As everyone relaxed during the meal, the conversation began to flow along with the wine but Hannah, mindful of Adrienne’s admonishment that hangovers were no excuse for lateness, decided to swap to water. After not a lot of sleep the night before, she was starting to flag.

Was it really this time last night that she’d been having dinner with Conor? Was it only this morning she’d snuck out of his bed? It felt like a lifetime ago and as if it had happened to another person. Now she regretted it with all her heart. What on earth had she been thinking?

A little voice inside her reminded her that she hadn’t been thinking at all – she’d been feeling and going with it. And it was rather nice, if you recall, the voice reminded her with ill-disguised glee.

Stupidly she looked up and over at Conor, who caught her. He raised a brow and she blushed as X-rated memories of last night flooded into her head. Conor kissing her, Conor removing her bra with smooth expertise, Conor making her… nope not going there. She clamped down on the thoughts and glared at him. He glared back and she uttered a quick prayer that the summons to these family meals didn’t happen very regularly. If he was out working on the estate and she was in the kitchen all day, she could pretend that what happened in Dublin had stayed there.

As far as she was concerned, she never wanted to see him again.

Chapter Six

‘Oh what a lovely touch,’ cried Meredith the following morning, immediately tugging her apron over her head. Her name was embroidered in shocking pink on the dark-blue bib.

‘Hmm,’ said Fliss, looking with displeasure at the word Felicity, picked out in lime green on orange cotton.

‘Bit poncy, if you ask me,’ muttered Jason, but he looked relieved that his name was featured in white on black.

Hannah unfolded the apron on the stool in front of her; it was a pretty duck-egg blue and her name was sewn in cream.

It was day one in the kitchen and they were all as excitable as a litter of puppies – even Fliss who actually smiled when they first walked into the high-beamed kitchen which had once been an old barn. Light spilled in from a wall of bifold windows on one side and high Velux windows built into the sloping roof. The view took in sweeping green hills topped by distant clouds of heather, and between them a vee-shaped shadowy glimpse of the sea, where the cool grey of the horizon almost merged with the water.