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“Uhh, yes.” Mark runs a hand through his thinning hair. “Sure. I mean, it would be nice to have a bit of time to relax, but—”

Kristen stops him with a look.

“There’ll be plenty of time to relax,” Susan says breezily. “I’m not talking about army drills here, just fun activities to get us all in the Christmas spirit.”

Everyone seems to take a moment to process that. Then Hattie lifts her prosecco in a toast. “Well, I’m all for it. I like activities. I’m sure Dylan will be on board, too, when he gets here.”

Mel glances at Finn. Had he known about this? Because, to her, this sounds like a whole lot more time pretending in front of everyone than they’d planned. But from his expression, and from the reaction of everyone else, she’s guessing this is as much a surprise to him as it is to her.

“Mel has work to do while she’s here,” Finn says, his voice carefully neutral.

All eyes swivel to her in a way that makes her feel immediately awkward. She clears her throat. “It’s fine,” she finds herself saying. “I’m sure I can spare an hour or two a day.”

“Excellent!” Susan smiles around at all of them.

“Do we get to know what the activities are?” Finn asks.

“I’ll tell you as we go—that’s part of the fun!”

Apparently, no one wants to argue with her, because that seems to be the end of that as the conversation moves to other things. At the end of the meal, Mel uses the excuse of helping to clear the table and do the washing up to stay out of the way as much as possible, while Mark and Kristen head to the cottage next door with Freya.

She feigns tiredness after the long journey and heads up to bed before Finn. But, although she is tired, her brain won’t switch off as she slides into her side of the bed, regretting the flannel pajamas she opted for. She barely drank anything at dinner, but she can feel a headache pressing down on her temples, even as she closes her eyes, tries to breathe through it. It shouldn’t be this hard to be around them all again.

And that just shows how naïve she is, doesn’t it?

She listens to a voice note from Priya while she waits for her brain to switch off, smiling at the sound of her best friend’s voice, who is telling a story about attempting to learn cricket so she can be part of the school’s teacher cricket team and, given Mel knows how bad Priya’s hand-eye coordination is, she can just imagine how that went. It’s nice, hearing that she’s throwing herself into things out there. She’s thinking the lightness in Priya’s voice sounds a little forced, until Priya asks, carefully, how the first day with Finn has gone—which explains the tone. Mel sighs as she finishes the voice note. She’ll figure out how to reply to that in the morning.

She’s still not asleep by the time Finn comes in, even though it must be more than an hour later—like he’s waited, allowing her to fall asleep first. He moves in the dark, using his phone torch to fumble around, getting ready. She keeps her body very still, eyes closed. The torch light moves closer to the bed, briefly lighting up her eyelids, and she feels Finn pause. She wonders what’s going through his mind and feels that odd self-consciousness, the idea that he might be watching her fake sleep—even if she can’t open her eyes to check.

The duvet is pulled back, the torch light goes out, and she feels the mattress sink under Finn’s weight. She doesn’t have to open her eyes to know that they are curled up on opposite sides, as far away from each other as they can get. Despite that, the scent of him still moves to take up the space between them, fresh pine and that pleasant sawdust smell that reminds her of him sanding down wood in the houses he worked on. She finds herself inhaling it, so many memories waiting for her, if she wanted to let them in.

She doesn’t, she tells herself firmly. She doesn’t want the memories—she just wants to get through this week, fake the breakup with him, and put him behind her.

She listens to the sound of his breathing and, despite what she’s telling herself, she finds her own and settles into a rhythm to match his. It’s achingly familiar, the way her body responds to his, like it’s on a program she can’t switch off. She takes a slow, silent breath.

It’ll be fine, she tells herself firmly. It’s only one week—she can do this.

But she still doesn’t fall asleep until the early hours of the morning and, when she does, her dreams take her to places she’d rather not be, places she’s tried to forget about. Places with Finn.

Chapter Six

Four years ago

Three and a half years until Hattie’s engagement party

The noise and chaos of Princes Street in Edinburgh on New Year’s Eve—or Hogmanay—was something Finn didn’t think he’d ever experienced before. The excitement in the air was a tangible thing as the crowd moved from stage to stage, jostling past one another as they traded one kind of music for another, picking up pints of beer in plastic cups or choosing from just about every type of street food you could imagine.

The sound of drums was close by as he and Mark wove through the thousands of people lining the street, giant screens playing sets from the main stage, two street performers in neon costumes parting the crowd on stilts as they did a complicated waltz in a way that looked both impressive and lethal. They’d gone in search of sustenance, leaving Hattie by the Celtic salsa stage with some new friends of hers after she’d refused point-blank to come with them. Having scoffed down a haggis with tatties in a warm white roll—after Mark insisted they had to at least try haggis while they were in Scotland—they were now heading to the hot cider queue, while Finn kept an eye out for food he thought he might convince Drunk Hattie to eat.

“So are you over her yet?” Mark asked, rubbing his hands together and breathing on them for warmth before shoving them deep in his coat pockets.

Finn glanced at his brother. “Who?”

Mark snorted. “Well, I suppose that answers it. I told Kristen you didn’t need cheering up.”

“You mean Abi? That’s why Kristen let you come out to play?”

“Let me is a bit of a stretch. Made me is more like it.”