She looked at him, seeing the calmness in his face as he spoke about the man marrying his ex-wife. ‘And Hanna? How is she?’

‘Blooming. She’s taken a sabbatical to look after Max and have time with the girls before the baby comes.’ He said the words with a fluent ease, as though he could have been talking about an aunt or a mutual acquaintance. ‘She sends her love. She misses you, though. We all do.’

Oh. Was that why he was here? Was this a charm offensive designed to drag her back to her old job? ‘Well, I think I’m done with nannying for a bit,’ she said shortly, looking away. She felt a sudden, strong urge to get away from him, for Kris to come back. She didn’t want this after all – she had been doing just fine. Fine-ish.

‘Bell –’

She looked back at him, her heart aching with the pain that came from just looking at him. ‘You know, you could have just emailed. You didn’t need to get on a plane and fly for a day and a half. In economy.’

He hesitated, seeing her agitation. ‘Well, apparently it’s good for me. Although my back would disagree.’

They were getting soaked, but neither of them appeared to notice. He took a step closer to her but she instinctively stepped back.

‘Bell, I’m not here because we want you back as our nanny,’ he said, reading her with an expert eye. ‘Nor am I here because I’ve caved in to Linus’s daily pleas that we come to see you. I am a strict father these days. I have boundaries.’ He arched an eyebrow slightly, sounding rather like his sister. ‘I also have a very strict pocket-money policy, much to Linus’s dismay.’

She watched him, sensing his attempt at levity. Brightness. ‘Does he still believe he owns a boat?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Well, that sounds positive.’

‘He didn’t think so.’

A small smile escaped her, but she flattened it down again. ‘Look, Emil—’

‘I know you probably won’t believe this,’ he said quickly, cutting her off, hearing her tone. ‘But there are a lot of things that are positive now. Things that might have seemed impossible in the summer.’

‘. . . Good. I’m glad.’

‘Max nearly dying clarified everything. Suddenly none of it mattered. It was just ego and fear and half-memories, I know that now. Hanna and I – we went to couples counselling.’

She frowned. ‘Couples counselling? But—’

‘We did it to “devolve our relationship and try to build a new platform for our relationship going forward”.’ He gave speech-mark fingers, an almost-smile in his eyes.

‘Oh.’ It all sounded very Gwyneth Paltrow. ‘Did it work?’

He blinked. ‘Yes. We do brunch.’ That wry tone he shared with Nina hovered in the corners of his words.

‘Okay.’

‘And we talk about you. A lot. What we did, dragging you into something so toxic. We wanted to make it up to you, but didn’t know where you’d gone.’