Tears had washed away Lily’s make-up and pain had drawn lines on her face. The sight of her injured hand – protruding from the sling, ballooning and purple-red – made Isaac wince. She held it as if she could hardly bear the touch of the air and he tried to imagine what state he would have been in if the heavy counter flap had crashed down on his unprotected head. It might have killed him.

He owed her big time.

He crossed to her kitchen units, filled the kettle and switched it on, working his way through cupboards until he located mugs and coffee. He glanced around himself as he took milk from the fridge. He liked the airy, unclutteredness of the living space they were in, which contained the kitchen area, the small blue sofa Lily was presently collapsed upon, a workstation with a laptop on it and a table shoved against the wall with two chairs. He could see into a little hall that there was a bathroom and assumed it also led to her bedroom.

He wondered whether he’d ever find out. Since he’d made such an arse of things when she’d come on to him she’d been as distant as the moon. It had taken her sister inflicting actual bodily harm on her for her to let him near.

Isaac didn’t think he’d ever forget the deafening crash of the counter flap and Lily’s agonised scream. He shivered at the remembered rush of horror. It had been automatic to take control of the situation, to establish she didn’t need an ambulance and to get her into his car. It wasn’t until he’d been sitting with her beneath the unforgiving lights of A and E and he’d watched her quivering with pain that reaction had caught up with him.

Waves of nausea had rolled over him at the sight of her bruised and bloodied hand. Sweat had beaded on his forehead when she’d trembled in pain. He’d wanted to scoop her onto his lap and cradle her, to try and absorb some of her hurt.

He’d actually found it hard to be civil to Zinnia but Lily hadn’t tried to send her home so they’d been stuck with her, apologising tearfully until Isaac had to literally bite his lip on, ‘A bit late to be sorry now, isn’t it?’ Tempestuous, flame-tempered Zinnia. He could shake her for barging in to the pub and screaming at Lily. It had been a really shit way for Lily to learn her parents were splitting up.

When he’d made the drinks he took them over, sat down beside her carefully so as not to joggle her injury and took her good hand in his. ‘Do you think you should miss the Switzerland trip?’

Her head rolled slightly side to side. ‘Can’t. I’ll have to find another driver, that’s all.’