‘How’s it going?’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m out of my depth. You saw the state I was in last week. If I hadn’t seen you, I’d have let her down.’

There’s something so dark in his voice that I want to reassure him. ‘You wanted to be there for her. I didn’t do much.’

‘That’s not true. You helped me do the right thing, just by believing I could.’

‘I do try to see the best in people. Although my sister would say that’s my biggest character flaw.’

‘I always think people are as shallow as I am – that way I’m never disappointed.’

‘You don’t seem shallow to me, Dan.’

He laughs. ‘I really am. I have no hidden depths. What you see is what you get.’

What I see is a man I want to kiss.

I try to gloss over that. ‘Well, when we met before, you seemed open and honest, and I like that in a person.’

He shakes his head. ‘Being with you feels like someone’s given me a truth drug, and I get this urge to tell you everything. Which is not cool.’

‘Openness can be really attractive.’ Did I really just say that?

‘Well, I promise I’m not trying to chat you up, obviously.’

Oh. It’s obvious, is it? I know he’s out of my league, but he doesn’t have to spell it out. ‘Right.’

‘Because of the late husband thing, I mean. Not because you’re unattractive. Because you’re not. You are very attractive.’ He stops, groans. ‘Shit. What is happening to me, Gemma?’

He thinks I’m attractive. I gaze at him, and a shiver travels down my spine: a good shiver. I never even knew there was such a thing.

‘Sorry. I’ve lost my thread,’ he says after – what – ten seconds? A minute? It’s like time doesn’t have any meaning any more.

‘You were talking about wanting to tell the truth?’

‘Yeah. Mostly it takes me years to trust someone, and even then the closest I get to opening up is telling them what music I like, or why I never have milk in my coffee.’ He smiles and that sends my core temperature another degree closer to boiling point. ‘So it makes zero sense.’

‘Sometimes it’s easier to talk openly to a stranger because you’ll never see them again.’

‘Except here you are. Again. And I am doing the same thing.’

‘Yes. I am. And you are.’ I want to say: I felt it too. That connection. But I won’t, because it’s pointless. What I have to do next week, I can only do alone.

‘I should probably confess something else,’ he says, gouging at the dry earth with his fingers, no longer looking at me. ‘I keep thinking about you. Out of the blue, I’ll remember your face or your voice.’

‘Me too.’ I whisper it, half hoping he won’t hear. But he does. Because he is so close I can smell the citrus on his breath from the lemon tartlet he just ate. ‘And this . . . this doesn’t happen to me, either.’