He wanted to chase away the darkness in her eyes. He wanted her to smile the way she had before. He wanted so much more for her than this Alistair guy who had stolen her money and left her doubting herself. That much he could see.

‘Exactly. It was him, not you, Lily.’

She shrugged and he saw the way his words rolled off her like water, apparently not convinced.

She finished the wine in her glass. ‘That was a good one. The wine,’ she clarified.

‘It was. They’re all pretty good.’

He sighed. ‘I guess I’m going to have to wait a year until the thirtieth birthday bottle.’

Lily smiled at that. ‘Where do you think you’ll be?’

Here. With you.

The thought shocked him. The desire for it shocked him.

‘In New York, probably,’ he said instead. ‘Or Singapore with Ben, Mina and their baby. What about you?’

She shrugged. ‘The restaurant?’ she answered as if anything else would be unimaginable.

‘I disagree.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ he insisted. ‘I reckon you’ll be in some far-flung exotic location, tasting incredible food. While Alistair will probably be in prison for fraud.’

She laughed at that, finally, and the sound was like honey. Sweet and pouring over him endlessly. When it finally petered out, she looked about as if realizing for the first time that night had fallen.

‘I should be getting home.’

‘You could, erm … You could stay? It’s not as if there aren’t any rooms.’ He winced at the uncertainty in his own voice, not quite sure whether he wanted her to stay or wanted her as far from him as possible.

When she looked up at him, he could see that she was torn too. Tempted. And that nearly undid him.

‘Very kind of you, but I need to be up early in the morning to open the restaurant.’

‘I don’t really want you cycling home.’

‘It’s not that far.’

‘Drunk in charge of a bicycle?’

‘I am not drunk, Hawkesbury.’

‘Still, I’m calling you a cab.’

‘It’s really not—’

‘I’m calling you a cab,’ he replied firmly. There was no way he’d let her head home on the bike in the dark after a bottle of wine. He just wasn’t made that way.

They waited, side by side, for the cab in front of the estate, the stars like flashing sequins in the velvet night sky. He’d missed it, he realized suddenly. Missed the clarity of the English countryside at night. There was nothing remotely like it anywhere else in the world.

And suddenly he was struck by a sense of homesickness. Not for New York. But for the estate he was about to sell. Was it even possible to miss something before it had gone? And when he looked at Lily, he knew the answer.

‘Lily—’

The gravel on the drive crunched beneath tyres as the cab began its journey towards them.