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Then Hope turned around. “What?” she said. “I didn’t say ‘don’t leave.’ I said ‘don’t leave me.’”

“Entirely different,” Ava said, mouth dry.

“Oh, but it is.” Hope came closer, dropping her bag on a desk. “Entirely different. I would never ask you to stay here for me. That would be wrong and cruel. But I can ask you not to leave me behind.”

“You mean…” Ava swallowed, not quite able to believe it. “You mean you want to come to the States with me?”

“I want to be with you.”

“What about Alice?” It was Ava’s first real thought.

Hope smiled. “Well I’ll be damned, Noah was right.”

“Noah? Your ex? What was he right about?” asked Ava, thoroughly confused.

“He said I should trust my instincts. I did, and you just put my daughter ahead of your own wants and needs. So he was right. I should trust you. I do trust you.”

“Thanks,” Ava said, no less confused. “But can we go back to the part where you flee your country for me?”

Hope sighed. “It’s not ideal. I get that. Noah doesn’t love the idea, but he’s prepared to compromise and give it a try as long as he gets Alice for all the holidays. It might not be forever.”

“What would you do?”

Hope blushed in a way that was quite charming. “I haven’t thought quite that far ahead yet, but I’m sure something will turn up.”

Ava had to sit down, her legs were shaking. She managed to seat herself on the edge of her desk. “Hope, I’d never ask for you to come with me.”

“I know you wouldn’t, that’s why I’m offering.”

Ava didn’t really know what to say to that.

Hope watched her.

“This is crazy. We barely know each other. We’ve spent one night together, that’s all.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so?” Ava said. “It’s insane. We’re talking about up-ending our lives and changing everything to take a chance on… on something.”

“On us,” said Hope.

“But why?”

Hope’s eyes cleared and she smiled. “Because I love you.”

Ava was very, very glad that she was sitting down. “You…”

“I love you,” Hope said again perfectly calmly and naturally. She laughed. “Look, Ava, I get it. It’s soon, it’s way too early to say something like that, but we are kind of under time pressure right now. It’s not like this is something that’s going to change. I’m not sure when I realized. Maybe I’ve always known. But that’s the truth and I can’t un-say it now.”

“Don’t un-say it,” Ava said, voice a little shaky because she still wasn’t sure what was happening.

Hope smiled wider. “I won’t.”

“But it’s still crazy.”

“Why?” Hope asked. “I knew the moment I saw my daughter that I loved her, you can know the second you sit down at the piano that you want to play, you can see a dress in a shop window and decide you want it in milliseconds, life is full of infinite decisions made in the smallest amounts of time.”

“But this isn’t a dress in a shop window,” said Ava.