Lily had placed a gorgeous blood-red poinsettia in her kitchen window and through a chink in her sitting room curtains, her modest but sparkling Christmas tree throbbed with gold lights.

“Who is it?” called Lily’s guarded voice through the closed door. One of her curtains at her sitting room window twitched.

“It’s Flynn,” he answered, struggling to locate his confidence. “And I have Ms Baxter with me.”

Lily’s silhouette appeared as the front door eased opened. “Oh. You again.”

“Yep. Me again.”

Flynn straightened himself. “I’m not prepared to sod about any longer, Lily. Too much of that has happened already and that was down to me.” He pinned her to the spot with earnest eyes. “There are things I want to tell you to clear the air. I’m sick of secrets.”

He glanced back over his shoulder at me and I widened my eyes, urging him to carry on. “Please come back with me to my house this evening.”

“Sorry?”

“My housekeeper is preparing a lovely supper for us all. There will be you, me, Leonie, my grandson, and my son and his wife.”

Lily’s hand flew to her throat. She looked appalled. “Good grief! Why all these people?”

“Because you all need to hear this. You all need to hear what I have to say. Please.”

When Lily’s reluctance prickled out of her, I took a tentative step forward. “Lily, please come and hear what Flynn has to say. That’s all he’s asking of you. Just to hear him out.”

She turned over my request in her mind. “But it’s been years.”

“That’s why it’s so important for me to speak out now,” implored Flynn. “Please Lily.”

“But so much time has passed,” she said in a whisper. “So many years.”

“But they haven’t changed how I feel about you,” replied Flynn senior. “Not at all.”

She reached one hand up to her loose hair, debating whether to accompany us or not. “I look an awful fright.”

Flynn senior’s expression softened. “You still look as stunning to me today as you did fifty years ago.”

Lily shook her head in mock exasperation. “Still the silver-tongued rogue, Flynn Talbot.”

Flynn senior smiled hopefully up at her from the cottage steps and all the years that they had been apart seemed to slip away and evaporate in amongst the trees. She let out a defeated sigh. “All right. Just give me a minute to tidy myself up.”

The weird atmosphere in Kerry’s car was palpable.

It was an eclectic mix of two former star-crossed sweethearts, my work colleague who had stabbed me in the back and then saved my life, and the man who had managed to steal my heart, despite my protestations.

Lily was seated between Flynn and me on the back seat. She appraised him. “At least I’m sitting beside a handsome young man.”