So she did. She matched him stroke for stroke as they headed into the choppier water, away from the stillness of the bay. They continued to swim, neither of them saying a word, until Jenna flipped onto her back and stared up at the pink-streaked clouds overhead.

‘This is incredible and ridiculous all at the same time.’

Tom snorted softly. ‘Do you feel better than you did on the plane? Less panicky?’

She twisted back onto her front, fighting to control her chattering teeth. ‘All I can think about is how cold I am!’

‘Good. Stop thinking and reconnect with your body. Mindfulness at its best.’

‘Couldn’t we meditate by a fire instead?’

He laughed then flipped onto his back, spreading his arms wide. He wasn’t shivering and shuddering like her but the skin on his arms was pale and pinched. Jenna watched, hands sculling under the water, legs frantically kicking, as his body gently rose and fell with each gently undulating wave.

She’d got him wrong, she realised, heart sinking. He wasn’t interested in her, not the way she thought he was. He was treating her like a client, as he was supposed to. The reason he’d touched her arm on the plane and whispered in her ear that they should meet later wasn’t to show her how attracted he was to her, it was to reassure and ground her. They were bobbing around in the sea at sunset, not because it was a romantic rendezvous but because he felt she needed help. He was probably planning on doing cold water swims with all of the guests. No wonder he was so surprised when she’d admitted lying to Erica about where she was going.

‘You’re hard to read.’ There was a hard note to her voice, a biro scribble over the soft pencil mark of her feelings.

‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you try to read everyone you meet?’

She thought about the clients that visited her physiotherapy clinic, their expressions as strained as their bodies. She thought about Nick, her ex-boyfriend, carrying the stress of a tough day at work into a restaurant or pub, her friends’ forced smiles when someone they didn’t like walked into a room, her mother’s exasperated eye roll, her father’s stunted emotions and Fran’s obvious discomfort when someone reached for a hug. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Do you have many psychopaths on your retreats?’

He laughed then twisted in the water so he was upright again. ‘We need to get out before hypothermia sets in.’

She looked back towards the shore. ‘That’s fine by me.’

‘Do you feel ready to talk?’ Tom asks now. The sea is far behind them, the cliff tops too. In a couple of hundred metres they’ll be back at the hotel.