Bella spent a while creating a list of reputable people that she had used on events before, adding their contact details and comments about the different services they offered. She finished the list and emailed it over to Isaac so he could make contact on behalf of the company. As she closed down the email program, she looked up at Roger and Elsie in the main office.

What was she supposed to do with them? Did they have jobs to do or was it her job to delegate to them? Madge was right, being in charge of a team of people was very different to working on her own or working with outside companies. When events were underway, there would be lots for them to do to help with the organisation and admin, but what were they doing now?

She noticed Elsie was searching for handbags on some website and when she glanced over at Roger she realised he was completing a crossword.

She stood up. It was time for her first team meeting. She picked up a pen and notepad and walked out into their office.

She grabbed a chair and wheeled it between their two desks.

‘OK, Isaac would like us to come up with an event for Easter weekend, and I know that’s only two and a half weeks away which doesn’t leave us a lot of time but do we have any ideas?’

Elsie and Roger looked up from their very busy workloads and stared at her blankly as if they weren’t used to being asked their opinion.

‘No cake sales,’ Bella said, hoping she wouldn’t offend them if they were responsible for the cake sales in the past. ‘Isaac is looking for something different.’

Roger wheeled himself closer to join the meeting, though it was quite clear he didn’t have any inspiration.

‘I thought you were the fundraising events manager, isn’t it your job to come up with ideas for events? We’re just the admin staff here to assist you,’ Elsie said, making her disapproval very clear.

‘We’re the fundraising team, we’re supposed to work together, bounce ideas off each other. You’re both integral parts of the company; it’d be great to use your experience,’ Bella said, smoothly. In truth, she had a ton of ideas but she couldn’t just sit in her office and handle it all herself. Well she could, but they were her team now and she knew she’d need them.

Elsie hesitated for a few more moments before grabbing her notebook and pen and wheeling herself over to join the impromptu meeting.

‘Isaac wants something for Easter weekend?’ Elsie shrugged. ‘What about an Easter egg hunt?’

Bella thought about this. It would attract a few hundred people maybe, if the weather was nice. It would raise a bit of money but it was hardly unique or different.

‘That’s a good idea, but it’d be good if we could offer something that could be done on a bigger scale, something that would attract more people, maybe around the UK.’

‘We could co-ordinate with our different offices and arrange an Easter egg hunt in Manchester, Birmingham and London too.’

Bella sighed inwardly. Maybe Isaac was right, maybe they just needed something small and she shouldn't aim so big straight away. Easter was coming up in just over two weeks and anything big would never be organised in time. Even though she really wanted her first event to be an impressive one, an Easter egg hunt would be really easy to pull off too. She knew from past experience that little local events were as important as the bigger ones.

‘Any other ideas?’ Bella said. ‘What would make you come along, what would capture your interest?’

‘Geocaching,’ Roger said excitedly, his eyes lighting up.

‘What’s that?’ Elsie said.

‘It’s like a treasure hunt type thing,’ Bella explained. ‘People leave a little box in a hidden location with some kind of treasure in it and upload the co-ordinates and description of where to find it on a geocache website so other people can go looking for it. It’s very popular in America, but it’s becoming more popular over here.’

‘With real treasure?’ Elsie asked.

Roger shook his head. ‘Normally people leave toys for kids, or perhaps some jewellery they might have made, like a bracelet, or football cards, old coins, poker chips… some people leave vouchers or coupons. Some people take it very seriously and have their own coins made, you know those squashed coins with some kind of stamp on them, but that stamp will be individual to the person. Then when other people find the cache they will trade something of equal value for whatever they find in the box. It’s great fun, but generally the treasure isn’t really anything of worth, people just enjoy finding them. Maybe we could do some kind of Easter egg geocache.’

Bella smiled. ‘I really like the idea of that, but if we leave real chocolate eggs then they could get ruined in the weather and, once someone finds the cache and takes it, that would ruin it for any future children that find it.’

