‘Duke …’ Evie says, softly, stopping. She touches his arm, and he looks down at it, then back up at her. She forgets what she was going to say. It doesn’t seem fair that he has to hold in so much pain. At least Evie’s mom doted on her whilst she still could – although maybe that makes it worse. If she’d be an awful mother, it might not hurt so much to lose her. As it stands, it feels like a death without a body to bury. Sometimes Evie wonders, in the absolute dead of night, if she isn’t just waiting for her mother to die, so they can both be released from purgatory.

They’re stood still now, Evie and Duke, and she hasn’t taken her hand off his arm. She can’t be sure who has instigated the lack of distance between them, but the gap has closed. They’re maybe a hand’s width apart, and she didn’t realise the depth of his eyes before, how they tell so many stories without a word. She could melt into those eyes. She could do nothing else for many more days except look into those eyes. Is that too much? She doesn’t care. He’s beautiful. Not handsome. Beautiful. And she’s misjudged him. She assumed he had it all, this fancy actor in the lead role of her book’s movie, assumed that cartoon birds dressed him and his pavements were paved with gold. She’s been unfair. Even with the fake-dating – it seems to be causing him pain, somehow. She can see that now. It’s just another role required of him by others.

She’s ninety-nine per cent sure that he is one hundred per cent out of her league, but she thinks, in this moment, as they continue to get, minute millimetre by minute millimetre, just a little bit closer, that she could kiss him. So she leans in, caution to the wind and taking her chance, willing to risk it all in case she’s wrong and he might just kiss her back, and she swears he leans in as well. He’s not repulsed by her, he doesn’t hate her. Actually, he might want this too …

The church clock chimes again, and Evie leaps back, coming to her senses.

What was she thinking?

She can’t fall for him, can’t kiss him, can’t be feeling any of this.

‘We should head back,’ she announces, clearing her throat with a cough. Duke frowns, just a tiny amount, and then murmurs agreement.

‘Okay,’ he says, and they head back to the hotel in silence, exactly as they seem to have done many times before.

‘Coffee,’ Evie says. ‘I cannot face this day on no sleep without coffee.’