‘About twenty minutes until we drop anchor for the afternoon dive,’ Aaron announces, startling me so badly that I jump an inch off my seat, Hugh stifling a chuckle from the seat next to me.

I drag myself downstairs to review Millie’s notes one more time. I try to think of ways to change up my strategy, maybe I need to spend longer monitoring under the coral instead of hovering over it, or maybe I need to expand where I’m searching to more than just staghorn . . . I reread her notes for the third time. She’s meticulous and clear, but I can hardly concentrate. I’m not sure what game Hugh is playing anymore, whether he’s purposefully trying to distract me from the reason I’m here, but whatever he’s doing, it’s working.

I am in the middle of strategising how to stop Hugh from getting in my head, or at least how to get him out of my head while we’re diving, when Miguel steps directly into my line of sight to ask if I want to do the night dive. I had been staring at Natalie and Hugh, who are talking at the far end of the boat. Natalie has on such a skimpy bikini that I wonder how she manages to keep it covering the right bits when she pulls her stinger suit on. She’s laughing at Hugh and places a hand gently on his bicep. Something stirs in my belly. I can’t tell if it’s anxiety or jealousy, but whatever it is, I don’t like it.

‘Millie?’ Miguel asks again, following my gaze towards Hugh. Both of us watch Natalie toss her head back and laugh. ‘Night dive?’ he prompts, mercifully not addressing the conversation we are both watching. ‘You really should go, you won’t want to miss it.’ He’s holding a clipboard with our names on it, marking who is signing up for the dive so he can enter it into the dive logs.

I hesitate.

‘I’ll protect you!’ Miguel says, flashing the papers at me one more time.

I nod. ‘I guess,’ I answer reluctantly. I can’t not go, not while I’m on an all-expenses paid Great Barrier Reef trip. That would be criminal. But night diving is terrifying, and I’ve only done it once before, with Millie, who made me go. I was scared the entire time. The ocean is so dark. You can’t see anything around you. I felt like I was inches away from a shark or an eel (they have surprisingly strong and dangerous jaws) at every moment.