‘Lizzie is a lovely, kind, wonderful person,’ I begin.
Jake does not respond.
‘Jake?’
‘Great,’ he says, eyes still closed.
I pause, wanting to choose my words carefully, because obviously he can and might repeat anything I say to Dan, so I should only say things that Lizzie would be happy for Dan to know.
‘She’s been hurt before, and I don’t want her to get hurt again,’ I say, after a bit of thought.
Jakefinallyhas the courtesy to open his eyes.
‘Dan is also a great person and I don’t think would ever intentionally hurt someone,’ he tells me. ‘I don’t think he would have a one-night stand, should that happen, with someone he thinks wanted more if he didn’t think he wanted more too.’
‘Okay. Well, good.’ I hope Danrealisedthat Lizzie looked (to my eyes) as though she was tumbling head over heels on the spot.
Jake closes his eyes again, and there’s something about the way he hasn’t even twitched during this little conversation, apart from the eye opening and closing, that suddenly makes mefurious.
‘This evening—’ I nudge his foot again because I want him to hear what I’m saying ‘—and this whole situation, it’s all your fault.’
Jake opens his eyes for a second before closing themagain.
‘That is incorrect,’ he says a moment later.
‘No, it bloody isn’t. If you hadn’t been so bloody rude on TVnoneof this would have happened. We’d have gone our separate ways and never seen each other again.’
He opens his eyes. ‘And no-one would ever have called you out on writing such dangerous nonsense.’
‘Oh, please. Literary snobs, broadsheets rounding up “books of the year”, crime writers, I mean,so manypeople are rude about romance novels and romance writers. You are not the first. Youarethe first to explicitly tell me that my books cause divorces.’
‘Yeah, well there you go. Good thing that I said it.’
‘What do youmean, it’s a good thing?’ I think my head might explode. ‘I’m going to carry on writing my books. Ilikewriting them and Ilikemy readers and Ilikethe fact that my stories and their happily-ever-afters make people happy. People write to me to tell me that my stories have brightened their day, which is particularly important in the world we currently live in. I like all of that. Andnothingyou have said has convinced me thatanyonewould split up from their partner because of a romance that they’d read. And therefore the only result of what you said to me is this. This stupid, annoying, ridiculous, time-wasting challenge.’
Jake is frowning slightly.
I press on, because I have stuff to say and Ireally want to say it. ‘You cannot convince me and I cannot convince you. Neither of us is going to win. We’re going to be subjected todreadfuldouble dates every Tuesday and then in just under three months’ time we’re going to be going on a bloody weekend away doing our stupid, torturous team-building for two, becauseneither of us can win.’
Jake frowns more, which – obviously – just annoys me more.
‘I mean this issopointless,’ I continue. ‘Totally, completely, utterly, absolutely pointless. The best we can hope for is that we continue to provide a dating service for our friends. I mean, it’sludicrous. We are in a really, really, really stupid situation. And it isall your fault.’
‘What about we admit defeat now? Both of us?’
I open my mouth to continue my rant and then register his actual words. ‘What?’
‘We could tell Sonja right now that we’ve completed the challenge because we have each agreed that we cannot win.’
‘We’d still have to go on the weekend, I think.’ My mind’s whirring. I do think Jake is (finally) making a good point. Wecouldjust give up now. ‘I personally do not want the British public to think I’m a quitter or a reneger.’
‘Yep, I think we do both have to do the weekend,’ Jake agrees. ‘But there will presumably be other people there too. We can do our own thing, come back, do the reappearance on the show, and then it will all be over.’
I nod slowly and say, ‘Finally you’re talking sense.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘I always talk sense.’
‘Agree to differ.’
