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‘I have to. Don’t you see that? He’s there. He’s always there. He’ll always be there in your life, for you to compare every single person to for as long as you live. I can’t compete with that. Nobody can.’

The trembling had spread past her hands now and was afflicting almost every part of her body.

‘So you’re just going to marry her? That’s it? You know what type of person she is, and you’re going to spend the rest of your life with her?’

He shrugged. ‘I proposed to her.’

Holly seethed. What kind of answer was that? A bad one, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

‘She doesn’t want children, Giles. You know that. She said she’ll be very persuasive, that she’ll convince you it’s best not to have them. That’s the type of person she is, Giles. That’s the type of person you are planning on marrying.’

She expected her words to elicit some sort of response. Anger, disbelief. Anything, yet there wasn’t even a flicker of emotion on his face. It took only a moment to understand why.

‘Faye told you,’ Holly said. ‘Of course she did, because she wanted you to know as much as I did. She’s your sister. So you already know what Sienna’s like, and you don’t care? You’re going to marry her anyway?’

‘People change,’ he said. ‘Maybe she’ll change.’

Holly placed her hands on her head before shaking it in disbelief. ‘Really? You’re going to marry a woman you know is a liar in thehopeyou can change her? Why would you do that?’

His forehead crinkled as if her question had confused him.

‘Because I proposed, Holly. Because I said I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and I don’t want to be the type of person who makes a promise like that only to break it again.’

Holly could feel the tears welling in her eyes. ‘So that’s it? You’re going to marry her because you feel youhaveto?’

For a moment, Giles closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘It’s what I have to do,’ he said, turning to walk away, but Holly grabbed his hand.

‘But my email. My first email – you read it, right?’

He scoffed. ‘Yes, I read it, and I wish to hell I hadn’t.’

If Holly needed any more confirmation that he didn’t feel the same about her, it was becoming clearer by the second. She needed to turn around. She needed to walk away and save the tattered pieces of her heart before it was too late – but she couldn’t.

‘So, you don’t… you don’t…’

‘Love you?’ Giles interrupted. ‘Holly, you said youthinkyou love me.Think.Who says something like that? But you know what? It makes sense, because it’s true. Of course you don’t. I got engaged. I’d suddenly put another woman first in my life andthat’swhen you decided to kiss me and suddenly develop feelings.’

Holly’s tears turned hot with fury. ‘I didnotkiss you! You kissed me!Youkissedme! We only stopped because I was the one who pulled away.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ His voice was a shout that trembled in her ears. ‘You think I don’t know that? I know that. I know I kissed you, Holly, just like I know I… I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I kissed you. It’s all that’s going around in my head. All I want to do is kiss you again. The car journey, lunch – every minute is agony because all I want is to hold you. To pull you into me and never let go.’

Tears tumbled down Holly’s cheeks.

‘You said you wished you could take it back. That you would take it back in a heartbeat. That’s what you said in the bar. A heartbeat.’

‘Theproposal, Holly! Not the kiss. Why the hell would I take away the most perfect thing in my life? But you onlythinkyou might want me. You onlythink, and that’s not enough, Holly. It’s not. I get it. I get that it’syoufor me. You were the person who made me a better man. You were the person I wanted to be better for. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t be with you, that I never thought I would be with you. I still wanted to be better for you. But you could have done this at any point, Holly. At any time, with any of the other women I dated, you could’ve told me you thought you might be in love with me, and I would have dropped everything like a hat for you – you know I would have. But then you did this.’

‘Giles—’

He shook his head, stopping her before she could say any more.

‘Do you know what the most ridiculous thing about this entire mess is? Shall I tell you? It’s because of you that I’m also now the type of person I never wanted to be again. I’m a person who is engaged, who kissed somebody else, who can’t stop thinking about somebody else. You wanted to talk this through, Holly, so that’s what we’re doing. I will lay it out all clear as day for you. Do I love Sienna the way I love you? Of course I don’t. I don’t think I could ever love anybody the way I love you, and I doubt you could ever love anybody the same way you loved Evan. He was the love of your life; I will never be that, just like Sienna will never be mine. Because, as ridiculous as it is, you are. You are somehow the love of my life, Holly Berry. You always have been. The moment you pushed me into that river, I was yours. Hook, line and sinker. That’s how long I’ve loved you.’

The words took her breath away, and she moved forward, ready to respond, but Giles had his hands in the air again. Blocking her.

‘The thing you need to understand, though, is I can’t have my heart broken by you again. I can’t have you wake up one morning and discover that you were wrong. That it was just some spur-of-the-moment jealousy thing. That you don’t want to be with me. That your email was worded perfectly, and you really did just think it was love. My heart’s taken two heartbreaks from you, Holly, and that’s okay. They were the right thing to do for you. I get that. But I don’t think I would survive a third. So I’m going to marry Sienna. I’m going to marry Sienna because she doesn’t have the power to break my heart like this, and because I made a promise.’

He drew in a long breath, and it was only then, as he wiped his cheeks, that Holly saw she wasn’t the only one crying. Giles, too, had tears streaming down his face.