He winked at Jo, before he glanced down to Clara, who dropped her hand from Jo’s and reached out to Lorcan instead, before leading him through to the kitchen.

‘Thank you,’ Jo mouthed as he walked past her and she realised that being a kind friend also involved making a child your friend loved with all her heart feel like a proper princess, whether or not she was wearing a Merida dress.

This was Lorcan. Caring. Protective. Willing to make a complete eejit of himself just to make a child smile. He had turned all of her expectations of him entirely on their head, and she was struck by a feeling that this man – the man currently helping Clara fill a vase with water – was real and genuine.

Her heart contracted, not only that he would be going back to England in a couple of weeks, but also that their timing was so bad.

After dinner, they all watched Toy Story together, during which Lorcan maintained a respectful silence, much to Clara’s approval, and then he’d read her two bedtime stories and would have read a third if Jo hadn’t rescued him.

‘You have a fan,’ she told him with a smile.

‘Only the one?’ he replied before he issued an invitation to Jo to join him for a drink at The Ivy Inn.

With her tummy still feeling wobbly, and certainly not just because of the jelly, she slipped on her denim jacket and caught her reflection in the mirror in the hallway. In that moment, she thought about how brave she had been in this last week. How she had experienced highs and lows, and everything in between, but had ultimately come out on top.

She wondered what would happen if she just took one more chance and revealed to him just exactly how she felt.

She straightened herself, lifted her bag and followed Lorcan out of the door.

They fell into their usual pattern of laughing and chatting as they walked. He punched the air in triumph when she told him about her call with Ewan, then asked her when she would allow him to read her work.

Despite blushing at the thought, she decided to be brave and tell him she would send him some in the morning. To her surprise, it didn’t feel as scary as before to share her work. Maybe she had something to thank Ewan McLachlan for anyway – because thanks to him, and the wonderful Graham Westbury, she was finally feeling like a proper writer. Or maybe it was just that she knew, without doubt, that Lorcan would be kind and supportive.