She was sick to her stomach, betrayed and most of all hugely disappointed that Ewan, who had made her heart sing with his kiss, may have been using her all along. That he may just have seen her as little more than a means to an end for him. He must’ve thought all his ships had come in when her book had landed in his email inbox. Even more so when he met her and saw how naive and hopeful she was. Green around the ears and only too willing to disappear off into the sunset with him for a couple of days to help him get it very clear in his head just how much of her story he would be pinching.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this before you went,’ Lorcan said.

‘I wouldn’t have listened,’ she said, honestly. She had been too swept away in the notion of it all. ‘What do I do?’ she asked.

Lorcan shrugged. ‘Contact his agent. Ask to chat to him ASAP. I’m sure this will work out.’

‘I hope so,’ she said, ‘I really do.’ But in that moment, the euphoria of the last twenty-four hours gone, Jo didn’t see how it could.

She wanted to call Ewan and demand answers from him. She wanted to shout and scream and tell him he was an awful, horrible person and she was sorry she’d ever trusted him, let alone kissed him. And she’d confided in him about Clara, about her family. Her hopes and dreams. She had let him in and he had taken advantage of her.

She felt a hand on her knee and she allowed herself to lean into Lorcan.

‘We’ll fix this,’ he said and the use of the word ‘we’ made her feel safe.

‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘After how I spoke to you, you would’ve been well within your rights to never speak to me again. Thank you.’

He shrugged. ‘No need to thank me,’ he said. ‘That’s what friends are for.’

Friends. The word wasn’t lost on her. But she did feel conflicted. Friends was good, she realised. But maybe, she realised, more than friends would have been better. If only she hadn’t messed that particular opportunity up by revealing her warts and all personality. A man with as much emotional baggage as Lorcan Gallagher would be unlikely to be interested in a woman with a matching set of luggage.

‘Right,’ Jo said and opened the email app on her phone. First of all, she would contact Graham Westbury and ask to speak with him at his earliest convenience.

Then she opened WhatsApp and tapped out a message to Ewan.