Thanks so much to anyone who's read and/or reviewed :) it makes me very happy

Chapter two

Emma felt like all of the breath had been knocked out of her. Her stomach twisted painfully and the cold, quick spread of panic flushed through her body. Jenny. That same perfect face and that smooth skin and those impossibly blue eyes.

Jenny seemed to quickly recover from her initial shock, composing herself and smiling a small, polite smile. But her eyes lingered upon Emma, focusing her with their concentrated, captivating, dark-rimmed blue. 'Good afternoon,' she said.

Emma's throat suddenly felt very dry, and she found that she couldn't speak. Or think. Jenny's gaze always had the power to leave her stunned and silent and thoroughly confused. Even now, five years after seeing her for the last time, she effortlessly short-circuited Emma's brain. Faintly, she became aware of Hotte's voice.

'Hello Jenny,' Hotte was saying, 'I mean ... Frau Hartmann,' he corrected himself.

Jenny rolled her eyes at the formality and smiled a peculiar, almost self-conscious smile, before looking back at Emma, who hadn't managed to engage the necessary motor skills to speak or even blink since Jenny arrived. 'Hello Dennis, Emma,' Jenny said, slowly, respectively. 'This is certainly a ... surprise.'

'You're telling me!' Hotte agreed, his good-natured grin resurfacing for the first time since they'd read the letter. 'It's been ages, how have you been?' he asked.

'Oh ...you know,' Jenny shrugged, trailing her fingers absently along the spine of a book on the shelf beside her, 'same old ... running a business empire. You know how it is,' she said, her smile confident again.

'I'm afraid I don't,' Hotte replied. He stared at her for a few long seconds. 'So ... you're CEO Hartmann,' he said, placing a thoughtful finger to his lips as if he was pondering a problem. 'I've got to say, I never would have thought it,' he admitted.

'And why not?' Jenny asked, amusement sparkling in her eyes and dimpling her cheeks.

'Because you're Jenny Hartmann,' Hotte told her, slightly too emphatically. 'You were always ...so ... so ...,' he searched for the appropriate word, 'free.'

Jenny's smile faltered slightly, and her eyes flicked briefly back to Emma. 'Well, anyway,' she said, hitching her handbag further onto her shoulder, 'I have an appointment with Herr Bauer which,' she glanced at her watch, 'I'm now late for, so ... if you'll excuse me ...'

'Wait Jenny,' Hotte said, urgently, 'Emma had ... um ... something she wanted to say to you.' He nudged Emma hard in the side with a bony elbow.

The jolt startled Emma back to life and she snapped her head up to look at Hotte, blinking rapidly in bewilderment before looking back at Jenny. 'I ... um ...' she stammered as Jenny raised an eyebrow in curiosity. 'It's ... just ... it's ... it's nothing. Don't worry,' she mumbled, bowing her head and averting her gaze towards her shoes.

Jenny lingered for a few more seconds, as if waiting to see if Emma would look back up. But she didn't. 'Very well,' she said.

Hotte watched her disappear through the door to Herr Bauer's office and sighed heavily. 'Well, your plan went fantastically well,' he muttered at Emma. 'Which part of your complete silence was supposed to convince her to back out of the deal?'

Emma didn't answer.

'Emma? ... Emma?' Hotte asked, flashing his hand across her vision to break her vacant stare. 'Are you OK?' he asked as she finally looked at him in response.

'Yeah ... no,' she answered, 'I suddenly don't feel so good.' She slumped down heavily into a chair and ran a hand through her hair.

Hotte studied her for a moment before speaking. 'You don't um ...' he hesitated, unsure as to whether he should continue. 'You don't still have a ... thing ... with Jenny do you?' he asked, tentatively.

Emma looked up at him with wide, alarmed eyes. 'A thing?' she repeated. 'What thing?'

'I don't know,' Hotte said with a shrug, and Emma allowed herself to exhale in relief. 'In high school you were hot and cold with her all the time ... then I caught you kissing that time ...'

'Hotte,' Emma warned, 'if you want to keep any of your reproductive organs, I'd suggest that you shut up right now.'

'OK,' he conceded, holding his hands up in surrender, 'just wondering. You look like you've seen a ghost, that's all.'

'They've been in there for hours,' Hotte whispered, scanning the barcode of a book for a customer. 'Six ninety-five,' he told the customer, opening his palm to receive the note she extracted from her purse. 'Maybe she's killed him,' he speculated.

Emma just rolled her eyes. 'Do you listen to yourself when you're talking?' she asked him irritably.

