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‘I kind of tricked him into talking to me,’ I say hurriedly, as he turns purposefully away. ‘I didn’t mean to. Well, I did. But I wanted him to talk as though he wasn’t being interviewed, but…’ I sigh, dropping my shoulders, defeated. ‘I may owe him an apology.’

‘Then apologise,’ she says simply.

I take a swig of wine. ‘Not my forte.’

‘Yeah? No shit.’ She grins at me. ‘Iris, don’t worry. He’ll come to you anyway.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She shoots me an all-knowing smile. ‘In that dress? He’ll come to you.’

As kind and positive as Marina is being, she’s wrong. He doesn’t come to me.

I’m introduced to several of Marina and Anna’s friends, and I try my best to focus on the person I’m talking to, but my eyes are always drifting to where I last saw him, wondering if he’s still there and whether he’s getting closer.

At some point, I know I have to bite the bullet and apologise.

I’m not going to be able to enjoy myself at this party if I think that the article has gone sideways.

Once Leo has forgiven me, I can focus on relaxing.

Craning my neck to try to spot him a bit later, I get a tap on my shoulder.

‘Can you do me a favour?’ Anna asks loudly above the music that’s been turned up, as I spin round to find her right behind me.

‘Can you go to the storeroom at the back of the bar and grab another few bottles of wine? There’s no more in the fridge and I can’t find Marina anywhere. I would do it myself, but—’

‘Of course, you can’t get the drinks for your own party!’ I put my empty glass down on the bar. ‘Leave it with me.’

‘You seem like the kind of girl who would know the best wine to choose,’ she says, placing a hand on my arm. ‘These losers don’t have classy taste like you.’

As her friends pretend to act offended, I laugh and leave them to it, walking round the bar and through the door to the room at the back.

As the music descends into muffled background noise when the door shuts firmly behind me, I take a moment to appreciate being on my own.

It’s been nice meeting everyone, but a little overwhelming.

One guy seems insistent on telling me all about his deep-sea fishing adventures and, while interesting, I’m a little grossed out by the series of pictures I’ve been taken through.

Putting my hands on my hips, I survey the room in front of me.

The wall at the back is lined with fridges, and across the middle of the space, there are rows of wine cases and branded beer boxes.

I might as well take my time with this task.

I don’t want Anna to think I grabbed the first bottle I came to.

Stepping round the first aisle, I jump about a mile in the air when I see someone.

‘Oh my God!’ I gasp, putting a hand on my heart as Leo starts at my appearance. ‘You gave me a heart attack. I thought I was alone. What are you doing in here?’

‘I could ask you the same question. Did you follow me in?’ he asks accusingly, holding a bottle of wine in his hand.

‘No! We’ve run out of wine. I was coming to get some more.’

He holds up the bottle. ‘Me too. Anna asked me to pick something.’

Ah . I see what’s happened here.

‘Yeah, me too,’ I grumble.

While he carefully places the bottle back in its box, I stand there awkwardly.

‘Okay, good. I guess it’s covered then,’ I say eventually, before smoothing out a non-existent crinkle at the side of my dress and turning on my heel to march back into the party.

‘Hey London,’ he calls out after me, stopping me in my tracks.

The nickname is weirdly comforting; if he was angry at me past the point of no return, he’d be more formal.

I know it’s a mocking title rather than an affectionate one, but I don’t care – it still feels like hope.

I turn back around as he strolls round the corner of the aisle, leaning on the rack and folding his arms.

‘As much as I don’t want to admit it, I might need your help here,’ he says, gesturing to the wine cases. ‘Choosing a good wine isn’t one of my key attributes.’

‘Well, luckily for you, it is one of mine.’

‘I thought it might be.’

I walk back towards him, swanning by to study what’s on offer.

He turns to watch me, but doesn’t say anything, remaining silent while I read the labels.

I know this is my opportunity to apologise.

Or, at the very least, to address what happened the other night.

