“Beth was just a really great friend. Someone I could confide in. The works, really. But then… I don’t even know how it happened. It somehow turned into more. This was after two years of friendship, so hardly a lightning strike of desire. We started falling in love. But I was already in a relationship, of course. Nothing happened. Well. We kissed. Once. One single time. But emotionally, I was extremely unfaithful. I had to stop seeing her in order to save my relationship with Annie. I had to give up my best friend, which I did. When she turned up the other night, I hadn’t seen her for years. It was more painful than I expected it to be.”

“I can well imagine,” Mia said.

“Not just for me. But for Annie as well. I felt so bad for her. I make it sound as though stopping all contact with Beth saved Annie and me, but it was much more complicated than that. I hurt Annie. Profoundly. To see the partner you love and whom you’ve supported through thick and thin for a decade, fall for someone else… That’s not something you recover from in a couple of days. But we got past it in the end.”

“You chose Annie,” Mia said. “That must count for something.”

Jane shook her head. “It doesn’t count for anything. I shouldn’t have had to choose her. It should have been her all along. I got carried away.”

“Oh come on, Jane. You must think about love and relationships all the time with the kind of books you write. You must know it’s hardly ever a fairytale and it actually is choosing each other over and over again.”

Jane gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I’ll tell you what, though. I’ve gotten more sympathy for my heroines. It was bloody hard to live through one of the dramas I put them through in every book. Real life is much harder than fiction.”

“But look at you and Annie now. Lou and I admire the two of you so much. We want to be you when we grow up.” Apart from a tiny grin on her lips, Mia looked dead serious.

“I’m so glad Lou has found you.” Jane was ready to let the spotlight of their conversation shift to Mia.

“She wasn’t very happy when she first ran into me again, I can tell you that. But it just goes to show that life can be really tricky, or funny, or just a bit of a bitch, depending on how you want to define it.”

“Really? I thought the two of you had somewhat of a whirlwind romance?” Jane tried to remember what Annie had said about Lou and Mia running into each other in the shop one day. Like the second cold war had broken out or something. Things seemed to have warmed up pretty quickly after that. She was curious now.