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Jamie looked at Holly.

‘So you finally told her about the kiss?’

‘What?’ Caroline said. ‘She didn’t say there was a kiss. You kissed him? You told me you were in love with him.’

This was not what Holly wanted. She wanted to find out what Giles had said to Jamie, but Caroline was involved now too. She might as well know everything.

‘Well, I only realised I loved him after I kissed him. I told him up in Anglesey and he said he wouldn’t risk a relationship with me, so I wrote him a letter to tell him there was no risk. I was all his. That’s pretty much it.’ At this, she turned to her other friend. ‘Did you give it to him? Did you give him the letter?’

Jamie nodded. That was it, a single nod. Could she not tell Holly needed more? Her heart was racing, adrenaline coursing through her veins and there was a very good chance she was going to be sick.

‘And… did he read it? Could you watch him read it?’

‘I did.’

‘And how did he look? What did he say?’

‘I don’t know. He… he got a pen, and he wrote on it and he asked me to give it back to you.’

‘What?’ Holly said.

Jamie reached into her bag and pulled out the letter. ‘I don’t know what it says. I didn’t read it. And he wasn’t writing for very long. Are you sure you want to do this here? Maybe I should’ve waited till you got home.’

‘No, no, this is what I wanted. I wanted to know as soon as possible.’

Jamie still held the letter in her hand. The seal was broken, and the paper inside was slightly crumpled. He had, without a doubt, taken it out and read it. He knew exactly how Holly felt.

‘He wrote something on it?’

‘I think so,’ Jamie said.

Holly nodded. ‘I think I might go upstairs, if you don’t mind,’ she said, taking the envelope from Jamie.

‘Of course not.’

‘Go.’

When Holly’s foot was on the bottom step of the staircase, she hesitated. ‘Actually, no. I’ve changed my mind. I think I’d like you guys here.’ She drew in a long breath, which she blew back out as she tried to steady her pulse. ‘Okay, here goes. Wish me luck.’

68

Holly pulled the crumbled piece of paper out of the envelope. She had taken up the entirety of the front side of the A4, and several lines on the back page too, but it still left almost three-quarters of a side for Giles’s message. Plenty of room for him to scribble down a thorough, heartfelt response. That was what she thought, at least, until she turned the paper over and saw the words he had written.

‘He’s an arse,’ Caroline said. ‘He is. I always said he’d go back to his old ways. People like him can’t change. Not deep down. He’s rotten to the core.’

‘He’s not rotten to the core,’ Holly said. ‘And he’s not gone back to his old ways. He’s just protecting himself, that’s all.’

‘Still, it’s pretty harsh,’ Jamie said.

But it’s true, Holly thought as she stared at the sentence written on the page in front of her.

Sometimes love isn’t enough.

That was it. That was his final say. Love wasn’t enough.

Funny how all the songs and movies said that it was. That love could conquer everything. For so long, Holly had believed that. She’d believed that if or when she found true love again, it would be the final piece she needed to make life perfect. But now she knew the truth. It wasn’t enough.

They shut up the shop and headed upstairs, although Holly wasn’t sure why. She felt perfectly capable of working; she felt strangely okay. Numb, that’s how people would probably describe it. Numb. But that wasn’t a bad thing, was it? It was definitely better than feeling the pain she knew would come if she let it in.