‘Kirsty,’ I said through gritted teeth. Why hadn’t I thought about it? It was Sunday morning and Kirsty always walked her Nana’s poodle along the beach on a Sunday when she wasn’t working. Bloody typical that I’d bump into her.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’ she purred, pawing at the dark-haired man next to her while the poodle yapped and tried to jump up at me.

Jemma had moved out of the hug but I kept my arm round her shoulders, feeling as though I needed to protect her from the viper in front of us. ‘Jemma, Kirsty. Kirsty, Jemma.’ I wasn’t going to expand on it.

‘Ah! So you’re Kirsty,’ Jemma said. ‘You’re not at all how I imagined you. I thought you’d be wearing doggy ears, a collar and a lead.’

The smile slipped from Kirsty’s bright red lips for a brief moment and, much as I wanted to laugh and cheer at Jemma’s witty comment, I knew that Kirsty was about to fire back with something bitchy.

Turning her attention to me, Kirsty grinned. ‘After you ran away to London like a scared little boy, we all thought you were going to pine for surfer girl forever. Looks like we were wrong. You obviously didn’t give a shit about her after all, given that you’ve moved onto a new one so quickly. What would Nikki say, knowing that you were being unfaithful to her memory so soon? Tut tut.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t think much of the replacement either, but you never could handle a real woman, could you?’

She was clearly waiting for a response but I wasn’t going to rise to it. She looked Jemma up and down and sneered, then threw a seductive look at me. Pathetic. I turned away, making her tut.

‘Bye, losers.’

‘I’m so sorry, Sam,’ Jemma said, as my arm slipped off her shoulder. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘You weren’t to know how she’d respond.’

‘I could have guessed based on what you’d told me. After this morning’s incident, you’d think I’d have learned when to keep my big gob shut and… and now I’m wittering again instead of shutting up. Sorry.’

I twisted round and looked back down the beach towards the rock pools. Bloody Kirsty. Five minutes ago, I’d felt so elated. But now…

I turned back to Jemma. She looked up at me with those big innocent eyes of hers and I swallowed hard. ‘I’d better get to my brother’s for lunch before they send out a search party. Do you need a lift anywhere?’