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“You came.” Fran’s painted lips stretched into a smile, but sadness flickered in her dark eyes. “I didn’t know if you would, after… everything.” She held out her arms, and despite herself, Alice stepped into the embrace. Clutching her tightly, Fran turned her face into Alice’s neck and breathed her in. “God, I’ve missed you.”

Alice’s insides wrenched. “Okay, well…” she dropped her arms to her sides and pulled away. Fran looked mildly affronted, as if suddenly remembering that things between them had changed, but she shook it off with a flick of her hair.

“Right, let’s get you a drink. Wine?”

Alcohol would be a bad idea.“I’ll have an orange juice, please.”

“Of course. Be right back.” Instead of summoning the bar staff, like she usually did, Fran actually went to the bar, which gave Alice a moment to settle in.

Rain hammered at the wonky little windows as Alice shucked off her coat and sat in the seat opposite the one Fran had taken, with a table between them to reduce the opportunity for Fran to grope her, and for Alice to let her.

Returning with their drinks, Fran’s eyes settled on Alice’s pink plastered arm. “Oh, so it’s actually broken, then?”

Alice nodded. “Afraid so.”

“Oh, darling.” Fran reached out for Alice’s fingers poking from the end of her cast, but she moved her arm away, glimpsing Ash’s inked inscription as she did.

“Why did you ask me to meet you, Fran?”

Fran lifted the glass of wine to her lips and tipped her head back, taking what Alice assumed was a fortifying mouthful. The idea that Fran needed liquid courage was absurd, yet here she was drinking barely after midday.

“Right, I’ll get straight to the point, shall I?”

Alice sipped her juice and nodded.

Fran leaned in. “I meant what I said. At your place. Last week.”

Alice blinked. “Which bit?”

“The bit where I said l love you, of course.”

“Oh, that.”

Fran’s dark eyes bored into her. “I thought that’s what you wanted to hear, Alice. I hoped that if I told you how much you mean to me, then maybe we could?—”

“It doesn’t change anything, Fran.” As they came out of her mouth, Alice realised those words were true.

“Don’t you love me?” Fran reached for Alice’s hand again. This time, Alice didn’t move away, and watched as Fran laced their fingers together.

Alice lifted her gaze, not to Fran’s eyes but to her slender neck. The gentle curve of her jawline to her collarbone summoned thoughts of the way Fran moaned when Alice kissed and caressed the hollow of her throat, and how she’d always been amazed by Fran’s willingness to expose such a delicate part of herself. But then, if either of them was going to rip a throat out, it wouldn’t be Alice, would it?

“Alice?”

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked whether you love me.”

Alice looked into those dark eyes that had once sucked her in like black holes. She’d lost herself in those eyes, in this woman, and she’d thought that maybe it was love, at one point,but?—

“No, I don’t.”

Fran flinched and slumped back. “Is this because of Jeremy? I don’t think you understand why I can’t leave him, Alice.”

Alice narrowed her eyes. “I never asked you to leave Jeremy. That was your idea, remember?”

Fran stared at her wine glass.

“I even said it was a bad idea, but you were insistent, and you made me want that too…it’s like when you don’t realise you’re hungry and someone suggests chips, then suddenly you’re starving and all you can think of is the taste of hot, salty chips. Well, that was me… I didn’t even know I was hungry.”