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She went to close the door on him, but he stepped forward. “Have you got a moment? I wanted to talk with you.”

“Sure.” Lucy shrugged. She wasn’t at all happy with this course of events, but couldn’t be bothered to argue. She left him to close the door as she walked over to the counter and began opening her post.

“So, I know Carrie and Michael said they don’t want a baby shower, but I think we should do something for them, even if it’s something small. I wondered whether it would be better to wait until the new year, so it’s closer to the baby being born and they have a better idea of what they need.”

“What kind of thing were you thinking? Just like an afternoon tea type thing? New year would make sense,” Lucy said, glancing down at a letter from the agents she let the building from. Her heart sank as she took in what it said, her conversation with Dylan forgotten.

“What’s the matter?” she vaguely heard him say.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “Are we done? I need to get on.”

“Lucy? Do I need to go and get Carrie? You’ve gone very pale.”

“No, no.”

His face was etched with worry. He clearly wasn’t going to let this go. She found herself handing him the letter as he moved next to her. He quickly scanned it and swore under his breath.

“Sit,” he said, and she allowed herself to be gently guided towards a chair he took back down from a table. She didn’t have the energy or the will to battle him right now. He took a chair down for himself and sat next to her.

“So,” he said, letting out a breath. “Your landlord isn’t renewing your contract and is planning to sell this building.”

“Can he do that?” Lucy asked, quietly.

“It would appear so.” He read through the letter again as he spoke. “Most rental contracts now are rolling and continue indefinitely, but yours is renewed six-monthly. So, at that point it’s up to you and your landlord whether you renew or not.”

“What am I going to do? This is my business and my home.” She hated how vulnerable she felt and couldn’t believe she was talking to Dylan about this, but he was here and right now she was seriously struggling to hold things together.

“Your landlord is giving you first refusal for buying the building. Is that an option?”

“Funnily enough, I don’t have hundreds of thousands of pounds of spare money just lying around in case I randomly want to buy a building in a Cornish seaside town!” Honestly, trust Dylan to make such a ridiculous suggestion.

“You’d just need a deposit for a mortgage, not the full amount . . .”

“That’s still a lot more that I have,” Lucy snapped.

“OK.” Dylan held up his hands in surrender. “I figured it was worth asking.”

She stood up. “I’ve got to get on with some stuff, like finding somewhere to live. We’ll talk about the baby shower thing another time, yeah?”

Dylan looked like he was about to say something, but Lucy marched over to the front door and opened it. She needed to be by herself, or at least not near Dylan. He took the hint and left.

Struggling to hold back tears, Lucy abandoned the coffee shop as it was and went upstairs to her flat. She took out her laptop and logged in to her business bank account and began to do some calculations. The figures confirmed she was doing better than at this time last year, thanks to the busy summer, and if her landlord hadn’t pulled this move on her, she’d be quite pleased. But now . . .

* * *

Lucy spent the next couple of days feeling sick with worry. While the coffee shop was quiet and she had help she went into emergency mode, making as many phone calls to anywhere she thought might loan her the money she needed, and retiring straight up to her flat and laptop every night as soon as she closed up. Numbers went round and round in her head as she tried to come up with some way to be able to buy the building. It was terrible enough that she was going to have to move her business — even if she could find new premises, moving and setting everything up in a different location wasn’t something she’d exactly budgeted for — but having to find a new home as well? She’d thought it was so convenient that she was able to live above where she worked, but then she’d, naïvely perhaps, never anticipated being in this situation. On her third evening of getting absolutely nowhere, she was feeling particularly sorry for herself, as she went over the accounts yet again, when she received a text from Carrie.

I’m outside. Let me in.

It had taken Dylan longer than she’d anticipated to blab, Lucy mused.

Though in no mood to be social, Lucy hauled herself off her sofa and went downstairs into the coffee shop. She quickly opened the door to her friend, who looked half-frozen.

“Hey,” Lucy said, stepping back so Carrie could come inside. “What’s up?”

“Dylan’s worried about you.” Carrie began walking towards the stairs to Lucy’s flat. It seemed there was no getting out of being sociable.

“Why’s he worried?” Lucy asked, stalling for time as she followed Carrie into her flat.