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‘Always has been.’

We sat in silence for a moment or two and it felt good, as though Theo understood that things could be difficult for me. It also made me wonder how he could see through me in a way that lots of other people couldn’t. Usually, other than when I was with Alexa, I could pretty much pretend I was fine 100 per cent of the time and nobody would question it. But with Theo it was like the protective armour I drew around myself became transparent. I wasn’t sure if it had always felt like that between us, or if it was a new thing.

‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Who’s your go-to person when things get tough?’

‘Ah, well. As you may remember, I don’t often admit to struggling with something. But if I did . . . if Ihadto, it would be Jake.’

‘You’re still friends with Jake Thorn?’

Jake was a very successful crime writer, a sort of lovablerogue who was hugely talented and annoyingly cocky and full of himself, but who you couldn’t help but like despite all of that.

‘You seem surprised,’ said Theo.

‘Not at all. I just . . .’

‘Didn’t think I was capable of sustaining a friendship?’

I tutted. ‘That wasn’t what I meant. It’s just that the two of you are very different.’

‘What, because he’s an extrovert and I’m not?’

‘He’s just so loud.’

Theo laughed. ‘A lot of it’s bravado. Plus he makes me laugh. A lot. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I can be quite serious,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

I covered my mouth with my fingers to stop me smiling. ‘Really?’

Theo rolled his eyes and went back to his laptop. I imagined his cheeks might be a little red; his eyes bright and amused. I thought that underneath finding this funny he might also be embarrassed at having shown me what he thought other people’s perception of him might be.

‘Look at us,’ I said. ‘ We’re talking about emotions unprompted and without Melissa ruling over us with an iron rod.’

He stopped typing and looked at me.

‘You should take care of yourself, you know,’ he said, suddenly sitting back in his chair again. ‘And feel free to ignore me, because as I said, I’ve got no idea what it’s like. I have my half-sister, who’s great, actually. We see a lot of each other, but she’s quite self-sufficient. And I rarely see my parents – they don’t require anything of me other than a phone call every couple of months. But what I’m thinking is, you should put yourself first. Sometimes. Maybe.’

‘I can handle it,’ I said.The fear that he was about to start pitying me was kicking in hard and fast. It made it so that it was impossible to really listen to what he was saying because there was this booming voice on my shoulder yelling at me that I should be able to cope and that I must not show vulnerability to anyone, ever.

‘Or maybe it’s more that you’re so used to living with such high levels of stress that you don’t even notice it anymore. When was the last time you really switched off? Relaxed and went for a swim or read a book? Not a proof, or your own book, but a purely for pleasure book?’

‘Ummm . . .’ I said, wanting to contradict him but literally not even able to remember when I’d last picked up a romcom, the not-so-guilty pleasure I allowed myself on the rare occasion I did take a break. Which hadn’t happened for . . . ages.

‘Just a thought,’ he said.

As if reading my mind, he filled our glasses, finishing off the bottle. I liked watching his forearms as he tipped and poured. The air around us smelled sweet, like lavender mixed with honey. He placed the bottle back down on the table, brushing his fingers against mine and leaving them there, the tip of his little finger touching the tip of mine. Surprisingly, neither of us made any attempt to pull away. A gust of wind blew strands of hair across my face but I was kind of frozen to the spot, not wanting to break the moment, whatever this was. Then Theo reached out, slowly at first, then confidently, gently brushing it out of my eyes for me, tucking it behind my ear. He let his fingers trail down my neck, skimming them across my collar bone. My breath caught in my throat as he leaned towards me, and I towards him, his hand cupping my shoulder, my hand resting lightly on his waist. Touching him again felt electric and I closed my eyes for a second, wanting to feel it even more intensely.And then he’d released me, and my eyes popped open and he sat back in his chair. My heart was racing. Had he been about to kiss me? I hadn’t imagined the whole thing, had I? His expression was unreadable so no clues there, and instead I tried to focus on my laptop, my eyes burning into the screen without taking in a single word I’d written on there, my mind whirring with what might have been.

Theo cleared his throat. ‘Right. Back to plotting,’ he said.

OK. So we were pretending nothing had happened.

‘Let’s hash out as much of the story as we can, then divide up the chapters. I reckon once we’ve written a couple more chapters each, we should polish them up and send them over to Carla,’ he said. I could hear the tiniest hint of self-doubt in his voice, but it was only because I was extra tuned into these things, especially now.

‘She’ll want a synopsis, too, I expect,’ I said, the words feeling hard to form.

‘And our hook,’ he said. ‘Although I think we’ve already got one of those.’

He glanced at me, as though checking I was going along with his pretence.

‘A couple argue on a beach on the French Riviera,’ he said, reading from his screen. ‘He wades angrily into the water to cool off but never makes it back to their hotel room. Where is he? Did he drown, or did somebody want him gone?’