He looks at her. He blinks. ‘I just need some time,’ he says eventually, picking his words carefully. ‘You say we weren’t suited but …’ He trails off, the silence leaving room for what he’s said before. He thought this was it. Isn’t that the dream? To finally realise your friend is the one you’ve been looking for this whole time. After twelve years of knowing her, he’d thought it had all worked out like it was supposed to: the picture-perfect love story for the picture-perfect couple. But he’d been wrong. The thing is, Daphne knows him better than anyone in the world, and so if she thinks it isn’t right, he gets that he’s supposed to listen. It’s just … God. It’s so hard. He hates being single. He loves love! It’s the best thing in the world! And it keeps eluding him.

‘This is messy – I understand that,’ Daphne says. ‘But when you’re ready … I’d like us to try and be what we were. Before.’

He nods. ‘Before,’ he echoes.

‘I think we can,’ she offers. ‘If we try.’

He drains his glass. ‘You’re taking advantage of the fact I can’t ever stay mad at you,’ he notes, and she winks at him, a risk that pays off.

‘Only partly.’ She grins, and when Duke pulls a face, she concedes: ‘Okay. A bit more than partly.’

‘Time,’ he repeats. ‘I’m not mad so much as … sad. I wish it could have been different.’

‘I know,’ she agrees. ‘But I also know there’s a huge love out there for you, far bigger and brighter and happier than anything we could have had. I’m never wrong …’

Duke rolls his eyes in spite of himself.

‘On this occasion,’ he admits. ‘I really hope not.’

‘I’ve got a feeling,’ Daphne tells him, standing up to leave, ‘that a great love is right around the corner for you.’

5

Evie

Evie hears his arrival at the team meeting before she sees anything of him. The small crowd of surprisingly middle-aged women who had assembled by the doors of their hotel start to murmur and then whoop, crescendoing with cries of Duke! Duke! as he (presumably) exits the lift that faces directly onto the glass-fronted exit.