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His hands were holding her hungrily, his kisses fast and feverish.

She could feel how much he wanted her, pressing into her hip.

Abel moved his kisses to her neck, giving what was something between a growl and moan into her skin.

His fingers snuck underneath the halter neck of her dress at her collarbone and Temperance wished it wasn’t so well made, wished he could just break it free with one swift movement so more of her would be exposed to him.

Temperance’s fingers dug through his hair, wanting to know every texture, every taste.

Abel’s hand was on her thigh now, sliding inside the tightly-fitting skirt. Higher, higher, his fingertips brushing the fabric of her underwear.

Something deep with Temperance loosened, melted, as if a wave was washing down the sandcastle she’d built over the last twelve years to protect her heart. Her hands moved across his back, pulling him closer to her.

‘Abel.’

She whispered his name .

And the spell was broken.

Abel pulled away, sat on his heels, his eyes blinking and his head shaking. ‘No.’

Temperance felt the chilly cellar air flood around her, the absence of his body and his heat. ‘Wait, I—’

‘What have you done?’ He looked stricken, his eyes watery.

‘What have I done?!’ Every inch of Temperance’s skin felt alive still, but the instantaneous wrench from connection to isolation had her head spinning, her emotions leaping around from lust to rage. ‘I didn’t do anything – you kissed me!’

Abel was still shaking his head, tucking his shirt back in furiously. ‘We can’t do this.’

‘I hate to break it to you, but we just did.’

‘No.’ He stood all the way up and Temperance clambered ungainly, one foot at a time, to mirror him.

He spoke down to his shoes. ‘That dress – I come in and you’re in that dress.

At the festival – we danced. And being here, the memories, The Fort, it’s like old times.

But . . . but it can’t be. I can’t explain, Tee. But this is wrong.’

A bubble of rage burst behind her ribs. ‘Why can’t you say it, even now?

All this blame . . . on the dress ?! On nostalgia or whatever.

’ Her hands flapped in circles like birds trying to escape a cage.

‘Twelve years and you can’t say it. You can’t just say: “I don’t want you, Temperance Molland.

You embarrass me, you make my skin crawl. I don’t want you.”’

He reeled back a step. ‘That’s not it. That’s never been it.’

‘Then what is it?’ Temperance grabbed at his arm, not with affection but to make him turn and look at her again.

‘Because I want you too much, Tee. I can’t control how much I want you.’ He walked over to the door, closed it again and leant against the wood .

Tears prickled at the edges of Temperance’s vision. ‘What? How . . . how does that work? You left me. No warning, no real explanation. You just left and never came back. People don’t do that to the people they care about.’

Abel’s head tipped back and he pressed his hand over his eyes.

‘It was a few weeks before your birthday and I’d been working on this present for you, for ages, really.

In secret. I couldn’t wait to see your face when you opened it.

All I wanted was to make you happy. And that’s when I realised I wanted you to be more than just my best mate.

But I didn’t know how to tell you. What if I messed it all up?

So I didn’t say anything. I thought maybe the present would say it for me.

’ He took in a deep breath. ‘The morning of your birthday, Mum comes in as I’m trying to wrap it at the kitchen table and she sees it too: that I’m in love with you. So she gave me the Gulliver Talk.’

Temperance frowned. ‘We all get that talk, Abel.’

He shook his head wearily. ‘Not this one. This is . . . just for the Gulliver men.’ His eyes suddenly flicked to hers.

‘You’re not going to believe this when I tell you.

It sounds mad – I know it’s true and it still sounds insane to me.

It’s a bit,’ his hands were held out at his sides, ‘woo woo, if you know what I mean? But it’s why – when I had that dream that Gran was in danger, I had to come back.

Because those things can be real , Tee.’

‘Go on,’ she urged. After so long, it seemed like Temperance was going to have her answers. But they were starting to sound more complicated than she’d ever imagined. Her heart being pulled apart by both terror and relief.

‘Right. You already know my dad left my mum not long after I was born? Did you also know my grandad left Margie not long after she had their third kid? And if you go back through our family tree – well, it looks more like a family telephone pole, because the branches with the men just vanish. They all leave. Uncles, cousins, all of them. There are plenty of weddings, but no anniversary parties.’

Temperance fiddled with an unpeeling wine label. ‘You think you’ll be like them, a bad dad? So you don’t want any sort of commitment, is that it?’

He sucked in a breath. ‘I don’t think I might be like them, I know I will.

Because it’s in my bloodline. Mum literally took me through the big family album.

All the way back to the Victorians. There are wives and kid, but that’s it.

The men have all gone. They’ll be blissfully happy raising their families one day, in another county by the next.

Gran hoped it wouldn’t be true for Dad, but it was. ’

‘So you think it’s like . . . a personality disorder in your genes maybe?’

‘No. Not that I would choose that, but at least it would be more straight-forward to explain.’ Abel gave a cold, dry laugh.

‘I’ve heard a lot of weird shit in my time, Abe, believe me. Just . . . tell me .’

He cracked his knuckles. ‘Family legend goes that we were smugglers, the Gullivers, way back. And we were damned good at it. Until one Gulliver went too far. Jack Gulliver. He had an agreement with a local woman – she would help him with safe passage and he would split the rum haul with her. Only he cut her out, thought he’d get one over on the lonely old hag everyone laughed at, the woman who danced under a full moon. ’

Temperance felt a wave of doom crawl over her skin.

Oh no. No no.

‘The legend goes that she,’ he squeezed his eyes shut, ‘oh man, this sounds nuts. She was a witch.’ He said the word like it was spiky on his tongue.

‘And her revenge on Jack taking what was rightfully hers was to curse him and all the Gulliver men that followed. They would never again hold on to what they loved.’ Abel put his hands to his hips.

‘Pretty clever as curses go – didn’t stop him loving, but made sure he and everyone around him would feel the misery of love being taken away.

Over and over again. Mum felt it when Dad walked out on us.

Even though he’d always said the curse was bullshit – boom, it worked on him too.

So mum wanted to warn me, when she saw how much I .

. . what I was feeling for you, Tee. She couldn’t bear for you and I to go through it all.

She loves you like a daughter, you know?

The best thing we could think of was just leaving.

No chance of me breaking your heart, put all the memories of Dad behind us too. A clean break.’ He shrugged.

The wine label was now a hundred tiny pieces at Temperance’s feet. ‘But Cass? Or the next fling you have. You’re going to do this to her one day? You’re not bothered about that?’

Abel stared directly into her soul. ‘I did my best to stay away from any kind of relationship that could get serious, that could potentially trigger it.’ He threw his hands up for a beat.

‘I’ll admit I haven’t been a monk – it’s a bit of a tall order to stay celibate your whole adult life.

And I like Cass.’ Temperance felt the words sting at her already-bruised heart.

‘But it isn’t what I feel for you, Tee. It isn’t a drop in that ocean. ’

‘ What you feel ? So you still . . .’ Temperance jumped hungrily on the present tense.

‘No – no I’m not going to hurt you, Temperance. I could never do that.’

His mouth opened again but then he snapped it shut, wrenched open the door and strode away.