I reach my hand up to the one that’s still holding my face and lace my fingers over his. It’s exactly what I wanted and needed to hear. He leans forward and our heads are touching and we stay there for a second; the enormity of what’s happening sinking in. I’ve wanted to kiss him for far too long and yet now that we’re going to do it I’m suddenly scared.

‘What if we kiss and it’s really bad?’ I whisper. ‘What happens if after all these years we kiss and it turns out there’s zero chemistry between us? Then everything we’ve been through would have been for—’

He catches me off guard and kisses me anyway. Not the sort of gentle kiss that we were building up to seventeen years ago back in his room at Hartland’s, but one full of passion and urgency, with an intensity that causes my whole body to shudder. He must have dropped his shoes because his hands are on my back and my hands are at the nape of his neck, and then he gently pulls away and stands back and looks me in the eyes.

‘Does that answer your question about chemistry?’

He’s got a smug look on his face.

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But I think we should give it another go just to make sure.’

I kiss him back with such force that I almost push him over. Never have I wanted anyone or anything as much as I do now.

I’ve thought for a long time that if I played it safe and left things as they were, then there was no risk of feeling hurt or pain. But, in trying to protect myself, I’d forgotten how to live, and I’m certainly not going to make that mistake again.

‘You know,’ says Joel, taking hold of my hands as he pulls away, ‘as much as I like the kissing, which I very much do, I happen to have this boat I’ve been fixing and it’s finally ready to go out on the water. So I was wondering if you wanted to come and sail on it with me?’

‘You got Hetty sailing?’

‘I did indeed. So, do you want to come aboard my yacht?’

‘I told you that that was a hell of a line. Was it worth fixing it just so that you could say that?’

‘Totally,’ he says, before he kisses me again and my whole body melts.

I can’t help but think of all those years that we wasted, but I stop myself and I try instead to think of all those years we have to come. We might not be able to change the past, but we can change the future. And what a glorious future it looks like it’s going to turn out to be.