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‘Who were you on the phone to out there, your dad?’ asked Alexa.

‘Carla,’ I said.

‘Oh?’

‘She’s only gone and booked me and Theo Winters on a writers’ retreat in Cannes,’ I said. ‘We’re supposed to be leaving the day after tomorrow.’

Alexa dipped some of the bread I’d cut for her into her soup.

‘And you’re sounding miserable about going on this delightful-sounding trip because . . .?’

‘Because I’ve not spoken to him for years. And also, I don’t want him thinking that I’m desperate to work with him again because my writing career has failed and his hasn’t.’

‘Yours hasn’t failed, Scar,’ said Alexa, reaching out to rub my arm reassuringly. ‘You’ve just released a brilliant new book.’

I didn’t think now was the time to tell her about the disappointing sales figures and the lack of faith from mypublisher. She had enough on her plate without having to stress about my life, too.

‘Anyway, you worked really well with Theo to begin with. I remember you telling me that you loved his enthusiasm. That it always felt like he dived into the depths of your mind and pulled out ideas for stories that you didn’t even know were there.’

‘Did I really say that?’

Theo was always full of ideas and was achingly confident about sharing them. And no doubt he’d be expecting me to have some of my own, the spark of something that we could start to work on. And I was still caught up with the story I’d been writing before Carla had told me to scrap that and start this new thing. What if I couldn’t come up with anything else, and all I did was prove to Theo that I was indeed useless without him?

‘Uh-huh,’ said Alexa, chewing on a chunk of bread. ‘And you also said that for the first time ever, you felt completely comfortable showing somebody else your work.’

‘I cannot remember saying any of that,’ I said, bristling. I must have been deluded.

‘Oooh, I wonder if he’s still smoking hot,’ mused Alexa.

I tutted. ‘No idea. And that’s really not the point.’

‘How long will you be away?’ asked Alexa.

I groaned. ‘Nearly two weeks.’

I was only just getting used to the idea of working with him again and now I had to spend a fortnight in the same hotel as the guy.

‘That’s doable though, right? Even if you don’t get on that well anymore? I mean you managed that last year with Jackson when it was obvious that you two should probably split up and we were all waiting for you to come to that conclusion on your own.’I swallowed hard.

‘Why, what’s everyone been saying about me?’

Alexa looked sheepish. ‘Nothing bad. We were just concerned that you were in a relationship that clearly wasn’t working.’

‘And none of you thought to mention this to me directly instead of gossiping about it behind my back?’ I said, crushingly disappointed in my friends. I hated the idea of them all feeling sorry for me and having secretive discussions about how unhappy I seemed. Anyway, it hadn’t been that bad – Jackson was a nice person and I was glad that we’d taken the time to work out whether we were supposed to be together or not instead of rushing into a break-up that we might have lived to regret.

‘We weren’t gossiping,’ said Alexa. ‘But to be fair – and please don’t take this the wrong way – you’re not great at opening up to us about how you feel. Sometimes we have to guess.’

I went to protest, but stopped myself. She was right, of course.

‘We hoped that when you were ready, you would talk to us about it. And you did.’

‘Just not for about twelve months,’ I said with a wry smile.

Alexa smiled back. ‘Better late than never.’

I took a deep breath and rubbed at my temples. Maybe I could compartmentalise the way I felt about Theo in real life and the way I felt about collaborating with him on a novel. I didn’t know, because I’d spent the last six years trying to put him out of my mind entirely, which was pretty hard when everyone you met at a book signing asked about bloodyLittle Boy Lost. And now this grand plan of Carla’s was throwing all the hard work I’d done on myself (if you could call suppressing feelings hard work) out of the window.‘I think you should just go for it,’ said Alexa. ‘A trip to the South of France will do you the world of good.’

I wished I could tell her it wasn’t a question of whether Ishould, but whether Icould. Could I do this? Could I survive a couple of weeks of hell if it meant that I’d potentially have enough money to make my life – and my family’s – easier? Perhaps Carla was right and something that forced Theo and me to be in close proximity to each otherwasactually what we needed – it would be a sort of immersion therapy, like how when you had a really intense phobia you had to stop avoiding the thing you were terrified of.