‘Here’s the logo for Carlysle Courtyard.’ It glowed from the laptop screen, golden-yellow lettering surrounded by green. She twisted her hair back up again, this time with fewer escaping tendrils. ‘I need ads, flyers and posters. Do you want to do the creative stuff and I’ll do the resizing for various social media channels?’

‘Sure.’ He freshened their glasses of wine and they worked together for another hour. Then Hannah closed her laptop. ‘It’s nearly eleven! I’ve kept you too long but it was great of you to give me your time. You can do this stuff twice as quickly as I can.’ Her eyes sparkled, possibly because she’d drunk half a bottle of wine. She stretched, her body moving sinuously beneath her top and a lock of hair floating free again.

He found himself reluctant for the evening to end. ‘I was sorry to hear you’d lost the shop.’

Her sparkle drained away. ‘I thought I could keep it but I was outmanoeuvred.’

‘Really?’ He tried to make the word an invitation to confide. Curiosity was human. He’d left her in Stockholm two weeks ago apparently settled into Swedish life with a Swedish boyfriend and a business in the beating heart of the city.

She sighed. ‘Albin—’ Lines of grief puckered the skin above her eyes.

‘Albin’s your boyfriend?’ She’d never officially told him she had a boyfriend. She’d left that little morsel to her brother.

She sucked in a wavering breath. ‘He—’

Nico’s phone began to ring where it lay on the table. Loren flashed up on the screen.

Hannah must have read it because she sprang to her feet. ‘I’ll leave you to answer,’ she gabbled, scooping her possessions into her backpack.

It wasn’t a call he could ignore anyway. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, watching her hurry into her coat, looping a lilac scarf around her neck. She sent him a small smile and mouthed, ‘Goodnight and thank you,’ as he said, ‘Hello, Loren,’ into the phone.

‘How are the girls?’ Loren asked, sounding ineffably weary.

‘Fine. Sleeping peacefully. We visited what we hope will be Josie’s new school today and she liked it. The social worker, Gloria, is coming on Friday to visit Maria.’

The door clicked shut behind Hannah.

Nico turned his attention to being a dad.

Chapter Sixteen

It was the second day of what Hannah thought of as The Great Courtyard Clean-Up and Christopher Carlysle was striding about, huffing and puffing that he hadn’t bargained for ‘all these costs’. Estate workers backed a truck in to load up builders’ debris and Cassie hovered around uncertainly. Her Hunter boots and waxed jacket looked as if they’d never seen mud.