‘Hi everyone,’ Jake said, and the chatter in the room died down. He looked at me but I looked down at my phone and started filming. Hayley was leaning against the wall on the other side and I didn’t want her to see us have any sort of connection. If she was angry with me now, I knew it would be nothing if she found out we’d been far less than professional while we were here.

‘I wanted to thank you all for your support by reading a couple of chapters from…’ Jake began, saying what Hayley had told him to. But then he looked at me again and sighed. ‘Actually, before I do a reading, I have something to say,’ he said.

I glanced at Hayley, who was frowning.

‘I know that at the last reader session, you all left with mixed feelings. Because I told you why I acted like I didn’t care about romance books or any of you; I wanted to keep a personal secret from getting out but I realise now that by telling half of the story, you can’t really understand what was going on. And I might not get another romance book published. I don’t want to leave this conference and have any of you thinking that I haven’t loved this career, and telling the stories that I have done. If this book…’ he waved his Kindle, ‘…never sees the light of day, I still want to be an author you can enjoy reading. So…’ He took a deep breath.

Hayley stepped off the wall and was about to say something but Jake turned to her with such a glare, she paused. I bit my lips to hide a smile. It was good to see her falter just once.