A Winter Flame Read Online Free PDF

while shaking her head. Surely her aunt wasn’t that batty as to think that anyone would seriously want to be married in a theme
park? This was South Yorkshire, not Las Vegas after all. A vision of Santa in black sunglasses and tassels, singing ‘Suspicious Minds’ whilst smelling of peanut butter and burgers,
suddenly came to mind. It wasn’t a pretty image.
    Eve put her pen down and closed the book. Organizing a black-tie corporate event with dancing waterfalls was one thing – seeing that this ridiculously ambitious theme park was built,
marketed, advertised and managed was another.
    Eve looked up at the ceiling and imagined beyond it, right up into the stars, where her aunt would be sitting with Stanley looking down at the havoc she had caused in her great-niece’s
brain. She would know that Eve wouldn’t be able to resist the challenge she had set her.
    ‘You wicked old bird,’ said Eve to the sky. ‘What the hell have you done to me?’
    Ideas were crowding to get into her brain. She needed that smoking elf to keep them at the door and let them enter one at a time. But first things first – she better meet up with this
‘Jack Glass’ and suss him out as a business partner. Eve worked alone as a rule, but for ‘quite a few million pounds’ she just might be persuaded to see if she could put up
with the man.

Chapter 5
    Over the next few days Eve worked on tying up the future of Eve’s Events, as well as overseeing a fortieth birthday party and sourcing a consignment of green-tinged
champagne for an Irish wedding. If she were going to sell up, she wanted to make sure that the right people took over and things went as seamlessly as possible for her clients. She met with the
three companies who had expressed interest in buying her out. By far the best offer was from the biggest of the three: ‘Paul’s Parties’. Paul Hoylandswaine was a local
entrepreneur with his finger in more pies than a room full of Little Jack Horners. He was a bruff but straight man who didn’t do bidding wars or time-wasting: he knew what he wanted and went
straight for the jugular. He said that if Eve was serious about letting her enterprise go, she wouldn’t find anyone who would look after it and continue to build it up more than he would, and
he’d have contracts drawn up in two days for her to sign. Eve hadn’t wanted to move quite that fast, but Paul Hoylandswaine said he wasn’t going to ‘fanny about’
whilst she hummed and ha-ed. The deal was on the table with a now or never sticker on it; he didn’t stop balls rolling when they were in motion. Eve had a massive moment of panic. If
Winterworld folded, she would have nothing. She knew where she was running Eve’s Events, but Winterworld was a trip into the dark, scary unknown. But the moment passed and Eve found her hand
extending to shake his and the deal was done.
    Winterworld would have to be a success, because Eve didn’t go backwards – at least not in business. She might have been stuck in the past in her personal life, but in her career, she
would only ever allow herself to move forwards. She wasn’t a natural gambler but this was an extraordinary business which merited out-of-the-box thinking. As she signed on the dotted line she
knew that however much of a knobhead this Jack Glass turned out to be, she would have to get on with him now.
    Eve loved working for herself with no boss to answer to and she was disciplined enough to do that. Winning new clients excited her; earning lots of money thrilled her. People liked her and
trusted her and found her easy to deal with – that was indicative in the repeat custom she received. She knew she was taking a massive gamble on Jack Glass being the same. What if he was an
obnoxious cretin whom no one wanted to do business with?
    She remembered taking Jonathan off to a very expensive hotel in Denmark for the weekend after banking a particularly massive cheque. These days she hadn’t anything as