“I’ll put the heating on.” Megan went to the thermostat and fiddled with it. “It has been empty for months, and this room doesn’t get much sun.” She glanced out of her ground-floor window at the small strip of grass then the road. “And it will soon be September.”

“Was it April you moved in with Dylan?” Georgie asked.

“Yes, that’s right. He proposed on the first.”

“April Fool’s Day,” Brendon said then laughed. “But who was the fool.”

“I guess we both were.”

Georgie looked sympathetic. “Five months was obviously enough to put you off Dylan for life, though, Megan.”

Megan pulled a face. Ten days on from jilting her fiancé in front of all their family and friends and the guilt hadn’t lessened. But the lighter feeling hadn’t faded either—she still felt floaty, free, as if she could fly. She could do anything, order what she had an appetite for in a restaurant, go and see whichever movie took her fancy and throw all the hours she wanted into Winter Shoes. If she did a twelve or thirteen-hour day that was fine, she didn’t have to make allowances for Dylan’s moodiness if she was late or didn’t have the energy to be bubbling with enthusiasm about his day.

Yes. She knew she’d made the right decision. Hard as it had been, she was one hundred per cent thankful that she wasn’t Mrs Dunkin-Buckshaw and fresh from sunning herself in Mexico right now.

Her would-be husband would likely have been moaning the whole time about the foreign food, the size of the hotel room, the weather and calling home every day to keep his mother happy.

Sure, her flat might be a bit cold, she had a ton of stuff to sort through and the place needed a really good clean but it was hers and, what’s more, she was still her own woman. Thank goodness she hadn’t sold it.

It had been a damn close call.

Too close for comfort, in fact.

“I bumped into Sean yesterday,” Georgie said, “at Tesco. He’d just got back from Mexico. I asked him how Dylan had been while they were there.”

“Do you know what…?” Brendon asked, pulling a bottle of sauvignon blanc from a paisley rucksack. He dug deeper and pulled out a twisty brown dog chew. “Here, Gucci, here you go, poppet.”

Gucci jumped from the sofa and ran over, tongue hanging out and feet going so fast he nearly fell over them.

“What?” Megan fiddled with the silver heart pendant she liked to wear—a present from her parents when they’d emigrated. “Do we know what?”

“I’d go for a bit of Sean, he’s hot.” Brendon licked his lips and nodded. “Mmm, yeah I would. Last time I saw him he was wearing this little vesty top and shorts that showed off thick thighs, hairy too, you know.”