But irrationally, I find myself irritated at him.

I did message him after we spoke; I reached out. He’s the one who didn’t reply.

Selecting a bottle, I hold it out to him. ‘Here. This is a good one.’

‘We should grab a few then.’

The silence that falls between us is broken only by the clinking of the bottles knocking against each other as I pass him another two.

I can feel his eyes boring into me as I turn my back to him so I can survey some of the others that Marina stocks.

I brighten on recognising one of the labels, immediately reaching forwards to select the bottle.

‘Hey, this is the one I drank with your dad at our lunch,’ I say, smiling as I study the label. ‘It was really nice. I’ll bring some of these through too.’

‘Great,’ he says.

‘Great.’

Clutching the bottles in my arms, I stalk past him towards the door.

‘You know, London, I don’t get it,’ he says suddenly.

‘Get what? Wine?’ I ask, swivelling round to face him.

He gives me a deadpan look. ‘No, not wine. You .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Didn’t you come here to… I don’t know…’ he shrugs as well as he can while carefully balancing a load of bottles in his arms ‘…talk?’

‘I got the feeling you didn’t want to talk to me, Leo, since you haven’t replied to me. And I didn’t want to bring our… professional tension into Anna’s party.’

‘Professional tension,’ he repeats, as though it’s a stupid phrase. Which it kind of is, but I have no idea how else to put it. He brings his eyes up to meet mine. ‘I thought you wanted to apologise.’

I blink at him. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Marina hinted that you felt bad about tricking me into an interview the other night.’

‘Did she.’

‘Do you?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Feel bad,’ he says impatiently, his eyes locked with mine.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other. ‘I… well, I think what happened is that you misunderstood what was going on and if you’d listened to my—’

‘You can’t do it, can you?’ he interrupts, taking a step towards me.

‘Do what?’

‘Apologise.’

I narrow my eyes at him. ‘I apologise when I’ve done something wrong, Leo.

I won’t apologise for doing my job,’ I state defensively, despite the fact I’ve literally been telling myself all day that’s what I need to do.

‘I obviously don’t want you to be upset with me’ but—‘I wasn’t upset with you,’ he claims, his forehead creasing slightly.

‘You seemed upset when you stormed off from the beach and then didn’t reply to any of my messages asking to meet.’

‘I didn’t storm off,’ he corrects. ‘The interview was over. I had to go home.’

‘Okay, sure.’

He lifts his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I was annoyed at myself.’

‘ Why? ’ I ask, exasperated, moving closer to him. ‘Everything you said was so good! Trust me, Leo, you gave some really moving and brilliant quotes. Why would you be annoyed?’

‘Because you made me forget myself,’ he blurts out, bringing his eyes back to mine.

I stare at him. His eyes flicker down to my lips and back up again. He swallows.

Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, a flurry of butterflies burst into dance.

The door to the storeroom swings open, the creaking making both of us jump. I take a step backwards, only just realising how close we’d been standing.

Standing in the doorway, Marina smirks.

‘Oh hey you two,’ she says nonchalantly, ‘I thought I heard raised voices. I wanted to make sure you were being nice to Iris, Leo, the person who is hopefully going to write nice things about you, Burgau and this bar, which could use some more tourists spending their money here .’

She gives Leo a pointed look as she finishes her sentence through gritted teeth. He doesn’t say anything, his brow furrowed.

‘It’s all good,’ I assure her, plastering on a smile. ‘I was… apologising.’

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him look to me in surprise.

‘Great,’ Marina says, her expression relaxing. ‘You want to bring the wine through now? You don’t normally take this long to choose, Leo.’ She addresses me. ‘Did he bore you with all his wine knowledge? It’s great that he’s so into it, but he is such a snob, isn’t he?’

Rolling her eyes at him, she spins round and leaves, the door swinging closed behind her. He doesn’t hesitate to follow her out, striding past me and leaving me alone, clutching the bottles of wine in my arms, my mouth falling open as he goes.