It had easily been the worst week of her life. Barely a week before, Sebastian, her boyfriend of eighteen months, had told her that he was moving out, effectively calling time on their relationship.

‘I’m tired of being second-best, Elle,’ he’d told her wearily, after she’d yet again arrived home late to the Clapham flat they’d shared, after an exceptionally busy time at the office.

In truth, she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Sebastian was a musician and life with him had been fun at first, but lately he had become moody and demanding, expecting her to just leave everything at the drop of a hat to do things and go places with him. She guessed the writing had been on the wall for some time but she’d refused to see it, hadn’t wanted to see it.

Sebastian wasn’t the first guy to have given her such an ultimatum, but Elle didn’t see why she had to be the one to compromise. She was who she was, take it or leave it. Though she did wish he was still around now to comfort her, help her through this unbearable grief.

She just had to get through this herself though, she knew. She just had to be strong.

Her bond with Anna had not been damaged by her moving away. Her mum understood her, just as she understood everyone, and knew that Elle had something to prove, if only to herself. She knew that her daughter hadn’t disliked Mulberry Bay and its tiny charms, or that she hadn’t resented the hotel, only that if she stayed, how would she ever truly know what she was capable of?

Anna understood this about her eldest as surely as she knew that her youngest would stay behind in the town, close to her parents and live as gently and unsurprisingly as she could. Penny was soft through and through, as light as a cloud, but Elle glinted like metal with concentration and purpose.