Posy had imagined this day for so long that she couldn’t quite believe it was here.

She was surrounded by all the people she loved: Sam, her grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins down from Wales, Nina, Verity, Tom, and yes, Sebastian, because it turned out she did love him too. Posy was finally getting her Happy Ever After.

There were other people milling about the room: Pants, Little Sophie, and their respective parents, most of the shopkeepers from Rochester Street, favoured customers.

Posy couldn’t stop smiling even though her face ached with the unfamiliar stretching of her facial muscles. She didn’t think she’d ever been as happy as she was in this moment, on this day, and suddenly she couldn’t bear it any longer and she had to find a quiet spot to make sense of it all. No one should be allowed to be this happy. It just didn’t seem fair.

‘Why are you skulking in the corner? Sebastian is freaking out. Thinks you’ve done a runner.’ Nina was suddenly right in front of her, squatting down so she could peer into the corner where Posy was hiding from the hubbub. ‘It’s all right. No one would blame you if you did a runner.’

‘I’m a bit overwhelmed, that’s all,’ Posy admitted. ‘It’s all happened so quickly. Everything’s changed and I haven’t quite caught up with myself.’

‘You have to be the change that you want to happen.’ Nina was shouldered out of the way by Pippa. ‘Come on, it’s time to cut the cake, then speeches. You have got a speech ready, haven’t you?’

Posy hadn’t. She was just going to wing it. Try to give voice to what was in her heart, which was currently hammering against her breastbone. ‘Not really but it will be fine. “She gathered books like clouds and words poured down like rain,”’ Posy quoted and Pippa frowned.

‘Did Steve Jobs say that?’ she asked.

‘No, he didn’t,’ Posy laughed and she let Pippa haul her out of her hiding place and she smoothed down the skirt of her white dress as Nina herded her across the room, not letting her stop and speak to anyone, even though good cheer and congratulations followed in Posy’s wake.

Nina didn’t stop herding until they’d reached the table in the middle of the room where Sebastian and Sam were waiting for her. ‘At last!’ Sebastian cried, though Posy had only been gone ten minutes. ‘I’m going to have you implanted with a tracking device.’

‘I don’t think that’s legal,’ Sam said. He thought about it for a moment. ‘I also don’t think it’s a very husbandly thing to do.’

‘It’s not, is it? And I plan to be the best husband I can be,’ Sebastian said grandly. ‘I mean, I haven’t once complained about the mess upstairs, have I?’

Posy rolled her eyes. ‘That’s only because you sent your cleaner over when you knew I’d be out, and anyway, I don’t know why you keep going on about …’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention?’ Nina clapped her hands before Posy could set Sebastian straight on a few things. ‘We’re about to cut the cake and I know Posy would like to say a few words. And Sebastian would probably like to say a lot of words too.’

‘True that,’ Sam muttered and Sebastian gently cuffed the side of his head.

‘Shut it, Morland Junior,’ he admonished. ‘And to think that you were my favourite Morland too.’

Someone had handed Posy a cake slice, which she used to prod Sebastian in the ribs until he mimed zipping his lips shut. Ah, if only …

Posy turned back to the assembled guests, a nervous smile pinned to her face. But then her smile softened as she looked past them to the shop. Her beautiful shop, painted that lovely smudgy grey and even Tom had agreed that the clover pink wasn’t too pink.

Dotted about the shop, but not near the books because Posy had been adamant about that, candles glowed. The Happy Ever After candles that Posy had commissioned perfumed the air with the scent of honeysuckle in memory of her mother, roses for Lavinia, and somehow Elaine, the chandler, had managed to capture a hint of that musty smell of old books too.

In the vintage display cases that now took up one whole wall of the main room were mugs, stationery, T-shirts, Posy’s beloved tote bags and necklaces and rings adorned with quotes from novels embossed on enamel, and all manner of other literary gifts.

And then there were the books.

The shelves were stacked deep with books, each one waiting for someone to buy them so together they could go on an adventure. Fall deeply in love. Maybe the words printed on the pages might be the words that the reader had heard for so long deep inside their souls but had never been able to say out loud. Each book promised its reader that, no matter what trials and torments life might throw up, there were still happy ever afters to be had.

Even if it was in a book, it still counted as a happy ever after.

‘Speech! Speech! Speech!’

