Chapter 2
Beaujolais nouveau – a young wine, simple or complex on the nose, designed to be drunk in autumn
L ivvy lay in bed that night, exhausted but unable to sleep. Her brain hard-wired back to the moment when, just as they were about to enrol for the pub licence course, Gavin had turned to her in panic.
‘I can’t go through with it, Liv. It’s too much responsibility. What if it all goes tits-up?’
She squeezed his hand. ‘It won’t, darling.
We’ve talked it all through. We’re going to make a go of it.
’ When he hesitated further, she added, ‘Gavin, this is our dream. To run away to the seaside. To have our very own pub. We’ve worked so hard for it.
Saved up, gone without. The course is the last hurdle. ’
His face was ashen. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ He shook his head vigorously. ‘It’s not for me. I can’t do it.’
As he stumbled down the steps of the town hall, she cried after him, ‘But we’ve nowhere to go. It’s too late to back out now, the flat’s been let.’
As an answer, without turning around, he’d simply put up his hand in a sad, defeated gesture.
Livvy had stood, one foot on the step above. One foot already on its way to the future.
She could back out and, like Gavin, run away.
Part of her longed to do just that. And part of her acknowledged she’d known this was coming.
She thought back to his shifty glances whenever she’d tried to discuss a business plan, his refusal to attend meetings at the bank.
She had put in the lion’s share of the money, Gavin had promised to put in the lion’s share of the work.
It had all been decided. And now their plans were nothing but dust and ashes.
Someone knocked into her, forcing her onto the next step up. It was a man wearing a suit and a carnation buttonhole. Probably on his way to the registry office.
Livvy hovered, thinking furiously. She had nowhere to go except to the pub she’d just bought.
She had no job other than as its new landlady.
The enormity of it all overwhelmed her and, for a second, tears threatened.
Then anger began to lick at her. Bloody Gavin!
How dare he force me into this position?
She should be excited, looking forward to the next phase in her life. Instead, she was facing it alone.
Two more wedding guests hurried past, in flowery dresses and cheap perfume.
Gavin had proposed once, but only in a horrible, jokey sort of a way, when drunk.
The memory was the final straw. A pure, white-hot rage fired within her.
I’m going to do this. Even if it means doing it on my own.
She’d wasted enough time on Gavin Marshall.
She’d marched after the women and had turned decisively left to the examination room.
Livvy flung herself over in bed and thumped the pillow into submission.
She could do this! Even without Gavin. She was the one with the background in hospitality, with years of experience in the family business.
What’s more, she longed to prove to her father she could stand on her own two feet, run her own place.
Her parents hadn’t been happy with her decision to break away but Livvy couldn’t be satisfied knowing she was thought of as the Smith-Lygott nepo child.
It would have been all too easy to stay working for them and within their long-established company.
The Smith-Lygott hotel chain, at its zenith, had had a worldwide reputation for luxury and excellence.
All well and good but it had been built up by her father.
Livvy wanted something she’d created, something of her own, no matter how lonely the path forward was going to be.
Willing herself to sleep, she closed her eyes.
And opened them again at the sound. Wind buffeted at the building.
Her bedroom shook and the windows rattled.
The pub was set high on the main road leading east out of Lullbury Bay, on an exposed stretch of cliff.
Livvy pulled the duvet over her head, tried not to think about how alone she was in this big old building and concentrated on sleep.