‘I mean, the idea that he was happy loving me without digging deep, without truly understanding how I felt about him. I get the impression that the way he loved me was enough for him.’

‘Wasn’t it like that for you and Digby? Wouldn’t you have waltzed back to him had he welcomed you with open arms when you went to meet him up at Reunion Point?’

‘That’s different.’ She blinked.

‘How?’ Bella crunched another crisp.

‘Because he sold me the dream! He told me he loved me deeply, unconditionally, and I fell for it. With Miguel I never told him that. I thought I was straight with him.’

‘But he hoped for something different.’

‘I guess, and how can we account for someone’s hope? How are we supposed to modify our behaviour to take that into account?’ She wondered if her friend was thinking about Luuk.

‘I guess you can’t.’ Bella paused. ‘Lots of women would jump at the chance to marry a guy like Miguel: good-looking, kind, sociable . . .’

‘I know all of that, but loving someone is so much more than that, isn’t it? It’s about that magic ingredient that you can’t define, something that sets a person apart from everyone else you know – to the point where no one else exists or could exist for you romantically.’

‘And you didn’t feel that for him?’ Bella’s tone was soft, as if she understood that feeling.

Merrin shook her head. ‘Not even close, and I wish I had, because on paper . . .’

‘Oh, on paper!’ Bella interrupted sharply. ‘On paper I should be living in domestic bliss with my handsome yachtsman and our beautiful boy, but in reality, he’s sunning himself in warmer climes and I’m sat here, sleep deprived and eating cheese-and-onion crisps. Life sucks sometimes!’

‘Sometimes it does.’ Merrin drew a slow breath. ‘It’s not logical, love, is it? You can’t really define it and you can’t really explain it. You can’t chase it or hold on to it and yet sometimes you can’t let it go.’

‘And you can’t know when it will come knocking at your door and pull you into its web.’

‘If it comes knocking at all,’ Merrin asserted.

There was a loud knock at the door, so loud that even Merrin heard it down the line, and they both laughed.

‘Does it make you broody? Spending time with your little niece?’

‘Nah, too busy to be broody.’

‘Is that right?’ Bella tutted, before her tone suddenly changed. ‘Oh, shit! Oh, my God!’

‘You all right, Bells?’ She stood still, suddenly alert and wondering what she could do from this distance, should there be an incident at Bella’s mum’s house.

‘Yeah, it’s . . . he’s on the path, by the front door! I just looked out. It looks like . . . Oh, my . . . oh, my God . . .’ Bella gasped.