Posy was jolted out of her reverie to find every pair of eyes on her, while she stood there, mouth agape, brandishing the cake slice like it was a deadly weapon. Then she felt the warm slide of fingers against her own as Sebastian slipped his hand into hers.

‘In your own time, Morland,’ he murmured.

Posy breathed deep. She was among friends so there was no reason to feel scared. She just had to speak from her heart because her heart would never let her down.

‘I’m going to keep it brief because I’d much rather get on with the cake cutting, then the cake eating,’ she began, in a voice that was surprisingly squeaky. ‘I’d like to thank you all for coming, because all of you helped to make my Happy Ever After come true. But I’d especially like to thank my amazing colleagues. How lucky I am to get to work with my best friends every day: Nina, Verity, Tom and Little Sophie. Thank you for all your hard work.’ Posy had to pause because people were clapping and she needed the oxygen. Then she turned to Sam, who mouthed no and shook his head. ‘And thank you to my clever younger brother for building our website and agreeing to come along for the ride, and to Pippa for showing me how to PPM, but mostly I’d like to thank my parents for teaching me that I would never be alone if I loved books, and Lavinia, for believing in me and trusting me with her shop and lastly—’

‘Can you wrap this up, Morland?’ Sebastian whispered in her ear just as Posy was about to thank him for waking her from her seven-year sleep. ‘It turns out that smart, successful women turn me on and I’m going to have to kiss you quite soon.’

He’d made her lose her flow and now all she could think about was kissing Sebastian. Posy had been thinking quite a lot about kissing Sebastian this last week, when she wasn’t actually kissing Sebastian because she’d done an awful lot of that too.

‘And I would thank Sebastian, but the praise would only go to his head.’ Posy squeezed his hand and he returned the pressure until Posy needed her hand back to cut the beautiful red velvet cake that Mattie had made, iced then decorated with a quote from Jane Austen: ‘I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!’

Posy’s work here was done, but before she could start handing out slices of cake, Sebastian put his arm around her. ‘I’d like to say a few words too,’ he said easily, though pressed against his side as she was, Posy could feel his heart thundering away. ‘This shop has been in my family for a hundred years and I’d like to thank Morland for making it live again. I wanted to turn it into a crime bookshop, and I still think that would have been a game changer, but lately I’ve come to realise that romance isn’t such a bad thing after all. And I think it’s appropriate that Happy Ever After is a family-run bookshop that specialises in romance because Morland and I are getting married …’

‘Oh God, we are not getting married,’ Posy reminded him. ‘I never said we were.’

‘You said, “Fine, whatever” – I ran it past my lawyer. He said that counts as a verbal agreement,’ Sebastian informed Posy.

‘You have no witnesses. And anyway a judge would absolutely overrule your lawyer, on the grounds that you’re not of sound mind.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. We both know we’d be married already if we didn’t have to give twenty-eight days’ notice first.’ Sebastian raised his head to gaze out into the crowd. ‘You’re all invited by the way.’

‘Maybe, at some point in the future, we may get married but no rational person gets married to someone who hasn’t even taken them on a date,’ Posy said, and she wished that they weren’t talking about this again and not in front of so many people, whose eyes were flicking back and forth between her and Sebastian like this was much more fun than listening to any more speeches.

Though it was possible that they were just waiting for cake.

‘We’re getting married, Morland, and there’s nothing you can do about it, except turn up on the day in question wearing a pretty dress and clutching a bouquet of flowers.’

‘We are not getting married,’ Posy repeated, louder this time for the benefit of those at the back of the room who might not have heard her the first time.

Sebastian was silent in the time it took her to cut the first slice of the cake, but as she transferred it to a paper plate, he stirred himself.

‘We can’t get the licence for another three weeks so I’ll take you out on a couple of dates in the meantime,’ he decided. ‘Then we can get married. Can’t we?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Posy said and before he could say another word on the subject, she shoved the piece of cake in the direction of his mouth. ‘But it’s highly unlikely. Now shut up and eat some cake.’

And while Sebastian was otherwise engaged, Posy quickly raised her glass and asked everyone to join her ‘in a toast to Happy Ever After and all who sail in her!’

As the words ‘Happy Ever After’ echoed around the shop, Posy shook her head. Married to Sebastian? Really? It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.