‘Could we leave some kind of egg tokens that the kids could swap for real chocolate eggs once they find them?’ Roger suggested.

Bella thought about this for a moment. People would love it – a whole new meaning to the world of Easter egg hunts. But it would require people all over the UK to commit to placing a cache with egg tokens that were somehow coded so they could be swapped for prizes. They could end up with lots of people volunteering in one area and nothing in several other areas. But this was definitely something she could work on.

‘How about some kind of Easter egg decorating competition?’ Elsie blurted out, keen not to be outdone.

‘Maybe,’ Bella said, not wanting to offend her by telling her it had been done a thousand times before. It was not hard to see who was responsible for all the cake sales. ‘Maybe we could do it on a bigger scale.’

‘Bigger eggs?’ Elsie asked in confusion. ‘Well, ostrich eggs are quite big but I’m not sure—’

‘Bigger eggs! That’s a great idea,’ Bella said and saw the first smile from Elsie. ‘We could get some large plastic moulded eggs for people to decorate. We could even do it on a bigger scale, get companies to join in and decorate their own eggs and place them in locations around the country,’ she said, writing the ideas down on her notepad. ‘Like the Cows on Parade in Chicago. But that would take a bit of organising so maybe we can put something like that in place for next year. But we could certainly do some kind of competition with large painted eggs. OK, let me think about this.’

‘How about some kind of Easter or chocolate-themed ball?’ Roger suggested, clearly getting into the swing of things. ‘Everyone loves getting into their posh frocks and having a bit of a dance. We could have chocolate fountains or Easter egg table decorations.’

Bella nodded.

‘Or some kind of funfair or theme park for the children,’ Elsie said. ‘They have that Winter Wonderland in London at Christmas, we could do our own Easter Wonderland. Have fairground rides, games, all with some kind of Easter or chocolatey kind of theme. We used to have a spring funfair here every year; we could do something like that again.’

‘I love that idea too,’ Bella said, genuinely, and Elsie’s smile grew. ‘I remember the funfair when I was a child. It would be good to bring it back to the island again.’

They talked through a few more ideas and how they could make them work before Bella went back into her office.

A fair and a ball would be fairly easy to organise, she’d done quite a few of those in the past and they were always good money makers. But there was something about the geocaching and the Easter egg hunt that spoke to her – but how to make it work?

Isaac’s diary was still up on her screen after she had added him to the cake sale and lunch. He had a few meetings coming up for his technology-based companies, BlazeStar and SparkStar. She knew from her research that Isaac’s companies made apps and other computer programs to help companies run their businesses more smoothly. She remembered what he’d said when she thought he was Zach: that he’d always wanted to go into computer gaming, designing and building his own games but that had somehow passed him by. Maybe he could create some kind of Easter egg hunt computer game.

Suddenly an idea came to her. She wrote down some notes and spent a few minutes researching on the internet. She smiled. Isaac would really like this. Bella picked up the phone to call him but then she changed her mind. He might be busy. She opened up the internal messaging system and sent him a message instead. That way, he could get back to her once he was free.

She pressed send and saw the icon next to the message change to show he had read it. She stared at the screen, willing him to answer or to pick up the phone and call her but after a few minutes it was quite clear he wasn’t going to reply.

She checked her emails and saw he hadn’t replied to her about the list she’d sent over earlier either. Nor had he made any comment about the cake sale or the lunch date she had put into his diary.

Maybe he really did want to keep things professional between them and he didn’t appreciate her banter or her bothering him every few minutes with her silly ideas.

She opened up the internet and started researching large Easter decorations that she could use if they were to hold a fair or ball.

A knock on the door distracted her from the screen and she looked up to see Isaac standing in the doorway. She couldn’t help the grin from spreading on her face when she saw him.

‘You have an idea you wanted to discuss, Miss Roussel?’

‘I didn’t expect you to come running down here to talk to me, a phone call or a reply to my message would have sufficed.’

