‘I have something to tell you,’ I said, reaching for the railing while Juliette dropped into an encouraging twerk, one arm in the air. ‘And that is …’

‘That is what?’

I slapped her on the back, manically gesturing for help as panic dried up my throat, all my words stolen by champagne.

‘Fran?’ He sounded testy. ‘What do you want? Are you drunk?’

‘Repeat after me,’ Juliette hissed over the whipping wind. ‘We can’t go on together.’

‘Stewart,’ I said into the phone. ‘We can’t go on together.’

‘With suspicious minds,’ she sang, swivelling her hips under her ballgown.

‘With suspicious minds?’ I added, swaying my foot to her beat and completely forgetting why I had called him in the first place. ‘And we can’t build our dreams—’

‘All right, I think I’ve got the point,’ Stew interrupted my song with an annoyed grunt. ‘What is going on? Where are you? How are you this rat-arsed when you’re supposed to be working?’

I opened my mouth to answer but was cut off by the sound of a doorbell that was not ours.

‘Stew!’ a familiar voice called in the background. ‘Hurry up, food’s here.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll call you back later.’

‘Is that Bryony?’ I asked, gripping the railing tightly as a spray of freezing cold saltwater slapped me in the face. ‘Are you at Bryony’s?’

Juliette stopped dancing. Stew said nothing.

‘Stew?’ I said. ‘Answer me.’

‘You and Elvis might be right,’ he replied, finally. ‘We can’t go on like this and I don’t think we should speak again until you get back. I’ve got some thinking to do.’

And then he ended the call.

‘Fran,’ Juliette said, pushing wet strands of hair out of her eyes, a look of concern on her face. ‘Are you all right?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m not.’

And then I pulled back my arm and hurled my phone, as hard as I could, as far as I could, into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘Fran! Are you hurt? Is anything broken?’

I opened my eyes to see Lenny crouching over me in a panic, his face looming close and closer.

‘What are you doing?’ I groaned, shoving him away as I sat upright, only to hit my head on something hard. I poked at it gingerly and looked for the offending weapon. Why was there a big silver bin in my room?

‘I thought you were dead,’ Lenny said as I attempted to stand up, his jaw set solid. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘What am I doing in where?’ I asked, extremely confused.

With a throbbing head, I shuffled around until I was halfway to vertical and took in my surroundings. Instead of my beautiful cabin, there were bright fluorescent lights, cold tiled floors, and shelves full of food stacked all the way up to the ceiling.