Had she walked through the same rooms with Blake picking out the décor? Had she been involved in the resolution to convert the east wing entirely to suit paying customer needs? Or had that been just his father? When he looked out of the window as the sun set below the sprawling layers of vines, he asked himself, had she suggested expanding their grape variety? Had she helped bring Blake’s distillery into the twenty-first century, or had it been done so purely for commercial needs?

Never before had he felt the absence of the last ten years so strongly. He hated the fact that she held answers to questions he hadn’t realized needed resolving. And still he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear them. But just as he’d realized that the fridge was barely equipped with the basics of even beans on toast, he remembered his thoughtless teasing about her restaurant and seized it like a lifeline. Maybe he could find out just how good her sea buckthorn reduction really was and begin a parlay that would see him with a tour guide for the prospective buyers.

The Sea Rose had surprised him. He vaguely remembered the butcher’s that had once stood on the same spot, but as with many of the other shops along the harbour’s edge, it was now something completely different.

He’d walked on past Lily’s restaurant, curious about the changes to the harbour the last ten years had wrought. And now he’d wished he hadn’t. He’d been struck by a kind of seasickness, almost like the opposite of déjà vu, where he’d expected to feel familiarity but didn’t.

He’d stood at the bottom of the jetty that struck out towards the sea, the sounds of gulls overhead and water crashing against stone below, and not seen any of the gentrification that seemed to have taken place, despite the large fishing trawlers that still stood sentinel at the edges of the harbour.

Where the new wrought-iron benches bordered the boardwalk, he remembered kicking and pulling at the ancient, sea-soaked wooden benches with his friends, heedless of their mindless vandalism. He remembered breaking onto one of the summer holidaymaker’s boats with Claudia and taking it out to sea, getting blind drunk and costing his father nearly three grand in damages and apologies to the owner.

He was so consumed by his own hurt and selfishness that he lashed out at anything or anyone. And it was the promise of alcohol, not food, that led him back to The Sea Rose. At least that’s what he told himself as he pushed open the wide glass door to the restaurant at the top of a ramp. Not the determination to prove to Lily Atwell that he was not the careless teen he’d once been.