Page 28 of Forever Love at Fleur's Flower Shop

‘Let’s take a look, shall we?’ Kerry, the lady who was leading the jewellery making session, joined Fleur at her workbench and picked up her design. ‘Oh, this is wonderful.’

‘Thanks.’ Lowering her voice, she hoped Matty wouldn’t hear her through his cloud of concentration. ‘I went wrong a little just here and the little grooves have kind of overlapped a bit.’

Kerry looked at her and smiled. ‘I think it looks lovely. Besides, there’s no such thing as going wrong when you’re creating custom jewellery. Each piece is supposed to be unique, and that little overlap only makes it more personalised and special. Your very own message to the receiver.’

Fleur nodded. She liked that idea. Besides, the lines where she’d gone wrong almost looked like thexsymbol of a kiss. Maybe itwasperfect. ‘Thanks, I like that idea.’

‘I’ll pop it out of the way so it can’t be seen.’ Kerry nodded towards Matty. ‘Why don’t you go and make yourself a drink whilst you wait?’

‘Okay, thanks. And thank you so much for all of this. It’s been a great experience.’ Fleur pulled her heavy apron over her head.

‘You’re very welcome. It’s been a pleasure having you both here.’ Holding her hand out, Kerry took Fleur’s apron before heading across the room.

Walking over to the coffee machine by the door, Fleur hit the button for a latte and leaned back against the table as the machine whirred into action. Hugging herself around the middle, she watched Matty straighten his back before hunching over again. She couldn’t wait for the Valentine’s Day Dance tomorrow when they’d give each other the promise rings.

Just as the machine beeped to announce that her latte was ready, her mobile pinged. Pulling it from her pocket, she glanced at the screen. She had a new message from the delivery company she often used to receive the tags and cards for the shop from the supplier. She had a new package on its way. That was strange. She was sure she hadn’t ordered anything recently. She’d stocked up on gift paper, tags, cards and stationery after Christmas. She hadn’t put another order in.

Replacing her phone, she turned back to the machine and picked up her latte. That could only mean one thing, and that was that the supplier was sending samples of new lines they’d added. She grinned. The next best thing to going to the flower market was to open a mystery parcel and be faced with new and beautiful gift stationery offerings. According to the text, the parcel would be arriving tomorrow, which was something else to look forward to now.

She turned back to look across the workshop towards Matty, who was now speaking to Kerry. He must have finished the ring he was making for her. She couldn’t wait to see it, to take a look at what he’d designed for her. She squinted, trying to take a peek as he passed the ring over, which, of course, was impossible from such a distance.

Almost as though he’d felt her eyes on him, Matty turned and caught her eye, a slow smile creeping across his face. ‘I knew you were trying to see your ring.’

‘Me?’ Fleur held her hand over her chest, letting her mouth drop open in mock-shock. ‘Would I ever do such a thing?’

‘Umm, let me see.’ Standing up, Matty walked across to her, lifting a finger as he reeled off his list. ‘There was your twenty-first birthday. You just had to see your cake the day before the party and so you tricked poor old Pat to let you into the kitchen of the patisserie to... I can’t even remember the excuse you gave him, but you had him fooled. Then, I think every Christmaswe were together, I caught you sneaking through the house, searching on top of wardrobes, in cupboards, even the shed one time in search of your Christmas presents.’

‘Aw, no, you can’t use that one against me.’ Fleur placed her latte glass on the table before taking his hands in hers as he reached her. ‘I was only trying to gauge what you’d bought me, so I knew how much to spend on you.’

‘Uh-huh, you can say that, but I have a million people who knew otherwise.’

‘Who?’

‘Your grandparents.’ He grinned.

‘Ah, trust them to have ratted me out. They told you I used to do it before we met, right?’ She grinned. From the moment she’d brought Matty home for dinner one evening after college, her grandparents had loved him. They’d doted on him just as they had her and her grandma had told her when she was in the hospital that she was glad Fleur had Matty to look after her. As her smile fell at the memory, she leaned forward and hugged him. She’d messed that one up, hadn’t she? The familiar tug of guilt at the way she’d let not only Matty down when she’d left him at the altar, but her grandparents too bubbled in the pit of her stomach and she blinked, forcing the thoughts away.

‘They certainly did.’ Matty chuckled before stepping back and cupping her elbows. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Absolutely!’ Grinning, Fleur met his eyes, hoping he couldn’t see beneath her happy exterior. ‘Now, let’s take this apron off before you forget and take it home with us.’

‘Haha, that’s a point.’ Matty reached behind his back and untied the apron strings before Fleur tugged the fabric over his head. Gripping her hands, the fabric draped between them. He leaned in, his lips meeting hers.

Closing her eyes, she squeezed his hands as a shiver of nerves ran down her spine. This past week had been a whirlwind -a welcome and very much wanted one - but she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy. All she wanted to do was to jump back into the relationship as he’d asked her too, and she was trying, but there was still this tiny part of her which wasn’t quite ready to believe this was real. A tiny part of her which kept telling her that people like her didn’t get to be as happy as this.

Taking a step back, Matty cupped her cheek and smiled. ‘I love you, Fleur Langford.’

‘I love you too, Matty.’ And she did. She loved him with every single cell in her body. She smiled. She just needed to quiet the doubts plaguing her and enjoy what they had together.

Chapter Twenty

‘Am I doing this right?’ Bea held up the rose she was cutting the thorns off and ran the pad of her forefingers across the bumpy stem.

‘Yes, that’s great. Thanks again for stepping in and helping.’ Fleur finished the small vase she was arranging before turning and placing it in the deep plastic tray. With fifteen of the flower arrangements completed, Fleur smiled at Bea, grateful her friend had stepped in and offered to help when Fleur had told her about the impossible task of making up twenty vases of flowers and forty small bouquets in time for the Valentine’s Day Dance tonight. And all of that was on top of the other orders she had to fulfil for Valentine’s Day. Thanks, Gregory. So, if Gregory’s last-minute arrangements weren’t up to her usual standard, she was beyond caring. She’d fulfilled the orders for her customers and been happy with the outcomes for those, and that was all she was bothered about.

‘I still can’t believe Gregory gave you such short notice to do all of this.’ Bea swept her arm out across the table, taking in the trays crammed full of vases filled with roses and dozens of small rose bouquets.

‘I’d like to say I can’t, but he does seem to be picking on me at the moment, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. First, getting me to host the speed dating event and then dropping this order in my lap.’ Fleur shook her head.

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