‘…Three, two, one, go!’ Edward shouted.

Henry and Daisy immediately grabbed two panels, one back panel and one of the sides, positioning them so they were at a right angle to each other. They were a perfect team, each knowing what the other was going to do before they did it. Penny realised if everything went according to plan with her and Henry’s relationship, she would be joining their little team soon too.

She quickly started spooning the icing mixture into the piping bag as Henry got the two panels perfectly lined up.

Penny started squeezing the icing down the join, hopefully cementing the two panels together. As Henry held it firm whilst it dried a bit, Penny ran round and piped the icing down the other side of his panel.

‘It’s setting really quickly, what is this stuff?’ Henry said, tentatively letting go of the panel.

‘I don’t know, it’s not like any icing I’ve ever seen before. If I were you, I wouldn’t eat it,’ Penny said as she hauled over the front panel with a space for the door. Daisy quickly ran round to grab the end of Penny’s panel.

Suddenly Penny saw Henry glance across the marquee as if he had spotted something, and whatever he saw wasn’t good. She looked over to see what the other teams were doing, convinced they had also decided to use the cardboard box too, and saw Clara, striding between the teams. A look of panic crossed his face, which deepened when he saw that Penny had seen it too, before he quickly returned his attention to the house.

Henry had told Clara that he had a girlfriend. That surely should be the end of it. So what would cause Henry to be so worried?

Henry focussed on securing the front panel to the side they had already used, ignoring the questioning gaze from Penny as she piped the icing into the join.

This was not going to end well for him. Clara was an incredibly proud and arrogant person. The rejection and then the embarrassment in front of her assistant was going to be the final nail in his coffin.

But surely Clara wouldn’t make a scene here today, not in front of Daisy and Penny and certainly not in front of all these people.

He glanced over again. Clara was deliberately stopping to talk to each of the teams. On the surface, the audience watching would think that one of the managing directors of the company was just being sociable, cheering the teams on, but the look of surprise from the employees she was interacting with and even from Edward showed she had never done anything like that before. Henry knew why too, it was completely tactical. If she was seen talking to every team then when she came over to talk to him, which she undoubtedly would, no one would be suspicious.

He looked over at Penny who was watching him carefully. Shit, he should have told her. Now it looked even more suspicious when nothing had actually happened.

‘Grab the other bit, Daisy,’ Henry said and Daisy ran off to grab the panel.

Henry moved to the back on the pretence of checking the join and Penny followed.

‘She’s blackmailing me to sleep with her,’ he whispered then continued, ‘if I don’t, I lose my job. If I do I’ll probably lose my job, so it’s a win-win situation all round.’

She stared at him in shock.

‘Daisy, can you hold that side panel against the front?’ Henry called over, directing her to the furthest corner away from them.

‘Have you told Edward?’ Penny said.

He shook his head.

‘If you don’t tell him then I will. I’m not letting her get away with that.’

‘Shit, Penny, that’s not how I want to resolve this situation. He isn’t going to believe me over his sister. If I go to him to complain about Clara I’ll likely get the sack from him.’

‘Then how did you plan to resolve it?’

‘I told her I’d slap a sexual harassment suit on her if she tries to blackmail me again.’

‘And will you?’

‘Well, I’m not going to sleep with her if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he hissed. ‘She can’t possibly sack me, Edward would want to know why. I’m sure if I keep rejecting her she’ll just go away.’

‘That’s why you’re as skittish as a kitten about her coming over here then. Because you’re confident that she’s just going to go away?’

He moved away, angry that everything was crashing down around him and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it. Penny caught his arm and pulled him back.

‘You need to fight for this. If you want this job, if you want anything badly enough, then you fight for it. Don’t just roll over and play dead.’

Henry nodded, though he wasn’t sure what he could do to fight Clara. He glanced over at her again and he caught her eye. She smirked to herself as she moved to the team in the next bay. Henry saying no had provided her with a challenge which she wasn’t going to back down from.

Clara stepped up to their bay, the only thing separating them was the low rope barrier.

‘This is looking good,’ Clara remarked cheerfully, though her eyes were firmly on him and not the house.

He returned his attention to the house as Penny helped to join the final side together, piping the icing down the join while he and Daisy held the panels in place.

‘Henry, might I have a word?’ Clara called over.

‘I’m busy,’ Henry snapped and watched Daisy’s mouth fall open at his rudeness to his boss.

He glanced over at Penny whose face was switching between concern, worry and anger.

He had to resolve this once and for all.

Leaving the girls to work on their own for a moment, he stepped over the little rope fence towards Clara and moved a few steps away so no one in the audience could hear them either.

‘I told you to leave me alone.’

‘I’m not used to people saying no to me,’ Clara smiled, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

‘And are you used to getting sued for sexual harassment, because I told you if you bothered me again about this, that’s the direction I would take it.’

‘Oh please, Henry. If you were going to do that you would have done it already, you’d have marched straight from my office to Edward’s or human resources and complained to somebody but you haven’t. And that’s because you secretly want this.’

‘I’d rather gouge out my own eyeballs with a fork than sleep with you or have anything to do with you.’

‘Yet one word from me and you’re over here talking to me instead of working alongside your pretty girlfriend.’

Henry glanced over at Penny, who was studiously not looking at him. ‘Look, why are you doing this? You’re very attractive, you can have any man you choose. Why go for someone who is already taken?’

‘You’re right, Henry, I can have any man I choose and I choose you. Let’s cut the crap, you and I both know you’re going to sleep with me so stop trying to put me off. I’ll be in my office at six o’clock tonight. The factory will be empty but I’ll leave the side door open.’

‘I’m not—’

‘You will be there or I will make your life a living hell. I’m sure your little girlfriend will be delighted to hear of how you fucked me over the desk the other day, I could give her a very detailed account of that, if you don’t show later. Or perhaps I could tell her that that was how you got the job in the first place.’

Henry wanted to tell her to go ahead, but was his and Penny’s relationship strong enough to withstand that when they barely knew each other? Did Penny trust him enough to believe him over Clara?

He knew what he had to do and he felt sick at the thought of it. He nodded. ‘OK, six o’clock. Wear something sexy and not a lot else.’

Her eyes lit up that he had been bought so easily and she licked her lips and nodded before she walked out.

Chapter Twenty