‘I don’t want to be just your friend anymore, Anna.’ He paused, gathering the words he knew he had to say inside his head before he let them out, making sure they were all lined up in the right order, ready to make sense. He was only going to say this once. ‘I want more than that.’

‘Brody—’

He cut her off before she could interrupt him further. ‘I love you.’ He could hear her breathing, but she didn’t say anything. He understood that. He understood how the fear could freeze your thoughts, paralyse your mouth. ‘And I think the reason you ran away from me last night is that you have feelings for me too.’

There. He’d said it. Put it all on the line. Now it was out there. I jump, you jump. Come on, Anna. Show me how brave you can be…

He could sense her struggling, fighting what he’d said. He sat down on one of the dining chairs and put his phone on the glass-topped table, switching it to speaker, and silently willed her to make the leap with him.

‘I can’t tell you what you want to hear, Brody. I just can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t feel about you the way you want me to.’

She was lying. The knowledge made him irritated and elated in equal measures. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not Spencer.’

He almost laughed out loud. ‘Bullshit!’ She’d always said he never pulled his punches. Seemed he couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to. ‘You’re scared. I get that.’

She made a non-committal huff.

‘And do you want to know why I get that?’

He told Anna anyway, whether she wanted to know or not. He began with his first panic attack, how his world had shrunk smaller and smaller until she’d come into his life, how fear had ruled him for years, but also how she’d inspired him to challenge it. Not just that, but to conquer it. He told her about his journey to London to meet her, how he’d had to battle fear a hundred times, how he’d stood on that viewing platform, clenching that damn railing for two hours waiting for her to turn up. How he’d had his worst panic attack yet the moment she’d sped downwards in the lift.

‘That’s everything,’ he finally said. ‘Everything I’ve never told anyone else because I was too ashamed of how weak and broken I felt. Because I was too scared.’

There was an uncomfortable shuffling on the other end of the line. He might have heard her stifle a sob or wipe her nose, too. He really wasn’t sure.

‘Oh, Brody…’ she said, and her voice was thick with tears. ‘I… I didn’t know…’

Brody nodded to himself. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to. I’ve done a good job of hiding it from everyone for years. Even myself. But I’m not hiding anymore, Anna, and that’s because of you. I don’t want to be scared anymore.’

The sound at the other end of the phone line didn’t change, but he had the oddest feeling she was holding her breath.