‘This is not a drill. Your man Priyesh is in the bar,’ Charlie said over the food pass in the kitchen a few days later. ‘And he comes bearing flowers.’

‘What?’ said Penny, using a cloth to wipe up sauce from the rim of one of the plates she was dishing up.

Charlie gestured through the door to the bar. ‘He’s right there.’

Penny followed their finger to see him smoothing down his hair nervously.

‘Get him a drink,’ she said. ‘And tell him I won’t be long.’ Who the hell shows up halfway through service? she thought, not realizing that it was 2 p.m. and service was now officially over. No more new orders would come through.

Penny took her time sending out the last plates and clearing down her section. She tried to tell herself that she didn’t know why he was there, but of course she did really: her note. And why had she sent the note? Oh god, if she was truly honest with herself she’d done it for the attention, mostly. Thomas was gone and there was a part of her that worried she’d actually have to focus on herself and her life and her wants and needs, and how she really felt about being at the pub, if she had to go to bed alone. Not to mention stemming any feelings for Francesco, who was a total no-go zone. Priyesh was smart and confident and she’d gotten a thrill from it. She’d gotten a thrill from making a man who was outwardly so sure of himself, putty in her hands. She wasn’t proud of it, but that was about the lay of the land. She’d assumed Thomas was a playboy and he’d revealed himself to have hidden depths and true character, but Penny had swindled Priyesh by play-acting as a woman with hidden depth and true character when in actual fact what they’d done together in the bathroom at the party was nothing short of playboy behaviour on her part. Could she blame the booze? Maybe she could have if she hadn’t sent the note. She was going to kill Sharon and Charlie for making that seem like a good idea when she was in the compromised state of morning-after-the-night-before. It was cruel, what she’d done, and now he was here, at the pub, and she’d have to face up to her cruelty by telling him he’d misread the situation because she had deliberately distorted it.

Come on now, she coached herself. Put your big girl pants on. She wiped her hands on a towel and threw it into the laundry basket, taking a breath as she pushed through the door to the bar.

‘Hello there,’ she said, fixing her face into a bright smile. ‘What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?’