Jules Wake - Covent Garden in the Snow - The most gorgeous and heartwarming Christmas romance of the year!

Now, as I watched the identical subject lines of the emails racing, like armed and dangerous carrier pigeons from the inbox, regarding the imminent loo roll crisis at home, I guessed something more sinister had been going on.

Flipping dip, the numbers in the outbox were still going up.

Fifty-six, sixty-nine …

Did I even know that many people?

The whirring from the hard-drive under the desk was getting louder and faster, with the intensity of a plane revving up. I didn’t think kicking it was going to help. Any moment now it might take off.

Jeanie pointed one of her neat, shortly trimmed nails at the screen. ‘It’s six weeks until Christmas. What’s that ?’

‘Santa baby apparently, except I can’t get him to go away.’

She shook her head. ‘You didn’t open an attaché, did you?’

Now was not the time to correct her casual misuse of the English language.

‘Who? Me?’ I gave her a big smile and a shrug of my shoulders. ‘Might have done. Oops.’

‘What are you like, Tilly?’

The two of us stood there staring at the computer and I vaguely registered the squeak of the studio door.

‘Only one thing for it.’ I dived down onto my knees, bum high in the air and took the most obvious course of action.

I pulled the plug.

I heard a gasp from Jeanie.

‘What?’ I wiggled out, feeling my skirt riding up. ‘It can’t do it any harm, can it?’

There was silence and somehow, I just knew someone else was there. Someone else getting a bird’s eye view of my favourite lilac silk and lace cami-knickers which were more lace than anything else, if you get my drift.

Still on all fours, I managed to manoeuvre around to find Mr drop-dead-gorgeous glaring down at me, although the expression on his face was decidedly Sir-seriously-pissed-off.

‘Hi,’ I squeaked like an over-sized guinea pig. My heart stuttered as I stared at him. Someone had been more than generous when handing out the good-looking genes.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

How bloody unfair. Even his voice – melted sodding chocolate with a very faint trace of an accent. Talk about being front of the queue for sex appeal. He must have snagged an entire birth year’s quota.

Cool eyes studied me intently.

Oh God, he seriously expected an answer? Any moment now I’d start drooling. What the hell was wrong with me? I was a happily engaged woman for heaven’s sake.

The thing was those green eyes, high cheekbones and the short dark hair sparked a dart of instant sexual attraction, sending my heart rate into intensive care levels. Lust at first sight. Nothing more. My libido sitting up and taking notice. After all, it wasn’t as if my lady parts were getting an awful lot of attention at home at the moment. Yes, just lust.

I realised he was still waiting for an answer.

‘I just thought it needed rebooting.’ I plucked the phrase out of the air, knowing I’d heard Felix use it once or twice.

His eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened. I swallowed. Even scary, he looked damn attractive.

‘Rebooting,’ he spat the word with enough venom to strike down the entire make-up team.

I nodded with a hopeful smile.

He closed his eyes, a look of pain crossing his features. I could see tension in his jawline as if he were clenching his teeth really hard.

When he opened them, I leaned over and patted his arm. Getting stressed like that wasn’t good for you. ‘Hey, it’s only a computer. It’ll be fine. We don’t use it that much anyway.’

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jeanie shaking her head ever so slightly.

‘Give me pen and paper any day.’ I smiled encouragingly at him.

Jeanie looked horrified.

Green-eyes took in a strangled sort of breath but couldn’t hide the slight twitch of his mouth as if he wanted to smile.

‘Do you know who I am?’

I didn’t but he seemed to expect I did. In that suit, which added to the overall heart-socking attractive package, (and I don’t normally do corporate types), he didn’t look as if he worked here. The fine wool jacket emphasised broad shoulders and the sharply creased trousers hinted at long lean legs. Visiting sponsor? Interview candidate? Contractor?

Then I spotted the staff badge tucked under his suit jacket. He must be new … oh minims and crotchets. Sweet hallelujahs. The new guy. There’d been a department note circulated last week about the spanky new appointment to whizz up our computer systems. I’d filed it under irrelevant, i.e. straight in the bin. My heart plummeted stone-like and I stepped in front of the computer as if I could hide my recent misdemeanours.

‘Mr Memo, I mean erm … Mr er… er.’ Could this get any worse?

‘Walker. Director of IT.’ The way he said it, he might as well have said ‘defender of the faith’ or something else weighty.

‘Right.’

‘So, Miss, Mrs …?’

Jeanie jumped in, ‘This is Matilde Hunter. She’s one of our team.’ She’d pronounced it in the French way, which I thought might be deliberate as if to suggest that English wasn’t my first language, so how on earth could I possibly be trusted with a computer.

‘And this is exactly what I was talking about in the management meeting,’ he glared at Jeanie.

She nodded. ‘And as I explained at the meeting, we don’t have much call for computers up here. We’re more hands on, if you know what I mean.’

‘Rubbish. It’s the twenty-first century. How do you manage your inventory?’ He glanced around at the untidy room, over to the shelf with rows of head blocks, some with complete wigs, others pinned in grid patterns ready to start making a new one and others partially made. Like a rather odd rainbow, hair in every shade spilled from the shelf. From the white of yaks’ hair used for seventeenth century Rococo wigs and the golden blonde of Brunhilde’s tresses through to an intricate plaited Titian hairpiece and a dark black coronet of ringlets.

‘Surely you need to keep track of how many wigs you’ve got and the materials you use.’

Jeanie and I both glanced over at the antiquated filing cabinet hiding the tattered card index system we used.

‘Not only,’ his eyes bored into mine, ‘does this place need a thorough overhaul but you …’

For the briefest of seconds something flashed in his eyes.

‘… need to learn how to deal with a computer properly. You do not yank out the plug … ever. You shut it down. You don’t …’ There it was again, that little twitch of his mouth. ‘Reboot it.’ His face softened but we’re talking degrees here. He still seemed pretty fearsome. ‘Leave that to the experts please.’

‘Okey-doke,’ I said with a cheery smile. Thank goodness he hadn’t walked in two minutes earlier, when all those emails were flying the nest. At least I’d got away with that much.

To: All Departments

Please join me in welcoming our first Director of IT, Mr M Walker, who joins us from a significant financial institution in the City.

This is a new appointment for the London Metropolitan Opera Company. I therefore hope you will make him feel welcome and offer your co-operation as he gets to grips with our wonderful work here.

Julian Spencer

Chief Executive

London Metropolitan Opera Company

After the cluttered mayhem of the wig room, the calm, clinical atmosphere of the make-up department was like stepping into an operating theatre.

Harsh white light from a bank of bulb-lit mirrors filled the room. Underneath them, a spotless white counter ran the full length of one wall, in front of which sat a row of cream leather swivel chairs as impressive as thrones awaiting royalty.