She stood looking out across the estate, her arms wrapped around herself. He had a flash of how those arms had wrapped around him during that night they’d shared. Mind out of the gutter, Hawkesbury, he ordered himself. Only it wasn’t the gutter. It had been the most magical night of his life. Something he had been sure he’d not deserved. Something he still not might deserve. But he had to tell her. Had to explain.

He shucked off his suit jacket and laid it over the old wooden bench, terrified of damaging the dress that made her look like a wood nymph. Her rich chestnut-coloured hair had been spun into ropes and pinned up into something that probably had a fancy name and looked sophisticated but was still Lily. In the last few weeks he’d become used to seeing her hair down. The way it had fanned out across the pillow and his sheets that night, the way it had framed her beautiful face. The sage green dress flowed around her like silks, caught on the gentle breeze and hinting at, then concealing, her glorious figure.

When she turned to him, he saw the green sapphire Ollie had told him about the day he’d brought him up here to see the vineyard.

‘I’m so pleased you got them,’ he said, noticing the way it sparkled in the sun. ‘Ollie had asked me to make sure they got to the hen party as a surprise for you all.’

Her eyes, watchful and wary – as if suddenly she wasn’t sure what he wanted, what he was going to say – cleared for a moment.

‘Henry, what you did for the hen party … I can’t thank you enough.’

Good God, he’d walked out on her the morning after they had shared an incredible night together without a word, without an explanation and she was thanking him?

‘Lily—’

‘No. Wait. I want to say this. No matter what happened, before or after, that was truly a beautiful thing you did for us and I … Thank you.’

‘You.’

‘What?’ she asked.

‘I did it for you.’ He wanted her to know that. Needed her to.

He gestured for her to sit on his jacket laid on the bench.

She frowned and started to object.

‘Lily, sit on the bloody bench,’ he growled. Because if she were sitting, it would be harder for her to run away. And even though, technically he’d done that to her, he had, in his own way, been running towards her. Felt as if he’d been doing it even before his return to Hawke’s Cove.

She plonked herself down on the bench so primly, he had to stifle a smile. Even now – even when he wanted to tear his heart out and rip the words from his chest – she could still make him smile.

‘I … well, first I need to apologize.’

‘There’s no—’