Henry shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans and shrugged on a jumper over his shirt. It might be the afternoon in Singapore, but the sun was rising over the vineyards in Hawke’s Cove, touching the fields with gold. Once again, he was drawn to the window that looked over the impressive estate, vainly trying to see what it was about it that his father had loved more than his wife and child.

The early summer sun picked out the dips and troughs of the sweeping hills. Blake’s precious vines had tripled in size, winding their way down the bank, and glinting off the glass plates of the orangery at the back of the house.

House. Not home. Not all the things that would be, could be, conjured by the word. Henry longed for the smooth sleek lines of his New York apartment. The hustle and bustle of the noise that hummed constantly from the chaotic streets, tourists and builders flowing forth as if different tides fighting against the other.

The silence here was unsettling. He could lie to himself and put down his sleepless nights to that, but he wouldn’t. Because he had stopped lying to himself years ago. When he’d realized that his behaviour had been nothing more than that of a child acting out, resentful of one parent who couldn’t care less and one who cared too much. When his behaviour and selfishness had finally tipped to such devastating depths as to irrevocably damage those around him. He cursed loudly into the room where no one could hear. It was too early for the kind of self-recrimination that usually came with a late night and a bottle of whisky. That was what being back here did to him. Turned him back into the angry young boy and away from the calm, professional, successful man he had become.

He was about to leave, when a bright flash of orange caught his eye. Drawn, reluctantly but curiously, back to the window he caught sight of a figure on a bicycle. As the sun glinted off trails of auburn hair held up with what looked improbably like chopsticks from this distance, he realized that there was only one person it could be. The last person he ever wanted it to be.

She wasn’t going to punch him.

She was going to kill him.

Literally.

She snapped the secateurs repeatedly, her grip firm, as she cast her eye around the herb garden. Lily had been feeling quite positive about the whole thing, hoping to extend an invitation of truce, to start over again, after their last painful confrontation. Until she’d let herself into the walled herb garden and seen …

She could cry.