Someone Like You (The Ever After Agency #4)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

SEVERAL MONTHS AGO

‘And the winner of Britain’s Best Bakers: Festive Baking Spectacular , taking home the coveted trophy and fifty thousand pounds is… Rafferty Delaney!’

Raff hadn’t expected to win.

Even as, week by week, the judges had praised everything from his gingerbread house to his rugelach with homemade blackberry jam to his marzipan nativity scene, which had earned him a Grant Bakefield high-five, it hadn’t seemed real. He was a marketing director who ‘baked sometimes at the weekend’. What was he doing standing outside Britain’s most famous barn accepting a trophy and an oversized bank cheque from Dame Vicky Harrington?

His fellow competitors, people he’d become friendly with over the past couple of months, gathered around him, slapping him on the back and kissing him on the cheek, offering their congratulations. He looked over at his finale bake, a three-tier, Christmas-themed wedding cake, seeing it through fresh eyes. It really was spectacular, and he swelled with pride .

Grinning, he turned to the audience, looking for his invited guests.

His best friend, Gaby, was in the front row, clapping her hands above her head and woohoo-ing loudly, and next to Gaby, his Aunt CiCi beamed at him proudly. But where was Winnie? She was supposed to be sitting with Gaby and Aunt CiCi, but her seat was empty. He cast his eyes about – maybe she’d come to join him on the small stage – but he couldn’t see her.

A camera on a huge crane swung back from the stage, capturing the final shot from the season that would begin airing in three months’ time, and the director yelled, ‘Cut. And that’s a wrap, everyone!’

Raff stepped down from the stage, awkwardly carrying the trophy and the cheque, and headed towards Gaby and his aunt.

‘I am so proud of you!’ Gaby said, her North-American twang lingering on the ‘O’ of ‘so’. ‘I knew you’d win!’ She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, but with both hands full, he couldn’t return it.

‘Bravo, my boy,’ said Aunt CiCi, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. ‘I’ll have you working at Baked to Perfection before you know it.’

Raff laughed nervously and dipped his chin modestly. ‘We’ll see, Aunty. Um, have you seen Winnie?’ he asked them, scanning the small crowd. Maybe she’d gone to the loo. If so, the timing was rubbish, but she could hardly be blamed for nature calling.

‘Actually, no,’ said Gaby with a pained expression. ‘She didn’t show up.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Something must have happened.’ He set down the trophy and the cheque on an empty chair, then fished his phone out of his front trouser pocket and turned it on. There was a message from Winnie:

Sorry but I can’t do this any more

He blinked at the screen, his brain taking a moment to divine the meaning of those eight words.

‘Raff? Is everything okay?’ Gaby asked.

He held up the phone so she could read it.

‘What? She’s breaking up with you via text?’ she shrieked.

Raff cringed and looked around, hoping Gaby hadn’t drawn attention to them.

‘She never,’ said his aunt, leaning closer to read his phone. She gasped and the two women exchanged a weighty look.

‘Sorry, Raff,’ Gaby said, reaching up and rubbing his arm in commiseration.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, staring at the ground. ‘Do you really think she’d… And today ? I should… Should I message her?’ he asked, lifting his gaze to meet Gaby’s eye.

‘No, hun,’ she replied, grasping his arm. ‘It’s pretty clear from her absence on one of the biggest days of your life that she means it. Don’t reply. She doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve you .’

‘What do you mean, she doesn’t deserve me? I thought you liked Winnie.’

‘I…’ Gaby expelled a sigh, then glanced at Aunt CiCi, who nodded her agreement. ‘I’ve never liked her,’ she said to him.

‘Nor me,’ said Aunt CiCi. ‘I’ve never thought she was good enough for you.’

‘Oh.’

It was all he could think to say, because what else was there when your closest friend and the aunt who raised you didn’t like the woman you’d intended to propose to that night?