Hotte sighed as the tray of the cash register opened with a ping. 'When are you going to snap out of it?' he asked, picking the appropriate change from the tray and handing it over. 'You've been in a foul mood all afternoon. Thanks very much,' Hotte added to the customer. 'And please continue to support our business,' he called after her as she moved away. 'We don't know how much longer we'll be here.'

The customer stopped and turned back around, her interest piqued. 'Why do you say that?' she asked.

'We're being closed down,' Hotte told her.

'Shut up Hotte,' Emma hissed. 'That's confidential information.'

'Why?' he asked. 'Everyone's going to find out sooner or later.'

'That's a real shame,' the customer said. 'This is pretty much my favourite bookshop in all of Cologne.' She sighed sadly. 'I wish such lovely places weren't so dispensable,' she said, shrugging slightly before turning around again and walking towards the door. The bell tinkled cheerfully as she left.

'That's perfect,' Hotte said excitedly, turning to Emma.

'What's perfect?' Emma asked, as disinterestedly as she could manage.

'Jenny thinks this place is dispensable, we just have to make it indispensable,' Hotte told her, with all the confidence of having stumbled upon a brilliant idea.

'What do you even mean?' Emma asked.

'If we could prove that this shop is an asset to the Hartmann Company, then we might be able to convince her not to give it up,' Hotte explained. 'We need to look at sales, losses, expenses ...' he listed on his fingers, 'find out how much profit this store is really making. And then find a way to double it. Triple it even,' he suggested boldly.

'That's great Hotte,' Emma said, unpinning her name badge, 'but as of now, I officially don't care,' she slammed the badge down on the counter. 'My shift's over.'

'Emma,' Hotte said, frustratedly. 'You and I both know this is more than a job to you.'

Emma sighed. 'Look Hotte, you want to crunch numbers all night that's fine,' she told him. 'I've got better things to do. I'll see you in the morning,' she added, before collecting her coat and roughly tugging it on. She threw her scarf around her neck quickly and dashed out of the door before Hotte could make another appeal for her help.

The daylight was already beginning to dwindle as she hastily unlocked her bike and wheeled it out to the curb. She hated this weather, when the days seemed so short and cold and it felt like winter might never end. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the handlebars of the bike to swing her leg over the saddle and she internally cursed her inability to ever remember to put on her gloves before she left the house.

She fiddled with the wire of her earphones, threading it through a button hole in her coat. The journey was too long and dull to attempt it without listening to music. As she began to pedal she fumbled distractedly with the buttons of her ipod, skipping through songs as she turned slowly out into the street. Finally she selected a song and began thumbing the volume control as she brushed her scarf back around her neck that had somehow fallen from her shoulder and

BANG

Emma felt the ground come into sharp, painful contact with her back. She lifted her head slowly to see the burning red brake-lights of a large, black car. 'Shit,' she muttered, looking down see herself lying unceremoniously in the road, her bike draped across her legs.

'Jesus,' said a voice which was followed by the sharp banging of a car door. 'Emma?'

Emma slowly tried to sit up, only to be confronted with a distraught Jenny dashing towards her. No no no. Not her.

Jenny crouched down beside Emma, her eyes bright and intense with concern as she laid a hand gently against Emma's shoulder. 'Are you OK?' she asked urgently, her hair falling softly about her face as she leaned forward.

'I ... I think so,' Emma said, withdrawing visibly from Jenny's touch. Jenny removed her hand from Emma's shoulder and instead offered it for Emma to take. 'We've got to stop meeting like this,' Jenny said, her smile resurfacing tentatively.

'You could say that again,' Emma said, ignoring Jenny's hand and awkwardly clambering to her feet. 'Oh,' she said sadly, looking down to see the front wheel bent out of all recognition.

'What were you doing?' Jenny asked. 'Did you not see me?'

'I guess not,' Emma said. 'Did you not see me?'

'Not until it was too late,' Jenna admitted, following Emma's gaze to her bike, pulling a sympathetic face as she too noticed the damaged wheel. 'I'm so sorry,' she said, genuinely. 'I'll pay for the repairs,' Jenny told her.

Emma shook her head. 'Don't bother. Please. It was mostly my fault,' she insisted, leaning down and heaving the bike up from the road to the safety of the pavement. The mangled shape of the front wheel prevented it from turning, and it dragged cumbersomely along the ground, gathering snow like a plough.

'At least let me drive you home?' Jenny offered, walking quickly to catch up with Emma. 'You shouldn't be wandering around in the cold after a bump like that,' she advised.

'It's fine, really,' Emma told her. 'I'd rather walk,' she added, before turning and wheeling her bike along the pavement, moving determinedly and briskly away.

She could feel Jenny's gaze on her as she watched her go.

Sorry, really couldn't resist reusing the old bike incident. Oldest trick in book, Jenny ;)