‘I don’t do things by half. Besides, we have our lunch meeting shortly and as it was in red on my diary I certainly didn’t want to be late for it.’

Bella let out a little giggle.

He moved into the office. God he was so big. Her office was quite roomy but now he was in there, it felt very small. ‘I also got a notification about a cake sale. I must say, I expected something more from you.’

She shrugged. ‘Well I like to give you something unexpected. You weren’t expecting a cake sale so I think I achieved that.’

‘I guess you did. So this cake sale—’

‘You can’t get out of it, it’s in red.’

‘It’s at your house.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I’m the only one invited.’ The humour had gone from his eyes and in its place was something else she couldn’t put her finger on. ‘It’s not exactly professional.’

She swallowed. That undeniable chemistry was back in the room again, sparking in the air between them.

‘You’re not the only one invited, Alfie will be there too. I’m sure he’ll love cake.’

‘Well as long as we have a chaperone; wouldn’t want you throwing yourself at me again.’

He sat down and that spark of humour was back in his eye but, despite the fact that he was only teasing her, she couldn’t stop her cheeks from flaming red.

‘I didn’t throw myself at you…’ she trailed off, knowing she couldn’t really call it anything else. ‘Besides, you didn’t exactly seem unwilling.’

He stared at her for a moment. ‘I regret that more than anything.’

His words were like a slap round the face. He regretted the kiss. Had she completely misread the signs from him? She thought he had been flirting with her since she had started work that morning. Did he genuinely have no interest in her at all? But if he didn’t then the whole weekend really had been a lie.

Well if he wanted professionalism, she would give it to him. She straightened in her chair.

‘I discussed some ideas with my team; Elsie suggested an Easter egg hunt and Roger talked about incorporating that into a geocaching hunt. So I’ve had an idea that combines both ideas. I thought about creating an app similar to Pokémon Go. It’ll be a location-based game where children and adults can use the GPS in their phones to locate virtual Easter eggs in real-world locations across the UK. We can even use augmented reality so that the eggs appear on the screen using the phone’s camera as if they are really in front of the person using the app. It’ll be free to play but there’ll be in-app purchases to help find the eggs more easily or maybe different tools to smash the eggs once they’ve found them or something like that. And that’s where we will make our money. The eggs they manage to collect will equal points and once they reach a certain point total they can swap those points for real chocolate eggs in the real world.’

He stared at her. ‘And once again you’ve given me the unexpected. You sound like you know what you’re talking about. Is that through research or because you play?’

‘I did some research before I messaged you but I know a little about video games. Before I got so broke I couldn’t afford to eat, I used to have a Wii and an Xbox. Pokémon Go was hugely popular last year, as I’m sure you’re aware, and although The Great British Egg Chase wouldn’t be as advanced, we could still attract a wide audience, especially as parents will be looking for something fun to do with their kids over the Easter holiday and this gets the whole family out of the house and exploring different areas. Coupled with the reward of real chocolate eggs it could be very popular and very profitable for us with very little outlay. We can get someone like Cadbury’s or Nestlé to donate eggs; they love this kind of thing as their name would be all over it in terms of sponsorship.’

He nodded. ‘I really like this idea and catchy title too. Are you thinking that someone from SparkStar would design it for us?’

That took the wind out of her sails. ‘I was actually thinking that you would design it. Thought it would be something that you’d enjoy. Presuming that not everything you told me over the weekend was a lie, you said you always wanted to be a game designer. That’s what you trained to do.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘So you can’t do it?’

‘I didn’t say that. I could do it but it would take me over a week to do it and that’s if I didn’t work on anything else. You’d be better off outsourcing it to SparkStar, though that would come with a fee. I can’t have my staff working for nothing.’

Bella felt disappointed. She had hoped he would want to do it and he had just palmed it off as if he had no interest in it. But in reality she knew how busy he was, she’d seen his diary. And in all her bright ideas, she hadn’t accounted for it taking so long to make.

