Two days later, after a morning spent with Lavinia’s lawyer, during which Posy had been required to sign so many different pieces of paper that by the end of it her signature looked like a hieroglyphic for water carrier, Posy was busy doing inventory at the shop.

Verity had told her to make three lists: books that could stay under the new regime, books to be returned to the publishers, and books that they’d have to sell in a massive Everything Must Go sale. Unfortunately, the plan had become derailed as soon as Posy found a copy of Shirley Conran’s Lace on the top shelf in the main room. She hadn’t read it in years and was now clinging to the top rung of the rolling ladder, rereading the goldfish scene. It couldn’t be hygienic, Posy thought to herself, or very pleasant for the goldfish … and then she felt the ladder give a lurch and she squealed and dropped the book.

‘What are you doing up there?’

Posy shut her eyes and gave a silent growl. Then she opened her eyes again and looked down to see Sebastian standing below her, the book clutched in his hand, open on the very page that she’d been reading.

He glanced down and sucked in a breath. ‘Do what with a goldfish? Should you really be selling such smutty books?’

‘It’s a modern classic, actually,’ Posy said.

Sebastian pulled a face. ‘Think I’ll give it a miss.’ He raised his head and smiled. ‘You know, it’s just as well you’re not wearing a skirt or I’d be able to see right up it.’

Posy was wearing jeans, thank God. As she started to hurriedly descend the ladder she felt Sebastian’s hands grasp her hips, which made a change from him putting his hands on her breasts. His hands were large, his fingers long, but not as large as her arse. Posy didn’t think she’d ever been so aware of that part of her body, or how unflattering it must look as it loomed ever nearer to Sebastian’s face.

‘I’m perfectly capable of getting down a ladder by myself. Been doing it for years,’ she said. ‘Unhand me!’

Great! Now she was talking like the Posy in the bizarre Regency romance that she’d found herself writing the other night, which she blamed on PMS. Or eating too much cheese. Or temporary insanity. Or some heady combination of all three.

‘I’m unhanding you now,’ Sebastian said. ‘I told you she was chippy.’

Posy looked behind her to see that Sebastian had brought reinforcements with him: two men in blue overalls hefting a huge TV through the shop. ‘Not meant to touch the young ladies without asking first, boss,’ one of them said, winking at Posy, who was still mid-descent.

‘What is that?’ she asked.

‘It’s a television, Morland. Have you never seen one before?’ Sebastian was all wide-eyed innocence, which didn’t suit him at all. ‘The stairs to the left of the office, then you can dump it in the living room, if you can find a spare patch of floor.’

‘I know what it is, why is it going through my shop?’

Posy felt the floor firm beneath her feet as she jumped off the ladder and barred the TV’s passage.

‘It’s the one I bought Lavinia. Don’t be boring about this, Morland. I don’t need the TV. I already have a massive one and I don’t need an entertainment system or a PlayStation either.’

‘You got Lavinia a PlayStation?’ Nina asked, who’d apparently been standing behind the counter all this time, like some kind of stealth eavesdropping ninja. ‘Why would you do that?’

Sebastian sighed dramatically as if the answer was obvious. ‘To improve her cognitive functions and her visual-motor ability, of course. What a silly question. Anyway, weren’t you the girl who was rather taken with Brocklehurst? Were you dropped on your head as a baby?’

‘Not as far as I know. And FYI, Piers and I were flirting. He was being charming – you might want to try that sometime. So, now we’ve cleared that up, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.’ Nina came out from behind the counter and advanced on Sebastian, who suddenly didn’t look quite as self-possessed as usual. ‘I downloaded your stupid dating app and every man that I’ve tried to hook up with has been a complete waste of make-up. One guy said he was a DJ, but he turned out to be a fishmonger and he didn’t even take a shower before he showed up expecting to get into my pants.’

‘Well, um, when you download the app, you automatically agree to our terms and conditions, which state quite clearly that we can’t be held personally responsible for the calibre of loser that you may hook up with. Naturally my lawyers threw in a few “henceforth”s and an “indemnification” or two to make it all sound suitably legal. So, did he get into your pants?’

