Christmas Eve Wedding. PENNY JORDAN

And then she would stand up and announce to them that there was nothing on this earth that would persuade her to go on working for a family of which Caid was a member.

      At first she hadn’t been sure just what angle to go for—she’d already done fantasy and fairytale, and she’d done modern and punk only the previous year. But then it had happened. Her idea to end all ideas. And the miracle of it was that it was so simple, so workable, so timeless and so…so right.

      The theme of her windows this Christmas was going to be Modern Womanhood, in all its many guises. And her modern Christmas woman, in defiance of everything that Caid had thrown at her, was going to be the hub of her family and yet her own independent and individual person as well! Each of the store’s windows would reflect a different aspect of her role as a modern woman—and each window would be packed with delectable, irresistible gifts appropriate to that role. Right down to the final one, where she would be shepherding her assembled family to view a traditional Nativity play, complete with every emotion-tugging detail apart from a real live donkey.

      Everyone thought that the high point of her year were those few short weeks before Christmas, when her windows went on display, but in fact it was actually those weeks she spent working on the ideas and designs that she loved best.

      This year she had spent even more of her time plotting and planning, drawing out window plans and then changing them. Because she needed to prove to herself that she had made the right decision…because she needed to find in the success of achieving her own targets and goals something satisfying enough to replace what she had lost?

      No. She simply wanted to do a good job, that was all…of course it was!

      Now her ideas and her plans were almost all in place; there was only one vital piece of research she still needed to do, and her arrangements for that were all in hand.

      Jaz was a stickler for detail, for getting things just right. She needed a real-life role model for her ‘modern woman’. A role model who successfully combined all the elements of her fictional creation: a woman who was loved and valued by her partner and yet someone who had her own independent life. She needed a woman who acknowledged and enjoyed fulfilling her own personal goals, but still loved her children and her family above all else. A woman, in short, Jaz had dreamed of being herself—until Caid had destroyed those dreams.