‘Well it’s nearly one o’clock, shall we continue this discussion at lunch?’ Isaac said, standing up.

‘I’ve got some work I need to do, maybe it’s best if we leave it,’ Bella said, turning to her computer under the pretext of work.

He watched her for a moment. ‘Our lunch meeting was in red, Miss Roussel, it’s not something I can rearrange.’

She stared at the screen for a moment but Isaac made no movement to leave so she got up and walked with him to the door.

Isaac escorted her to the lift and turned to her as the doors closed behind them.

‘I’ve upset you about the Easter egg app, that wasn’t my intention. I think it’s a brilliant idea.’

‘I’m not upset about that.’

‘So you are upset about something.’

The fact that he regretted the kiss was the thing that was upsetting her the most but she couldn’t tell him that.

I regret that more than anything. That’s what he’d said.

He was still waiting for an answer, his indigo blue eyes filled with concern.

‘I just thought you might enjoy making the app; that it would be fun for you.’

He smiled, sadly. ‘There’s not much time for fun in my working life, not much time for fun at all actually.’

‘Well then you’re doing something wrong. I appreciate that to be the CEO of three companies is a lot of hard work but you should have some time for yourself. You should delegate more. If you don’t have people in your managerial team that you can trust to get on with the job in your absence then you have the wrong people working for you. Life is to be enjoyed and I imagine that you make a lot of money in your line of work, so you should be able to enjoy it now and again.’

‘You make it sound so simple, when in reality it isn’t.’

‘Only if you insist on making it complicated. You say that you need to be present at every event that we have. And while I appreciate the support, you have hired me to be fundraising manager so I can also be the representative for our charity too. You have an assistant manager here; she can do some of that for you as well. You spent time showing me around today when you could have passed that responsibility to Eric or Madge or anyone else, it didn’t need to be you. You could have used that time to do something you enjoy, even if it was only half an hour reading a book you’ve been meaning to read for some time or designing a computer game that’s just for you, just for the pleasure of doing it, even if you never sell it. As fundraising manager, I can help you with a lot of things to do with the charity. You don’t need to take it all on yourself.’

He didn’t say anything, just stared at her as if she was some puzzle he was trying to work out, and she wondered if she had perhaps said too much. He was her boss after all and this was only her first day, she shouldn’t be telling him how to live his life. It wasn’t her place.

The doors pinged open.

‘Sorry, it’s none of my business,’ Bella said. ‘Let’s have lunch and then you can get back to your very busy job.’

She walked out and after a few moments he followed her.

* * *

Isaac didn’t know if he was coming or going with this girl. Lunch felt stilted. He knew he had upset her with his actions over the weekend, but after buying her Alfie, she’d seemed to have forgiven him. It had even seemed as if they’d been flirting that morning. But now it felt like she was upset with him again and he knew it wasn’t just that he didn’t have time to develop the Easter egg app.

Although they had talked over lunch, it had been solely focussed on work. The friendliness had gone. It was still easy between them but it was quite obvious she was trying to be professional at all times. They talked more about the Easter egg hunt and how they would make it work, bouncing ideas off each other about the different in-app purchases they could use. They talked about Elsie’s suggestion to bring the funfair back to the island and her plans for it and how next year Bella wanted to do some giant Easter egg statues dotted around the UK, painted and funded by different companies, which would bring awareness to the charity too.

She didn’t talk about him doing something fun again or taking the time to enjoy himself. He hadn’t dared tell her that the reason he had insisted on being the one to show her around that morning was because he had wanted to spend time with her, that he enjoyed her company. And although he didn’t really have a lot of time for fun, he had made sure there was time to indulge in that.

Bella finished her lunch and stood up to go. ‘I better be getting back, there’s work to be done.’

‘I’ll walk you back,’ Isaac said, standing up too.

She didn’t object and they walked back into the lift together.

As soon as the lift doors closed and the lift started moving, she leaned over and pressed the emergency stop button, bringing the lift to a juddering halt.