‘Sebastian, you can’t ask someone that!’ Posy exclaimed as he turned to her with a genuinely bewildered expression.

‘Why not? She was the one who brought up her pants,’ he pointed out. ‘So, did he, then?’ He turned back to Nina, unflappable Nina, who didn’t seem to mind that Sebastian and the two schleppers he’d brought with him, who were currently lingering by the New Releases shelves, were so interested in her pants.

‘He did not,’ Nina said with some relish. ‘Girl’s got to have some standards. Neither did the bloke who turned up half an hour late because he said he had to take his little sister’s hamster to the vet. Seriously, I mean it, you need to have a better dickhead filter on that app.’

‘I always wash up after work and I don’t have a little sister or a hamster,’ said the TV-lugger Posy had mentally christened Cocky Young ’Un. He had a roll-up behind one ear, a pencil behind the other, manly forearms, a crew-cut and a shit-eating grin.

Just Nina’s type. And he had to be an improvement on Piers Brocklehurst.

Nina must have thought so too. She took out her phone; he took out his. They found each other on Sebastian’s vile app then they both swiped upwards, while Sebastian looked on like a proud papa. ‘So, I’ll message you, yeah?’ Cocky Young ’Un said to Nina, who smiled.

‘Cool. Maybe I’ll message you back.’

Posy’s top lip curled so hard she wondered if it would ever uncurl. Where was the romance? Where were two strangers locking eyes across a crowded room, that spark of recognition, of something deep and magical, of two hearts finding each other? No hearts had been involved, just a lot of talk about Nina’s pants. There was no difference between modern dating and doing an online supermarket shop. At least if you did an online supermarket shop and they didn’t have your item in stock they substituted it for something more expensive.

‘All right, Romeo, that’s enough,’ said Cocky Young ’Un’s colleague, whom Posy had mentally christened Grumpy Old ’Un. ‘Guv, we’re gonna leave the telly down here ’til the young lady can make up her mind. Now where do you want the sofa and chairs?’

‘In the tearoom on the right for now. It’ll be easier if I unlock the front door, instead of you bringing it through the shop,’ Posy said brightly, because the sooner they were done, the sooner Sebastian would be on his merry way. ‘I’ll get the keys.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Morland,’ Sebastian barked, shouldering her out of the way. ‘Take the sofa and chairs that are currently in the living room and put them in the tearoom and you can have Lavinia’s sofa and chairs upstairs. You’ll be much more comfortable. I sat on your sofa last time I was here and I was almost sodomised by a loose spring.’

There was a loose spring; she and Sam knew to avoid it, but still it was their rogue spring and their sofa, and it didn’t need Sebastian coming in and trying to take over everything: her life, the shop, even her choice of seating.

‘Well, that’s very kind of you, but it’s better to leave them down here. There’s too much stuff in the way to start rearranging the furniture upstairs …’

Posy walked over to the counter, her back to Sebastian so she could grimace and roll her eyes at Nina to her heart’s content, their disagreement over Piers forgotten, as she fumbled under the counter for the keys to the tearoom. No sooner had she got them than Sebastian was right there, in her personal space, so he could snatch the keys and refuse to give them back, even when Posy tried to stamp on his foot.

‘Take it upstairs, boys. You’ll have to fight your way through the books, but it can’t be helped.’

‘Sebastian, you can’t keep coming in here and issuing orders like you own the place. You don’t. I do,’ Posy said, trying oh so very hard to keep her voice calm and modulated but she couldn’t help but clutch at his arm. Beneath the soft, fine wool of his jacket sleeve, she felt his muscles twitch frantically as she made contact.

‘Now, we’ve talked about this before,’ Sebastian said gently, as he prised her fingers free from his arm. ‘You must never, ever touch the suit.’

‘You are impossible,’ she told him, while Cocky Young ’Un and Grumpy Old ’Un crunched their way up the stairs accompanied by muttered exclamations of ‘Bleeding hell!’ and ‘He wasn’t joking about the books.’

‘And why is it, since Lavinia’s been gone, that you’re always here? Haven’t you got other people you could be annoying?’

