Brody was no longer that man, and she wanted to know why.

She needed to know why. It had been more than a month since she’d mentioned the possibility of them meeting each other, but now she just couldn’t get it out of her head. Perhaps the questions she wanted to pose should be asked face to face? It might make it easier to get him to open up. And if she gave him a month or two to get used to the idea, maybe he’d come around?

‘Brody?’ she said when there was a lull in their conversation.

‘Yes?’ He sounded relaxed, confident. It was now or never.

‘I know we’ve discussed this before, but I would really like to meet you in person.’

Brody didn’t reply. Even across the waves that carried their connection, she felt a sudden frostiness in the atmosphere. Why?

‘We discussed New Year’s Eve and how much we hate it.’ The silence was thick. She was sure he was going to jump in any second and argue with her, so she just kept going. Words were all she had at this point. ‘I don’t want to go to a New Year’s Eve party, Brody. I don’t want to mill around with strangers, or even people I know, and make-believe that I’m happy and carefree when Big Ben chimes. It’s just too exhausting. There’s only one thing I want to do this December thirty-first. I want to spend it with you.’

Anna’s heart pounded. She stared at her phone, willing him to respond, and eventually he did. ‘I’d like that, too,’ he said, and his voice was rough. ‘I’m just not sure it’s possible.’

‘Why?’

More silence. But it wasn’t menacing. The one thing she could tell from his reply was that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to meet her. It was something else. She could sense him struggling with himself, or maybe some unknown enemy. One of his giants. Whatever his reason, it was big.

She pushed aside her curiosity, deciding her key objective should be to make it easier for him to say yes. ‘I can come to you, or you can come to me. Whatever is easier.’

He still didn’t respond.

‘Or we could go somewhere neutral…’

Where? She racked her brains for a good location. Somewhere everyone knew about. Somewhere they could meet on a significant date like New Year’s Eve.

The only thing that came to her mind, thanks to the movie marathon earlier, and Sleepless in Seattle in particular, was ‘the top of the Empire State Building’. Ridiculous. Meeting up in person seemed a struggle enough as it was without moving it to an entirely different continent.

Maybe it was talking about tall buildings in big cities that jogged her next suggestion free. ‘The Shard,’ she said, becoming conscious of the idea the moment she heard herself say it. ‘The top of the Shard. At eleven o’clock on New Year’s Eve.’

‘Anna…’

He was going to turn her down again, and she couldn’t bear to hear him do it. Not tonight, anyway. She had to find a way to stall him. ‘You don’t have to say yes now. It’s still more than two months away. You don’t even have to go at all if you really don’t want to. But I’ll book two tickets to the observation platform…’