It didn’t take long for me to fling the rest of my things into the bags I had just a few weeks ago so carefully packed in anticipation of my seaside escape, but I found myself lingering in the cottage and reluctant to turn the key in the lock for the last time. I sat on the sofa, with my head in my hands thinking how impossible it was to comprehend that I had arrived in the village with so much mental baggage and now I was about to leave with even more.

Not only was I trying to get my head around the truth behind what had really been happening in my parents’ marriage and having to rethink everything I knew about the woman who had taken pride in her simple sundress, I was also assimilating the knowledge that I had a sister. The fact that I loved her as a friend, hated myself for having betrayed her and was already having to leave her behind, was too much. It was all too much!

And that was even before I factored in the complications surrounding the Sam and Joe scenario. In my attempt to help Hope find a way to push the pair back together, I had ended up pulling them even further apart. And now Sam hated me, just as I was daring to admit, if only to myself, that I had fallen in love with him.

I knew that his being in love with Hope made my being around him unbearable, but now he’d got some skewed idea about me being Joe’s spy and there really was no chance of my ever returning to Wynmouth. The long-lost family get-togethers which Sophie was doubtless already arranging were always going to be missing one family member.

I glanced up at the kitchen clock, amazed that so much of the day had already disappeared and knowing that I couldn’t drag my departure out any longer. I took my mobile out of the drawer where it had lived, for the most part, undisturbed since my arrival and thought how I was going to block my confused thoughts out until I had put at least a hundred miles between me and the village. I was just about to turn the phone on and message Dad to ask where he was and let him know that I was leaving, when Joe came bursting through the cottage door, only this time, with Charlie in tow.

‘What the hell?’ I shouted, jumping back in surprise.

‘Come on you,’ said Joe, pulling the phone out of my hand and tossing it onto the sofa. ‘You need to come with me.’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ I snapped back. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’

Joe shook his head.

‘In fact,’ I pushed on, ‘I’m beginning to wish that I’d never set eyes on either one of you.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Joe.