She’d said to her, “Jem, it’ll be grand. I can walk over in my lunch hour and we can have a sandwich or something.” Besides, it was time, she’d told her friend. Did she want to operate her fledgling business out of a cottage kitchen forever or did she want to take the leap? “You can do this, Jem. I have faith in you.” Faith with regard to business matters, was what she didn’t add. When it came to personal matters, she had no faith in Jemima at all.

It hadn’t taken much convincing, and Jemima’s brother had provided part of the cash, as Meredith had known he would. But soon after Jemima had signed the lease, Meredith and she had parted ways in their friendship because of a hot and frankly stupid discussion about what Meredith saw as Jemima’s eternal need for a man. “You’ll love anyone who’ll love you back,” had been the way Meredith had concluded her passionate denunciation of Jemima’s most recent partner, one in a long line of men who’d come into and gone out of her life. “Come on, Jem. Anyone with eyes and half a brain can see there’s something off about him.” Not the best way to assess a man whom one’s best friend declares she’s determined to marry. Living with him was bad enough, as far as Meredith was concerned. Hooking up permanently was another matter.

So it had been a double insult, both to Jemima and to the man she ostensibly loved. Thus Meredith had never seen the fruits of Jemima’s labours when it came to launching the Cupcake Queen.

Unfortunately, she didn’t see the fruits of those labours now either. When Meredith parked, scooped up the chocolate cake-it was looking ever more as if the chocolate itself were actually perspiring, she thought, which could not have been a very good sign-and carried her offering to the door of the Cupcake Queen, she found the shop locked tightly, its windowsills grimy, and its interior speaking of a business failed.