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I reached down to get my own laptop out of my bag. ‘My friends joke that I’m like Margaret Thatcher: four hours of sleep a night and I’m good to go.’

‘I trust that’s the only similarity,’ he replied, looking horrified.

The vibe was friendly but professional. Earlier, during the group therapy session, it had felt as though lines had been blurred, but things seemed to have gone back to our version of ‘normal’.

‘Thanks for what you did earlier, by the way,’ said Theo.

Or possibly not.

‘Why, whatdidI do?’ I asked, playing dumb.

‘You noticed that I was struggling with Melissa’s barrage of questions. And you stepped in,’ he said, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘To help me.’

I went to answer but didn’t quite know how immediately, so instead I busied myself with setting up my screen, logging in and pulling up my manuscript. I could feel his eyes boring into me and it was both uncomfortable and thrilling for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Eventually I managed to respond, although I was acutely aware that I was in dangerous over-thinking territory.

‘I like helping people,’ I said, because I didn’t want him to think it was about him. I would have done the same for anybody.

‘I’d noticed,’ he said.

As if on cue, my phone pinged in my bag. I ignored it for about five seconds hoping Theo hadn’t heard it.

‘Thought you were supposed to be leaving that in your room?’ he said with the trace of a smile.

‘Challenge starts tomorrow,’ I said, before casually glancing at the screen. It was my brother. In the spirit of what I’d agreed to do about an hour ago, I made the executive decision to ignore him for now. It couldn’t be anything that urgent or he would have called. As much as it pained me to say it, Melissa did have a point: Theo and I were here to write, to focus on the story we were trying to create. It was hard to do that if I let stuff from home filter in, clouding my vision. When I was in one of my anxious moods, if something had happened with Dad, for example, I’d try to push on and write, but when I read my work back, my words would sound clunky and cold with no flow to the story. I didn’t want that to happen tonight, so I closed my bag, hoping that would muffle the sound of any further messages.

‘Any of that wine going?’ I asked.

‘Sure,’ said Theo, picking up the bottle and pouring me a glass first and then one for himself.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘Let’s get started. How do you think we should work this?’

Theo hesitated then sat back in his chair, looking far more relaxed than I felt. I noticed he’d dressed up a bit tonight, and was wearing black jeans and a black-and-white checked shirt. Light and cool, perfect for a warmish spring evening on the French Riviera.

‘I wanted to broach the subject of plotting again,’ he said. ‘I know you explained that you prefer to discover the story as you go along, but when there’s two of us working on the same thing, I’m not sure that’s the best way to go about it.’

I’d been mulling his suggestion over for the last few days, and I’d decided that he had a point. So far we’d roughly mapped out our chapters verbally and then we’d gone off and written them, but questions needed to be asked and answered, plot twists needed to happen (not my forte, just getting it out there) and most importantly we needed to keep up the pace so that the reader didn’t get bored. I had the sneaking suspicion that my first solo book had lagged a bit in the middle and I suspected that didn’t happen with Theo’s writing – judging by what I’d read (namelyLittle Boy Lostand what he’d produced so far on this trip), he had the ability to take you on a sort of breathless ride from beginning to end.

‘I think you might be right,’ I said. ‘We need to play to our strengths, don’t we, and complicated storylines don’t appear to be mine.’

‘That Goodreads crowd has really got to you, hasn’t it?’ he said, grinning at me.

‘How could they not?’

‘Are you saying that my plotting technique is better than yours?’ he asked, clearly looking for a reaction.

‘Fishing for compliments again, are you?’ I said.

‘Maybe I just like that you like my work.’

Oh. I felt like I looked as flustered as I felt, but luckily I didn’t think he’d notice because there was barely any light other than the warm glow from the hotel and the moon and the fig-scented candle flickering away between us. Before I could stop myself, the question I’d been dying to ask since I’d seen him at the taxi rank at Nice airport a week ago slid out of my mouth.

‘Do you ever think about what happened before?’ I asked him.

Aaaargh, this was desperately dangerous territory. One wrong move and it could ruin everything, just as we were setting up for a pleasant night of co-writing. So much for keeping the vibe professional. Wishing I could backtrack and keep my mouth firmly shut, I waited for his answer, which was more delayed than it might have been because the woman from behind the bar came padding out to bring us some crisps and olives, laying them out on our table in pretty little terracotta dishes. I’d never wanted snacks less.

‘Merci,’ said Theo.