Sebastian stuck out his bottom lip in an audacious pout. ‘That’s a very churlish attitude when I’ve decided that since you’re so determined, against my better judgement, to keep the bookshop, I should lend you my wealth of expertise.’

Posy didn’t have so much of a sinking feeling as a feeling like all her internal organs had suddenly plummeted to the centre of the earth. ‘Oh,’ she said with a sideways look at Nina.

‘So, Sebastian, do you have much experience of bookselling?’ Nina asked sweetly. ‘Did you work here in the school holidays, back in the day?’

‘As if!’ Posy snorted. ‘Far too busy locking me in the coal-hole.’

‘That was one time, Morland. I only did it to stop you mooning over me. She had a terrible crush on me back in the day,’ he added for Nina’s benefit, who grinned.

‘Yeah, “terrible” being the operative word.’ Posy shuddered at the memory of her childhood infatuation.

‘Anyway, I’ve realised that if we’re to make a go of this bookshop, then we need to go niche,’ Sebastian announced proudly, as if he’d come up with that concept all by himself.

‘Yes, I did mention that,’ Posy reminded him. ‘It’s why I’m going to relaunch Bookends as a rom—’

‘A crime bookshop!’ Sebastian said quickly, with a pointed glare at Posy. ‘Please stop interrupting. So rude. Anyway, I’ve been doing some research. Well, I got some interns on it. That’s where the money is: crime. At any one time half the bestseller list is made up of crime novels. It’s perfect. Brilliant!’ He peered at Posy, who couldn’t decide on stony-faced or furious as a suitable facial expression. ‘You look constipated. What’s the problem?’

Where to begin? ‘For one thing, I don’t like crime fiction.’

‘Why not? It’s fantastic. There’s murder, intrigue, suspense, sex, heroes and villains, untraceable poisons. What’s not to like?’ He strode over to the counter, where Nina was stifling a yawn. ‘You like crime, don’t you?’

Nina shook her head. ‘Nah. By the time I’ve found out who’s done it, I’m bored. Besides, there used to be a crime bookshop on the Charing Cross Road and it went out of business.’

Sebastian, undaunted, tossed his curls back. ‘Well, they were probably very bad at selling books and we’re not. We’re going to be fantastic.’

‘Honestly, do you hear when people are disagreeing with you or does your brain automatically block the words out?’ Posy asked, genuinely curious. ‘We’re not doing crime. We’re doing romance.’

‘Romance, shomance.’ Sebastian took Posy’s hand, though she tried to tug it free, and pulled her to the middle of the shop. ‘Now, we’ll have new releases and bestsellers in here.’

‘Is it just me or are you getting the déjà-vu thing too?’ Nina asked.

Posy shook her head. There was nothing else for it but to wait for Sebastian to run out of steam.

‘Through here will be our classic murder mystery room,’ he said, dragging Posy to the first room on the right. ‘Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle and so on. Then through there we’ll have Scandi crime. Oh! And graphic novels. On the left, we’ll have real crime – who doesn’t love a serial killer?’

‘Quite a lot of people,’ Posy said. ‘The families of their victims, any decent law-abiding citizens …’

‘Boring. Also, we should sell book-related bits and pieces: branded tote bags, mugs, stationery. It’s cheap as chips to buy it wholesale, cheaper than chips, and you wouldn’t believe the mark-up on it.’

That was actually a good idea. Never mind serial killers, who didn’t love a tote bag? Maybe some scented candles, book-related greetings cards, wrapping paper … They could even offer a gift-wrapping service. Posy made a mental note to look up gift-wrapping tutorials on the internet because all her presents looked as though they’d been wrapped by a five-year-old without opposable thumbs.

Then she realised that Sebastian was still yammering away. ‘Obviously we should think about changing the name of the shop. I did a quick straw poll at the office to see what people thought of the name Bookends. Most of them didn’t know what a bookend was. We should probably have a brainstorm with your staff, but what do you think about The Bloody Dagger?’

‘I’ll make sure I’ve wiped it clean long before the police find it next to your lifeless body,’ Posy said blankly.

