‘Perfect?’ She looked at Tamsyn and narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve no idea, do you?’

She knew she was sounding too defensive, but nobody got it and it pissed her off. Everybody thought money made people happy. They didn’t have a clue. It didn’t matter how rich a family was, if things were broken, they were broken, and they certainly wouldn’t get fixed by a fancy holiday home in Cornwall.

Tamsyn didn’t say anything, which annoyed Edie. Her silence implied disagreement.

‘Seriously, my life is far from perfect. You know nothing about me.’

Edie leant her head back against the wall and banged it gently a few times. Privilege was a poisoned chalice. People only saw the golden coating. Anything looks beautiful when it shines, but you didn’t have to dig too far to find a rotten centre. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘I actually wish we didn’t have money. I wish we were normal. Lived like normal people.’ She kicked her leg out, banged her heel against the grass. ‘I can’t wait to get away from all the bullshit.’

‘But you have so much to make you happy, a beautiful home, a mum and a dad, who both love you—’

Edie snorted with bitter laughter. ‘Oh, yeah, they really love me. So much so they packed me off to boarding school when I was eight. You remember being eight? Now think about being stuffed into a car and dropped with a load of strangers who hit you across the hand with a ruler if you dare to say you’re sad. My so-called mother would rather be shopping or having her hair done than looking after me. And that’s before we even get to the bloody pills and drink. He’s not much better. Always tapping away on that stupid typewriter or jetting off to New York or LA. Parties every other night. Flirting with anybody in a skirt. They’re pathetic. Neither of them could even spell parent and I know they both wish they’d never had me.’ Edie blotted an escaped tear on the sleeve of her top, then wiped beneath her eyes in case her make-up had run.

‘But at least you’re getting this great educ—’

‘Tam.’ It was Jago, quiet but firm. ‘Leave it.’

His low warning tone and the care in his voice dug into Edie and almost pathetic gratitude spread through her like wildfire.

‘I’m trying to help. To make her see she’s okay.’ Tamsyn’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘That her life is good—’

‘That’s not how it works,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘You can’t tell people what they should be feeling. They feel what they feel.’

Edie swallowed. This was the first time anybody had ever stood up for her and she was struggling not to collapse into full-blown sobbing.

‘When Dad died,’ said Jago, ‘how many people said in time you’d get over it?’