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‘I thought Ben could be controlling, but she’s on a whole different level. My only option is to be sick. I could say I had food poisoning, right? That’d be believable. She’s got to have another friend who can take my place. Someone who actually likes her.’

Jamie’s withering glare said a lot, but mostly how much of a cow Holly was being. And she knew it was true.

‘I thought you wanted to get to know her better,’ Jamie said. ‘Why did you agree otherwise?’

‘What else was I meant to say? She had brought wine and nibbles and I felt cornered.’

‘Well, that will teach you to grow more of a spine.’

Holly and Jamie had become so close over the years, they were more like siblings than friends, but just like with siblings, it meant that Holly was struck with the occasional urge to thump her and right now was one of those moments.

‘You still haven’t told me what you spent the rest of the evening talking about,’ Jamie said, moving the conversation away from helping Holly get out of the weekend. ‘She was over for quite a while.’

‘How do you know how long she stayed?’

‘I saw her car when I was leaving.’

‘You were spying on me?’

‘I was not spying on you. We share a driveway, remember? And you’re being evasive. What was it about?’

Holly drew in a long breath. She had avoided mentioning the other purpose of Sienna’s visit to Jamie and had managed to go two weeks without divulging the contents of their initial conversation to her or anyone else. But now that a chunk of time had passed, it felt silly not to say anything.

‘She wanted to know if I had any feelings for Giles. She knew he’d been in love with me before.’

Jamie’s lips twisted in a manner Holly couldn’t quite read. ‘She knew Giles loved you?’

‘And she wanted to check there weren’t any residual unrequited feelings. On my part, obviously.’

‘And what did you tell her?’

‘What do you think I told her?’ For the second time in as many minutes, Holly was struck with the same urge to thump her friend on the shoulder. ‘No. I told her no. What else would I say?’

Jamie didn’t respond. Instead, she nodded slowly.

‘What? What is it?’ The churning in Holly’s stomach told her that the next words to leave Jamie’s lips were unlikely to lighten her mood.

‘I was just thinking about Sienna,’ Jamie replied. ‘It must’ve taken a lot of guts to do that. I’m not sure I could ever have confronted Fin’s exes.’

‘Well, first off, you live in a different country to them, and second, Giles is not my ex. He’s just my friend.’

‘So you keep telling yourself.’

Holly had had enough. The innuendos had been getting stronger and stronger ever since Giles and Sienna’s engagement was announced.

‘If there’s something you want to say, why don’t you come out and say it?’ she challenged.

‘Fine,’ Jamie said, putting her wine down on the table with such force, it splattered. ‘You want to know the truth? Here it is: you’ve never truly let yourself think about whether you and Giles might be good as more than friends. And you would be. We can all see it. What you share isn’t platonic, Holly. Not on your part and certainly not on Giles’s. It never has been. A man doesn’t ask his best girl friend to pick him up from the hospital when he has an actual girlfriend who would be there in an instant. And you wouldn’t have dropped everything and raced over there unless your feelings were seriously deep. And I’m worried that by the time you finally realise what you actually feel, it might be too late to do anything about it.’

For a split second, Holly didn’t know what to say. Was that really what everyone thought? Were they just waiting for her and Giles to finally get together? No.

Holly let out a long breath. ‘Giles and I are best as friends.’

Still, Jamie’s gaze was unwavering. ‘As long as you’re sure about that.’

‘I am,’ Holly said with all the firmness she could muster. ‘I absolutely am.’

‘Well, in that case, this weekend away could be a lot of fun. You know what, I’ll even help you pack.’