She squealed, taking his response as a yes, and turned, throwing her arms around his wide shoulders and hugged him hard, all the while bouncing in her seat. All the excitement managed to mask, just for a moment, that she was hugging Henry Hawkesbury. Then she stopped bouncing. And she felt his chest against hers, the firm muscles and the restrained strength of him, the scent that she drew into her body as she inhaled from where her head was nestled into the crook of his shoulder, her lips barely millimetres from his jaw, his skin … The hug became something else as she felt the shock recede from Henry’s body, as she felt him almost settle. As if he wanted it as much as she did. Needed it even.

It was too much. She released her hold on his shoulders and drew back, not quite able to meet his eyes, not quite wanting to see whatever she would find there. She reached for her glass but it was empty and heard Henry clearing his throat.

‘Thank you,’ she said, barely a whisper.

‘In for a penny, if for a pound.’

She smiled, or at least she hoped it was a smile. Her lips were suddenly tingling as if she had actually pressed them against his jaw. ‘So, which birthday is this?’ she asked, angling her glass at the next wine bottle.

‘My twenty-first,’ Henry ground out, his voice gravelly to his own ear.

What had just happened?

He was still reeling from the hug. It had started out easily enough, Lily’s natural excitement and exuberance making him smile. But then it had changed, morphed into something more. He’d felt the press of her chest against his, the softness of her skin against his, he’d inhaled the sweet natural scent of her. Herbs and something sweeter, something mouthwateringly citrusy. And he’d not wanted to let go.

Instead of reaching for her again, he grasped the bottle neck and pulled it towards him, staring at the corkscrew as if he didn’t know what it was or how to use it. Because he didn’t want the cold glass bottle in his hands. No. He wanted Lily Atwell.

‘Here,’ she said, reaching her hands towards his. ‘I’ll do that.’

He nudged the envelope belonging to the bottle his way and it forced him to refocus. Refocus on the first communication he would have received from his father after he’d been kicked out. He almost didn’t want to know.

He prised open the envelope and retrieved the letter, knowing as much as he wanted to hide from it, he was also desperate to know what his father had written.

Dear Henry,