‘It’s not that I’m not blown away, I am,’ I told him as my heart sank in my chest. I knew I was ruining the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me, but I also knew I had to. ‘Panarea, the ball, you showing up here, now, out of the blue, it’s all amazing. But it feels like a fairy tale and I have to live in the real world. We have very different lives, things like this don’t happen to people like me.’

Evan shook his head gently and looked at me with liquid eyes.

‘Francesca,’ he said, reaching across the table. ‘It’s happening to someone like you right now.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, kiss him!’ Jess yelled from across the room. ‘I’m dying over here.’

‘Thank you!’ Evan called back, pointing over his shoulder. ‘I like her.’

‘I have been single for exactly sixteen hours,’ I said, doing my very best to ignore Jess and everyone else in the café, who was openly staring at us like we were a live action episode of EastEnders. ‘I can’t jump on the back of your white horse and ride off into the sunset. I need to be brave, remember? You said that. I don’t need you to save me, I need to save myself.’

The café was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

Evan looked at me with quiet awe and a longing I could hardly bear.

‘There are two things I want to say,’ he began as he cleared his throat. ‘The first one is, I’m not here to save you, I’m here to thank you. Meeting you reminded me things don’t have to stay the same just because that’s the way they’ve always been. I got to be a brand-new person for you, and I liked that guy.’

‘I liked him too,’ I replied truthfully. ‘What’s the second?’

He rested one elbow on the table and propped his chin up on his fist. ‘You said you’re single?’

I couldn’t not smile.

‘I get it, I’ve done the work, I know it’s not easy. Whatever you need from me, you got it,’ he said. ‘What can I do?’

‘Give me time?’ I said, my words loaded with the kind of hope I hadn’t felt in so long. ‘I will never forget that night and I will never forget today—’

‘—but now isn’t the right time,’ he finished for me.

I nodded and pursed my lips tightly at the collective sigh of everyone in the café.

Evan leaned across the table and placed a light kiss on my cheek before shuffling out of his too-low chair and slipping his arms back into his coat.

‘Will you call me when it is?’ he asked.

‘If you want me to,’ I promised. ‘But I don’t know when it’ll be.’