She turned to him, her eyes flashing. ‘Do you really regret the kiss?’

Oh. That was why she was upset with him. Crap, that had been really insensitive and she had taken it completely the wrong way. But what could he say? That in reality he wanted to power her back against the wall of the lift and kiss her until neither of them could remember their own names? He was her boss. He couldn’t be that person who dated one of his employees. That opened himself up to a load of problems. What if it ended between them, then that would make it very difficult at work.

He swallowed. ‘Don’t you?’

She stared at him. ‘No. Not at all. I mean I regret that I didn’t really know the person that I was kissing. I regret letting it get as far as it did as I’m normally much more restrained and cautious when it comes to relationships and men. I normally take my time before I feel ready to progress to that level. And there’s a huge part of me that regrets that we never finished that kiss properly because now there’s all this sexual tension between us that is frustrating as hell. But I can’t regret that kiss. Even if nothing ever happens between us again, that kiss was not like anything I’ve ever felt before. I’m not that experienced with men, there haven’t been that many in my life, and maybe the kiss was just run of the mill for you, just another meaningless kiss in a whole line of meaningless women, but for me it was incredible. It showed me what a real kiss should feel like, what it means to be with someone you share a real connection with and I could never regret that. Did you not feel that too?’

Good lord. He had never met anyone so completely and utterly honest. She was someone who wore her heart on her sleeve and was proud to do so. She didn’t hide her feelings and there was something so achingly endearing about that. But what could he say? He didn’t want to do anything to encourage her.

He looked away from her when he spoke so she wouldn’t see the lie in his eyes. ‘It was just a kiss, Bella.’

He saw her watching him out the corner of his eye.

Eventually she stepped forward and released the emergency stop button.

‘Right.’

The lift came to her floor and when the doors pinged open he let her go without saying a word.

* * *

Bella walked back in her office and closed the door behind her. She sank into her chair and let her head fall into her hands.

She was such an idiot. Why did she not have a filter on her mouth so she could run through what she was going to say before she said it?

Tears of humiliation and rejection smarted her eyes.

She had kissed him because she had never felt that kind of connection with anyone before and because she had sworn she was going to take a chance with her heart and not hide from the chance of love. He had kissed her simply because she had thrown herself at him and proved she was more than willing. He was trying now to get things back on professional ground and she had just told him how incredible the kiss was, making her sound like an inexperienced lovesick schoolgirl with a popstar crush.

But the kiss had been incredible. She’d had five semi-serious boyfriends before and several other dates that had ended in wonderful kisses but this had been something completely different and Isaac just hadn’t felt what she had experienced. She had assumed he was holding back because he didn’t want to get involved with someone at work, and she understood that, but the fact that he never felt that connection, that she meant nothing to him, really did mean that the whole weekend had been a lie.

The door burst open and when she looked up Isaac was standing there. She quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks.

‘I don’t want to see you right now.’

He slammed the door behind him. ‘Tough.’

She stood up, defiantly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone before, but for you I could make an exception.’

He stormed round to her side of the desk. ‘I felt it too. The connection we shared, the kiss, it was something special. Every minute, of every damn day since I walked out of your house on Sunday night, I’ve been thinking of that kiss. And the only reason I stopped it was because it wasn’t fair to you for me to continue kissing you, to make love to you when you didn’t know who I was, but it took more strength than I knew I had to walk away from you that night. I didn’t come back on Sunday night because I wanted to test you some more or find out more about you, I came back because Saturday had been one of the best nights of my life and I didn’t want to let you go.’

She stared at him, no words in her head at all.

‘I rather selfishly considered not hiring you for this job so then we could carry on exactly how we were and there would never be this professional conflict of interest, but this company needed you. I needed you. I wanted to do your induction this morning because I wanted to spend more time with you, which was completely stupid on my part as it was absolute torture. I sat there talking about the bloody sodding diary and the list I wanted you to compile when all I really wanted to do was this.’

And with that he kissed her, hard.