‘Hmm,’ Kris intoned, looking thoughtful.

‘Hmm?’ she queried.

He looked at Tove. ‘Could be awkward,’ he said in a low voice, not moving his lips.

‘I told you. I did say,’ Tove hissed back. ‘She’s stubborn as fuck. She’s not gonna be down with this.’

‘Down with what? What’s going on?’ Bell demanded, feeling a flutter of anxiety. She didn’t like it when they ganged up against her.

Tove put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Just promise you won’t get mad, okay?’

‘Will I have a reason to get mad?’

‘No. None at all. We’ve done this from love.’

‘For love,’ Kris interrupted. ‘And because they wouldn’t stop doorstepping us.’

‘Doorstepping?’ The press? Had they found out she was the Von Greyers’ nanny? One quick Google search had been enough to confirm that Hanna and Emil’s divorce was now all over the Swedish papers.

Their gazes collectively rose to a point beyond her shoulder, and she slowly turned. There, standing twenty metres away, was a man in a baseball cap – and beside him, a boy with a skateboard.

‘Oh my God!’ she cried, stepping back, her hands flying to her mouth at the sight of them here. All the way down here.

‘He literally wouldn’t stop calling,’ Tove murmured, watching her like she might fall. ‘I had to pick up for the sake of my sanity.’

In a flash, Bell understood where her friends had got the money for the tickets. She should have known they didn’t have the spare cash to fly across the world to see an old friend and a boat race.

‘You’re not mad, are you?’ Kris asked, seeing how she had paled. ‘We tried to brush him off at first by saying you were with Mats. He didn’t care. He said he had to see you and talk to you in person. So we truck a deal, but with conditions: he’s promised to stay out of the way if you don’t want to see him. He said we can bring the kid to see you every day and he’ll go sightseeing or something . . . Say you’re not mad.’

‘. . . No, I’m not mad,’ she whispered, seeing how tightly Emil was gripping Linus’s shoulder, holding him in place; how Linus was straining forward; both of them waiting for a cue . . . Her arms raised up reflexively, held out wide, and in the next instant, the boy had broken free, dropping even his beloved board, and was sprinting towards her.

‘Bell!’ He rushed into her arms, his own around her waist and his head against her heart. ‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you,’ she gasped, not able to believe this was happening, her hands squeezing him, running over his hair, checking he was real. ‘Oh my God, I missed you so much! You’re really here? I’m not . . . I’m not hallucinating?’

He looked back at her, nodding happily. ‘No! We flew for a day and a half to get here. We wanted to surprise you!’