‘OK then,’ Hugh says, but his voice is light. ‘I’ll leave you to your important work.’ He gestures at the book in my hand, Beach Read by Emily Henry. I want to punch myself in the face. Even if I tried, I couldn’t have found anything that looked less like work. I make a mental note to drag my copy of The Marinist magazine upstairs next time.

‘Can you just leave me alone? I’m trying to get some rest.’

‘Sure thing,’ Hugh says, sitting up and lazily stretching his arms out towards the sun. ‘I’ll leave you to your dreams – which is the only place you’ll ever see a butterfly wrasse.’

Before I can think of a retort, he’s gone.

We’re about to start preparing for our second dive when I reach up to touch my head and realise I made a huge mistake by not braiding my hair. My messy bun is now an actual mess. I try to run a comb through it and feel my comb start to bend with the tension, which is a bad start. I bump my elbow into the wooden frame of the bed and let out a yelp. Reluctantly, I drag myself upstairs onto the open air of the deck. Working on knots in public is embarrassing but better than having broken elbows. Painstakingly, I tease my hair into sections and comb them out one by one before pulling them into two tight French braids that run straight down the back of my head.

Hugh pops his head around just as I’m finished.

‘Vane—’ he starts to say, before realising that it’s me he’s talking to. He pauses for a beat and opens his mouth. ‘Nice braids,’ he finally says, in a tone that makes it very unclear whether he was complimenting me or making fun of my braids.

‘Thanks?’ I ask.

He cocks his head to one side and retracts his head from my vantage point. Then, seconds later, he appears again. ‘Also, looks like you missed a spot.’ He says, pointedly glancing at my shoulder. Then he goes back to his book.

I look at where his gaze had lingered, and sure enough, right on the top of my left shoulder is a bright pink sunburn. Somehow, I managed to adequately apply sunscreen everywhere but there.

Thinking about Hugh looking at me so closely, my face flushes red, even brighter than my burned patch of skin. Since our conversation earlier we had barely spoken, and he’s managed to get under my skin more than once.

About an hour ago, I had been chatting with Pippa, who was eager to pick up where our conversation left off. We were sitting in the shade sharing a bench, both of us taking a break from the sun but neither of us wanting to sit in our teeny rooms.