But he ignores her words and moves towards her, his face unashamedly crestfallen. ‘I came to see you the other day.’

Her body stiffens. She knows he’s waiting for her to explain why she closed the studio the very day after they’d caught up. ‘I had an appointment in Sydney,’ she says, hoping he doesn’t notice the squeak in her voice.

He pauses as though giving her a chance to elaborate. ‘Everything okay?’

Bonnie grimaces, realising he assumes it was a medical appointment. She can’t look at him and instead begins sorting some prints on her desk. ‘Yep, yes. I’m fine. All okay. Better than ever. Nothing to worry about.’ She can’t stop the verbal outpour, anything to hide the truth. Imagine if he knew she’d auditioned for The One. She can feel her cheeks burn with humiliation. She honestly doesn’t know what she’d been thinking.

‘I miss you, Bon.’

Those few words mean more than they should. It doesn’t even bother her that it sounds ridiculously clichéd. For a moment she can imagine herself murmuring that she misses him too. She longs to take a few steps forward and let him take her in his arms. She could nestle against him. She can almost feel the heat radiating off his body. Just the thought of how good it would feel strangles her breath.

‘Does Sophie know you’re here?’ she forces herself to ask.

Oliver shakes his head, anticipating the same thing running through her mind. ‘I left my phone at work, so she’ll think I’m still there.’

Bonnie nods a little absently, still trying to get her head around Sophie being able to track Oliver’s location and him seemingly being okay with that. She can feel his gaze on her, causing her shoulders to tighten. She looks up and her eyes fall on his lips. She can still taste him.

‘So, are we okay after last week?’ His eyes, pale blue with more clarity than a diamond, stare back with unsettling hope.

Part of her had been thinking they could both pretend nothing had happened. But the simple words last week refer to much more than old friends catching up over a drink. Last week alludes to lust and passion, the raw ugly truth that Oliver cheated on his fiancée.

And Bonnie is the other woman.

‘Yeah, we’re okay,’ she’s quick to say. ‘It shouldn’t have happened. You’re engaged, I get it.’ Bonnie doesn’t know why she’s holding out hope for her high school boyfriend; this will be his second marriage since their relationship all those years ago. He spent more than a decade married to Amy and bounced straight out of that relationship into an engagement with Sophie.