‘There you go! You’re getting into the spirit of things,’ Sebastian said, because he was made out of Kevlar or some other impenetrable material, which made it impossible for him to get a clue, take a hint or pick up on social cues. ‘So, we’re agreed: crime bookshop, yup?’

He was never going to leave. He was going to stay until they agreed to relaunch as a crime bookshop and stock a whole load of grisly novels and taut psychological thrillers, all with dark covers. And Posy shouldn’t generalise because she hated it when people made assumptions about romantic fiction, but it seemed that every crime novel she’d ever picked up featured huge amounts of death and creeping menace. And an emotionally scarred ex-police officer tormented by the death of a loved one at the hands of a vengeful serial killer they’d put away for a ten stretch who’d then been acquitted on a technicality. Now that was boring and depressing, but there was no point telling Sebastian that. He wouldn’t listen.

What would Lavinia do? Posy asked herself, as she had so often these last few days.

Lavinia had always told her that no one ever said no to Sebastian. ‘Mariana certainly didn’t, or any of his nannies, even Eton tried and failed. Perry and I should have been firmer with him, but he was our only grandchild so we did rather indulge him and now he simply doesn’t respond to no.’

Then she wouldn’t say no, Posy decided. She turned her attention back to Sebastian, who was waiting for her reply. ‘Crime bookshop,’ he repeated. ‘You and me, in it together?’

‘Fine, whatever,’ Posy said diffidently because that wasn’t yes and it wasn’t no. It was a grey middle ground that would never stand up in a court of law. ‘I’m sick to death of talking about it. Are we done now?’

It wasn’t a yes, it really wasn’t but Sebastian slowly turned, caught in a shaft of fading sunlight, and beamed at her as if she’d screamed to the heavens, ‘Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!’

God, it was a good smile. Sebastian always looked pretty when he scowled, but when he smiled he looked beautiful, but also goofy and boyish so that Posy couldn’t help but smile back. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me.’

‘Actually, it’s very easy to resist you,’ Posy told him, but now that he thought he’d got his own way, Sebastian was too busy taking Posy in his arms and waltzing her around the main display table to listen. It was quite nice to be held by someone, especially someone who towered over her so she felt like a delicate slip of a girl and he did smell lovely. It was quite the moment they were having, until Posy trod on Sebastian’s foot.

‘Did you do that on purpose?’ Posy was saved from having to reply by an ominous crash from upstairs followed by, ‘It’s OK, missus. Nothing broken, just bent a few of your books.’ Then the shop bell tinkled and Sam walked in, followed by his best friend, Pants.

‘All right?’ Sam grunted, and would have carried on through the shop and straight up the stairs except Pants lingered, because Nina was still behind the counter and Pants saw Sam home from school every Thursday solely so he could gaze upon Nina. Nina, the light of his life, his one true love. Nina.

‘How are you doing, Pants?’ Nina asked him kindly, because Pants made people want to be kind to him. He was short, rotund, ginger and even his parents called him Pants.

‘Oh, can’t complain, though it’s quite nippy for this time of year,’ Pants said, rocking back on his heels, because the other thing about Pants was that he was a middle-aged man trapped in a fifteen-year-old’s body. He continued to stare at Nina while she smiled gamely, then he hoisted his school bag higher and started backing away. ‘Well, must be off. This maths homework isn’t going to do itself,’ he said, and then he was gone.

‘Sorry,’ Sam said to Nina. ‘Every Thursday he says he’s not going to come back with me and then he changes his mind halfway through Geography.’

‘Oh, it’s fine. I think Pants is my longest-lasting relationship.’ Nina’s shoulders slumped. ‘Well, until he hits his growth spurt and starts chasing after younger women.’

‘Yup, true that,’ Sam agreed. He hadn’t noticed Sebastian yet, though Sebastian had noticed him and was looking Sam over from head to toe and side to side with the most peculiar expression on his face.

‘You should go upstairs,’ Posy said quickly. ‘I bet you’ve got loads of homework. Just so you know, there are two men up there delivering a sofa that we absolutely don’t need …’

‘We do. Every time I sit down on ours, I forget about the loose spring and it pokes me in the arse.’

‘Well, you should be more careful,’ Posy said. ‘Go upstairs and make sure they haven’t broken anything.’

Sam pulled a face. ‘So bossy.’

‘She is, isn’t she?’ Sebastian was never going to stay silent for long. ‘I’m Sebastian, who the hell are you?’

Sam reared back slightly and Posy had no choice but to introduce them. ‘This is Sebastian, Lavinia’s grandson. You don’t remember him? Though I suppose he usually comes in to bother us when you’re at school. He’s also very rude, so don’t take anything he says personally. Sebastian, this is Sam, my little brother.’

‘Not little brother, Posy. Younger brother. I’m much taller than you are.’

The two of them, Sam and Sebastian, looked at each other. If Sebastian said anything about Sam’s spots or his light sprouting of facial hair, which Posy had been meaning to speak to him about, or the three centimetres of sock protruding from his trousers, she would kill him. Painfully. Very, very painfully.

Sebastian didn’t. ‘This isn’t Sam,’ he said. ‘Sam is a small child. About yay high.’ He held his hand to his breast pocket.

‘I haven’t been yay high since I was, like, six.’

It was Sam’s turn to stare Sebastian down. It was a bit like watching stags in that split second before they locked horns, while David Attenborough provided a play-by-play.

Then Sebastian shrugged and Posy unclenched. ‘Hey, Sam. Lovely to meet you. Would you like a PlayStation, a state-of-the-art home entertainment system and a forty-six-inch screen plasma television? Your sister said I should take them all back.’

‘Why would you say that?’ Sam shot her a positively demonic look. ‘Our telly is crap. We can barely get Freeview on it.’

Posy knew when she was beaten. ‘If we keep them – if – you’re only allowed one hour telly or PlayStation a night, two hours on weekends, and you have to do your homework first. Do you promise?’

‘Fine, whatever.’

Sebastian looked at Sam again. ‘You’d better help the guys lug it all upstairs. My suits aren’t cut for lugging. Have you got biscuits? Your sister didn’t so much as offer me a cup of tea. You ought to have a word with her.’

‘She’s probably eaten all the biscuits,’ Sam said disloyally, the little git, and then they were gone and Nina turned the full weight of her most withering stare on Posy, who duly withered.

‘What? What did I do?’

‘We’re becoming a crime bookshop?’ If ever the Downton Abbey folk needed a stand-in for the Dowager Countess, Nina was good to go.

‘Of course we’re not.’

Now it was Verity’s turn to come barrelling out of the back office where she’d been skulking the entire time. ‘But you told him we were. I heard you. This is the worst thing ever.’

‘It will be awful.’ Nina sounded close to tears. ‘A crime bookshop. We’ll have loads of panty-sniffing psychopaths coming in to buy books on Ted Bundy, and then they’ll follow us home, kill us horribly and fashion our skin into onesies.’

‘You’re both completely overreacting,’ Posy protested. ‘Anyway, I didn’t agree to turn Bookends into a crime bookshop. I said, “Fine, whatever,” which isn’t even a bit like saying yes. He wasn’t going to shut up about it so I had to say something and “no” wasn’t registering. Anyway, he’s got the attention span of a fruit fly. He’ll have forgotten all about it in a week and we’ll be left in peace while he invents some shady app that lets you cheat on your spouse without them ever finding out.’

Verity remained sceptical. ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘I have never been more sure about anything in my life. Though, to give Sebastian credit for the first and last time, and we’re never to mention it again, that was a genius idea about selling postcards and mugs and tote bags.’

Nina clapped her hands together. ‘I know! I love tote bags! We can design our own bags with quotes from our favourite novels.’

‘But only the ones whose authors have been dead for longer than seventy years so we don’t have to pay copyright fees,’ Posy noted, because she was totally getting the hang of this business owner thing. By the end of the year, she’d probably be hanging out at the Small Business Owners annual conference and swapping digits with other successful small business owners and arranging breakfast meetings.

Eventually Grumpy Young ’Un and Grumpy Old ’Un left, although not before knocking over a display of books about London, which Posy had put together to tempt any tourists who might wander into the shop. Then Nina and Verity closed up and went home too and yet Sebastian was still upstairs with Sam.

As Posy climbed the stairs, she could hear the low murmur of conversation coming from the lounge and when she pushed open the door, Sam and Sebastian were looking at something on the computer.

For one heart-stopping moment, Posy thought it might be porn, but as she got nearer, she saw the shop’s rudimentary website up on the screen. Sebastian and Sam hadn’t heard her come in because they were talking about databases and style sheets and properties panels and weird acronyms that weren’t even words.

Posy knew that Sebastian was a digital entrepreneur and made scads of money from his apps and websites and whatnot, but she’d always assumed that he just came up with vague ideas for his techy bits and bobs and had a team of minions that did the heavy lifting. Or the heavy coding. Whatever. But as he talked to Sam about something called a CSS, without one single snarky comment or outright insult, his fingers flying over the keyboard, Posy was forced to admit that she might have been wrong.

And Sam! Her little Sam. Her baby brother, whom she knew everything about, was holding up his end of the conversation. Nodding, shoving Sebastian out of the way so he could do something that made the screen go black then flickery green type appear as he talked excitedly about hyperlink presentation modules.

Sam was a person in his own right, with his own stuff going on, his own likes and dislikes, passions and ambitions, and soon he wouldn’t need her getting on his case about anything. Which was good, it meant that Posy had done right by Sam, had in some small way stepped into their parents’ shoes and now Posy could start living her own life. So why did the thought of it make her feel so sad?

‘I hope this means that you don’t have any homework,’ Posy said, just to remind herself that Sam still needed her, but she knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say because Sam turned around with a wounded look and Sebastian snorted.

‘God, your sister is one hell of a buzzkill,’ he said. ‘And stubborn too. How do you stand it?’

‘She’s all right. About some things anyway,’ Sam said, with a lot less enthusiasm than Posy would have liked. ‘Like, she doesn’t ever shout at me to make my bed. She says it will only get messy again as soon as I get back into it … So, did you want to stay for dinner?’

‘Hello! I’m standing right here,’ Posy reminded them. She couldn’t bear it if Sebastian stayed for dinner. He’d want to talk more about the crime bookshop that was never, ever going to happen, and it was only pasta and pesto for dinner with whatever green leafy stuff was left in the fridge, because Posy hadn’t had time to get to the shops.

They had pasta and pesto for dinner at least twice a week.

‘I would love to stay for dinner, but your sister’s housekeeping skills are lacking and I’d hate to die of botulism,’ Sebastian said as he stood up and rolled his shoulders. ‘Lovely to meet you, Sam. You’re my favourite Morland. Number one with a bullet. I’ll get Rob to email you about the website.’

Sam didn’t seem to notice that Sebastian was sucking all the air out of the room simply by existing and had just insulted his sister on at least three counts. In fact, Sam didn’t even look up from the computer. ‘Cool. See you soon then.’

Posy led Sebastian out through the darkened shop. Taking a deep breath, she decided to cut him some slack – though he’d been high-handed and domineering, he had had some good ideas.

‘I’m very excited about the tote bags,’ she told him as she unlocked the door. ‘And it’s really kind of you to help Sam with the website.’

Instead of walking through the door, away into the night to forget all about his plans for a crime fiction empire as soon as the first shiny bauble caught his eye, Sebastian paused in the doorway and put his hand on Posy’s forehead. His hand was cool and her forehead was hot because she was frazzled and it was probably warm enough now to go without her thermal vest.

‘I think you must be coming down with something, Morland,’ Sebastian said in a voice so concerned that it bordered on parody. ‘You just thanked me without any trace of sarcasm. Really, I’m quite touched.’

‘Cherish this feeling, because I can’t see it lasting,’ Posy said, and she pushed him out the door while he squawked about his precious suit. ‘Thanks so much for all the business advice. If I need any more help, I’ll give you a call.’

Sebastian started to say something but Posy never heard what it was because she shut the door, turned the key and slid the bolts across. When Sebastian still made no sign of moving, she waved him away with a shooing motion and drew the blind.