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“Me too, babes,” Liz said. “Me too.”

There was a long pause. “You’re probably right,” Cordelia said. “I should start, like, getting out there.”

“Nah,” Liz said. “I was rushing you. Besides, Jeremy is super lame. He was just the only guy I could think of to invite. All the guys I work with are gay. I thought maybe a bit of flirting would do you good. But that’s not you, is it? Sorry. I should have known better.”

“It’s okay,” Cordelia murmured. The fact was, there was nothing anyone else could do or say to make things better for her.

She was going to have to get over Niall all on her own.

Chapter Twenty-six

Niall couldn’t wait for the holidays to be over.

Everywhere he looked, there were happy couples, holding hands or laughing over a glass of mulled wine or kissing in the middle of the street so that he had to navigate around them. This time of year brought with it an intense amount of pressure to be happy and in love. Niall was about as far from both of those things as he could get.

He was planning to spend his Christmas cooking boeuf bourguignon and drinking the bottle of fifteen-year-old Redbreast he’d been saving.

When he arrived to open the restaurant on Christmas Eve, he had to clear his throat so that the two people staring deeply into each other’s eyes in front of the Star’s glass-fronted doors would get out of the bloody way. What was it with couples and fecking Christmas? Why did Christmas have to equate with romance? Deirdre had hung mistletoe over the front door, insisting it was cute and that the patrons would love it. Niall glared at the small green plant as he entered.

Deirdre was sitting at the bar going over the books.

“Howya,” she said. “Has it started snowing?”

“Not yet,” Niall said, unwrapping his scarf and heading to the office to hang up his things before checking on the kitchen. Michel was doing prep.

“Salut, Chef,” he said. Michel was exceedingly competent and Niall never had much to comment on, so he made himself a coffee and went out to sit beside Deirdre.

“How are we doing?” he asked.

“You know, in a few months, we might break even,” she said, grinning. “Not bad, huh? I told Ritchie we should think of expanding.”

“Expanding?” Niall said. “We only just opened.”

“Yes, but we’ve got to capitalize on this success. America is the next frontier, I think. Wouldn’t it be incredible to have a location in San Francisco? Or New York?”

Niall’s stomach flipped, a stupid ray of hope lighting up his chest before he squashed it. Even if you went to New York, it doesn’t change the fact she doesn’t want you, he reminded himself. Also the idea of opening another location was quite frankly exhausting. Niall was barely used to the pattern of his life in London.

But that was Deirdre to a T. Always looking for the next thing. Always pushing for more. He couldn’t help feeling like this place was more Ritchie and Deirdre’s than it was his.

She put a hand on his arm and he jumped.

“Where did you go just now?” she asked, smiling.

“Sorry?”

“You’ve got that thousand-yard stare,” she said. “I used to only see that when we went grocery shopping. Remember how you would stand in the fruit and veg section and stare at the same tomatoes for ages?”

She was doing this a lot now, bringing up memories from their time together. It was getting on Niall’s nerves. Working alongside Deirdre hadn’t been the painful disaster he’d feared, but she was becoming a bit too cosy for his liking.

“I don’t know, just thinking, I guess,” he said. “I’m going to do some prep.”

“Michel can do that.”

“I want to do it, Deirdre.”

“All right,” she said primly, returning to the books.

Niall lost himself for a while, cleaning and chopping mushrooms, as Michel bantered with one of the line cooks in French.