sweet aftershave filling my senses, I could quite happily stand here all night, despite the way these heels are trying to rearrange the shape of my feet.

‘How soon do you think we can get out of here?’ Ollie whispers in my ear. ‘I never feel like I fit in at these things, but tonight, with you… I’m not sure I want to.’

‘I’m not sure I want you to either,’ I mumble, because everyone here seems so different to Ollie, and he is different around them. He thrives chopping down Christmas trees and letting Maisie put pink scrunchies in his hair, but here, he seems constantly on guard and shielded. Oliver, not Ollie.

‘Make an excuse and tell them I’ve got something wrong with me. You’re good at that.’

‘Will do.’

I miss his arms being around me instantly when he goes to look for one of the bosses to say goodbye.

‘Ollie? Not constipation!’

13

It’s Friday night, three days since the office party, and Ollie’s home from work before 6 p.m., he’s showered and we’ve eaten Nancy’s butternut and cranberry soup together. Now I can hear the floorboards creaking as he moves around upstairs. Having put off decorating the undecorated garlands that I installed last week, I’m on a ladder in the entrance hall with a bag full of wire-wrapped bows, berries, and pinecones, after spending most of the afternoon fanning out branches and twisting strings of lights through the green foliage that adorns every banister of the stairs above.

Decorating this week has been a case of prioritising. I’ve installed the trees we cut down into stands and tree skirts in the guest bedrooms, and taken deliveries of boxes of baubles and a selection of hanging decorations for the guests to decorate their own trees themselves. The lights and garlands have been put up in the library, and the dining hall and guest lounge have been garlandified too. I’ve tried to get the bulk of the big stuff done while leaving fiddly jobs like making the garlands sparkle for evenings or any other free time.

‘It smells incredible in here.’ Ollie comes back down the main stairs. ‘What is that?’

‘Cinnamon sticks.’ From the ladder I’m at the top of, I wave one around by the wire I’m using to tie them onto the garlands so he can see it from below.

‘Hiring you was the best decision I’ve ever made,’ he blurts out of the blue. ‘Seriously. I don’t know where I’d be without you. You think of everything.’

‘It’s my job.’ I glance down at him and there’s something heartfelt in his eyes that makes me feel scarily wobbly considering how far up this ladder I am. ‘In visual merchandising, I mean. Little touches make all the difference. Anyone can make a display look nice, but if it smells nice too, customers are more likely to buy.’

‘It’s not your job, it’s you, Lula.’

He seriously knows how to make a girl feel special, and I try to tell myself that the flushed feeling is due to proximity to the ceiling lights and not from his words.

‘I almost hate to ask, but can you come down a minute?’ Ollie comes to the bottom of the ladder. ‘I have something for you.’

I leave my bag of bows hooked onto a rung and climb down, and at the bottom, Ollie’s huge hands reach up to steady me. His fingers splay out on my back through the thick material of the cream-coloured cardigan I’m wearing, the one he lent me on the day I arrived, which is starting to feel much longer ago than the two weeks it is in reality. In this little festive bubble, it feels like I’ve been here for a lifetime.

‘Hi,’ he says with a smile.

‘Hi.’ I meet his eyes and he suddenly realises that his hands are still holding me steady even though I’ve been safely on the floor for a while now, and he stumbles a step backwards and pushes a hand through his hair that’s still drying after a shower.

He holds a small red jewellery box out to me, and I must momentarily forget that he’s my pretend husband because my heart starts pounding. Whatever it is, it’s not like he’s actually proposing, is it?

‘What’s this?’ I close my fingers around it and he doesn’t let go, making me close my hands over his fingers too.

‘It was my mum’s. I thought it could be a makeshift wedding ring.’

I immediately drop my hands from it. ‘Oh, Ollie, I can’t. That’s something special and sentimental.’