‘Wow.’ Nico let the news sink in. ‘So that’s why she was able to come and look after your grandmother.’ He remembered how, that night he’d helped with her spreadsheets, she’d begun to say something about Albin. Then Loren had phoned and she’d made a hasty exit instead.

‘That’s right.’ Rob broke off to give his drinks order to the barista, who looked to be about twenty, hair in two French plaits. He went on. ‘When I saw you two smooching at the wedding I suspected she wasn’t feeling everything for Albin she should have been. Bloody glad.’

Nico winced. ‘You reminded me about not going after a teammate’s sister but you also wanted me to know she had a boyfriend.’ Was he meant to apologise?

Rob received a pint of beer from the barista and sucked off the froth, eyebrows flipping up. ‘Remind you? I was trying to tell you not to worry about that old crap! I’d have loved you to get Hannah away from Albin. But Albin’s history anyway, so no prob.’

What?

Mind spinning, Nico carried a tray of drinks through the crowd of drinkers, pausing whenever Rob greeted someone. Their conversation at the wedding had been interrupted but the mention of a boyfriend and the old ‘teammate law’ had made Nico withdraw from Hannah. And yet, immediately after the wedding, her relationship had ended?

Finally reaching the table through the throng of chattering customers, he distributed the drinks. Hannah, Maria still flaked out on her shoulder, sent him a fleeting smile as she listened to Leesa talk of the unbroken yellow sand of Calangute Beach in Goa.

The urge to try and get closer to Hannah burst into flame inside him but he forced himself to sit down and think the situation through. He was off to Sweden on Friday. Hannah was wrapped up in Carlysle Courtyard. She’d just come out of a long relationship and he hadn’t discovered how she felt about that. Then there was his single-dad baggage …

As if that baggage wished to emphasise its presence, his phone began to ring.

Josie rolled her eyes. ‘At least it can’t be work, Dad.’ It gave him an uncomfortable insight into how used she was to work intruding in their life. He saw Vivvi on the screen and said soothingly, ‘It’s Grandma.’ Presumably she was responding to his calls and texts at long last. ‘Hold on,’ he said into the phone then, glancing round the table, ‘OK to leave the girls for a minute while I take this?’ Reassured by a round of good-natured agreement he moved to an empty table in the far corner.

‘Sorry,’ Nico said to Vivvi. ‘Thanks for returning my call. We need to talk about Maria—’

Vivvi bulldozed over him. ‘Loren’s going into rehab for twenty-eight days.’

‘Rehab?’ Nico repeated stupidly. ‘Rehab’ was a word he associated with celebrities.