For a moment they were trapped close in the confined space as she reached past him to open the front door. Their eyes met. Neither moved. She held her breath, aware of the quickening of her heartbeat. For what seemed like a lifetime to Romy, they were anchored, only centimetres apart. Then they both drew back, looking at each other with a degree of embarrassed surprise.

Finch raised his eyebrows at her. ‘These narrow hallways …’ he said, with a wide grin. She nodded, unable to suppress her own smile of relief that he’d defused the tension. Finch seemed to shake himself. ‘Night, Romy,’ he said, leaning down to give her a decorous peck on the cheek. Then he ducked his head to accommodate the low doorway and was gone.

For a moment Romy stood at the door and took deep breaths of the cold night air, feeling the sea breeze caress her hot cheeks. She gave a quiet chuckle of disbelief. I think he nearly kissed me.

But, as she went back inside and double-locked the front door, disbelief quickly turned to panic. Suppose he had? It had been such a wonderful evening. Finch had taken her out of herself, beyond the confusion and pain of the recent past. But the near kiss had brought it all back.

Like the demand of a jealous lover, she heard the siren call. Unable to resist, Romy found herself slowly climbing the stairs to her bedroom and unlocking the top drawer of her dressing table. The letter she drew from the envelope was creased and thumbed, but the handwritten words were still as clear as the day it had dropped through the letter box of the Claires’ Chelsea flat two and a half years ago: