‘I think you heard, you big, fat eejit.’ She huffed out a mirthless laugh, too far gone not to say it. ‘And to think I thought I was in love with you.’

As soon as she spat the words out, she realised she’d made a grave mistake.

‘You’re in love with me. What and you’re going to move to Ireland and we’re going to found the next Byrne dynasty. Now, where have I heard that before?’ He glared at her. ‘And fool that I am, I thought I was falling in love with you.’

‘Well, it’s a good job you weren’t,’ she said, and with a flounce she was excessively proud of, she turned and slammed out of the front door, stomping down the gravel path towards the farmhouse, uncaring whether Conor chose to follow her or not. After the weekend in Dublin, she’d thought there might be something more. Clearly she was as big an eejit as he flipping well was.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Adrienne Byrne knew how to throw a party. When they assembled in the kitchen on the following day, she had ten different lists arranged on the workbench in front of her.

‘Right, I’ve organised you into working parties. Jason and Fliss, I’d like you to sous chef for me here in the kitchen. Alan and Meredith, you’ll be working with Conor in here too and Izzy and Hannah, you’ll be helping set up the tables in the greenhouse and helping everyone else out.’

Hannah let out a huge internal sigh of relief and rubbed at her sore, tired eyes. She hadn’t seen Conor since she’d stormed out of his house last evening. He’d not come back to the cottage until after she’d gone up to her room – although that had been at eight o’clock and she’d lain on her bed, her ears pricked, listening out for him, while going over and over their conversation in her head. She still felt sick to her stomach that it had all turned out so badly. But at the end of the day, she hadn’t been anything but honest with him. Lying about her feelings, about what she wanted, wouldn’t have made any difference in the long term.

When he’d come back to the cottage at about nine o’clock, she’d hidden in her room, holding her breath when she heard his slow steps on the stairs. She didn’t quite bury her head under the duvet but it was a close-run thing as she lay there hoping and praying that he wouldn’t knock on the door but at the same time wishing he would.

‘Phew,’ muttered Izzy under her breath, echoing Hannah’s relief. ‘I was worried about having to cook for all these famous people.’