In the run up to the holiday, Nick started making excuses. He’d hurt his ankle playing football so couldn’t go to the cinema, he couldn’t make dinner because he had to stay late at work. He hadn’t answered her texts because his phone had run out of battery. She knew what was coming. It had happened to her so many times before, but rather than confront him, she blocked it out. He was going through a wobble, she told herself. They happened in all relationships. She just had to sit it out, give him space, and wait for him to remember how much he loved her. But it was hard to talk on the phone and pretend nothing was wrong when Nick yawned into her ear and told her he couldn’t talk long because he needed an early night. Or when the only texts he sent her were in response to something she had sent him. She stopped texting, to see what he’d do and, for forty-eight unbearable hours, she watched and she waited, snatching up her mobile whenever it pinged. Nick was still using WhatsApp. She could see the last time he’d accessed it and it hurt knowing he had time to message other people but not her.

Finally, she caved and tapped out a message: What’s going on with us? Almost instantly, two blue ticks appeared beside her question. She watched the top of the screen, waiting for the words Nick is typing to appear. But they didn’t. And that night she went to bed with the phone in her hand and her heart empty.

There was someone else, Nick told her the next day. Someone from work. He hadn’t meant it to happen – neither had she – and they couldn’t ignore the chemistry. Jenna thought she couldn’t possibly feel more hurt or betrayed … until she received a text from her mother. What do you mean Nick has finished with you? What did you do?

She threw her phone at the wall.

She was still hurting six months later, when she went out for a birthday dinner with her friends and got beautifully, riotously drunk. If Jenna’s life was a line of dominos, all but one had been knocked to the floor. Her career bored her, her boyfriend had cheated on her and she’d lost her self-respect. But at least she still had her family, as dysfunctional as it was. And then Fran gave her a present and kicked the last domino down.

Now, she jolts in her seat as someone knocks against the high back of her chair. A dark head peers down at her and warm, red-wine breath fills her nostrils. Damian’s found her.