‘Of course,’ she said, putting a bright smile on her face. ‘That’s great your parents are coming for a visit.’

‘It’s not exactly ideal timing,’ he said, and she watched as Stuart rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

‘Oh no. It’s fine. I should have probably left days ago,’ she said, setting the spatula on the counter and stepping away from the stove. ‘It’s fine,’ she babbled on.

‘What?’

‘Seriously, it’s no big deal. I need to go anyway.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Stuart asked, his accent becoming thicker as his frown deepened.

‘Your parents are coming,’ she said.

‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with you going?’

‘Well, it’s not like I can stay.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because … your parents are coming,’ she said, eyeing him pointedly.

‘That doesn’t mean you have to leave.’

‘I don’t think they’ll want to be stuck here in the same house with a stranger—especially one they weren’t expecting.’

‘You’re not a stranger, and it’s my house.’

‘You can’t tell me you’re not uncomfortable with the idea?’

He’d looked more than a little flustered when he’d got off the phone.

‘I was worried you’d think I was rushing you into the whole meet-the-parents kind of thing.’

Stuart was right, it wasn’t exactly ideal timing. And she was freaking out a little at the idea.

‘I don’t want you to leave,’ he said, when she didn’t answer immediately.

‘I think I have to.’ Sadness poured into the space where, before, happiness had been. ‘How can I meet your parents and explain what this is, when we don’t even know?’

‘I haven’t had to explain anything to my parents about my personal life for a good few years now,’ he said.

Elle took a step closer to him and pushed past her growing misery. ‘Stuart, these last couple of weeks have been so great. It’s the happiest I’ve been in a long time, but the fact that we’re back to this same point again, only makes me realise that all I’ve been doing is putting off the inevitable.’ He went to speak but she kissed him to stop the argument she knew he was going to put forward. She couldn’t let him talk her out of this again, and she knew he so easily could if she let him. It was just all too easy to imagine herself staying, but it wasn’t real. It was just a break from life—a brief, beautiful interlude that one day reality would barge in and ruin.