Suddenly she was just very, very tired and more than a little drunk. While she tried to make sense of the evening, she drifted off.

When she woke to see sunlight peeping in through the curtains, she felt as if she had barely closed her eyes. It couldn’t possibly be morning. Her body yearned to just roll over, especially given the comfort of her bed, and go back to sleep.

However, when she looked at her phone it was already gone half past seven and she was supposed to meet Ewan for breakfast at eight.

With her phone unlocked, she saw that it was still open at the message from Lorcan. Reading it again, in the midst of her hangover, she felt the need to try and make things right with him. They didn’t have to be best friends. They didn’t even have to be friends at all, but she hated that she had fallen out with him and she wanted so much to fix that. She tapped a quick reply.

I’m back in Derry later today. Maybe we can meet for coffee tomorrow?

She would leave it up to Lorcan, but she hoped they could start again. For now, she just had to get through one more day with Ewan and for some reason that prospect made her very nervous indeed. And she must admit she didn’t feel great this morning.

Thankfully, she felt marginally more human after she had washed and dressed in fresh clothes. With every stroke of her make-up brush, she transformed herself from hung-over zombie creature into Jo Campbell, aspiring writer and consummate professional, ready to go to her breakfast meeting and discuss pacing and plot twists like she absolutely knew what she was doing. And like she absolutely hadn’t been kissed by her co-writer the day before.

She made herself a cup of coffee and sipped from it, before she opened the curtains and balcony door and walked out into the fresh air. She reminded herself to breathe in and breathe out again. Looking out at Lough Eske, she centred herself. In fact, Jo was so calm that she jumped and swore when the beeping of her phone pulled her out of her contemplative relaxation.

Chances were, she thought, that it was Ewan telling her to hurry up. Or Lorcan letting her know that he would meet her for coffee. She absolutely did not expect it to be an email from someone with the exact same name as one of the biggest literary agents in the business. In fact, it was the same literary agent who represented Ewan McLachlan.

The subject matter read: ‘The Lies We Tell’.