‘No. But Tony O’Dowd was. The reason Joy never told him about Jonty was because after he’d proposed to her in secret, she caught him with another woman. Having realised she was pregnant, she’d decided to forgive his dreadful mistake when a different fiancée he’d forgotten to mention turned up. Tony O’Dowd was a lying, cheating charmer. Even worse, he was a selfish coward, equally careless with friends and family as he was with women. Your grandmother was only glad she found out in time. He pursued her, still hungry for the second-hand fame and fortune. Once she made it clear that wasn’t happening, he married the original fiancée.’

‘He must have known he could be Dad’s father.’

‘He didn’t want to know, so didn’t ask.’

Jed took another swig of beer. ‘Would you have told us, if we’d asked before we started looking?’

Mum shook her head. ‘I might have persuaded your dad to, if I failed to convince you the search would be fruitless.’

‘Well, at least we managed to avoid upsetting Nana Joy.’ I stood up, beyond ready to crawl under my childhood duvet and stay there for a very long time.

Once in bed, I opened my laptop and turned to the comforting ritual of my weather websites and social media groups. Scrolling through the data, I offered brief replies to those messaging with queries about their upcoming events, and made a note of those I’d be highlighting in tomorrow’s broadcast. Getting lost in my passion wasn’t quite enough to dispel the crushing regret, but at least it helped.

I was nearing the end of my notifications before I remembered that I’d had a text message back in the restaurant. I checked my phone and saw that it had been Adam.

I’m so happy you said yes. Can’t wait for the big do!

What the hell?

I presumed Adam was talking about New Year’s Eve, and hadn’t somehow invented a fantasy acceptance to his proposal, but the heart, champagne and clinking-glass emojis conveyed a completely false impression.

I shuddered to imagine the response if someone else had spotted this.

And then I remembered how Henry’s mood had changed after he’d picked my phone up off the floor.

Various thoughts tumbled into my head in rapid succession:

Henry thought I’d got engaged to Adam, and he was angry about it.

Was he angry because he didn’t like Adam (which I knew to be true) or because… because he did like me (which I knew to be far less likely)?

And if he did, then what?