Page 133

Finished with the breakfast service and cleanup, Evie and Sunita took a breather on a seaside bench looking out toward the Brough of Birsay. With Nick departing their smouldering embrace forty-eight hours earlier for a week of emergency meetings in London, Evie was riddled with uncertainty about their future.

What were they, exactly?

Together again? Friends with benefits? A one-time hookup? A cringeworthy mistake?

Evie’s heart wrenched with a pang. For thirteen years, sex without love had been her forte post-split—in London, in Orkney—but not any longer. Not with Nick, bothy sleeping bag vow be damned. On Saturday morning, the long-neglected embers in Evie’s heart had reignited.

For better or for worse.

For Nick.

She tightened her grip on her phone and stared out to sea, finally admitting what she’d been fighting all summer. It’s always been Nick.

An incoming message buzzed her hand and quickened her pulse.

But will it be different this time?

“Eves!” Sunita urged, “you’re missing it!” Glued to the kiss being filmed on the beach below, she elbowed her arm. “What could be more riveting than this?”

Evie’s eyes dipped to her phone:

Nick:

London’s sweltering. Missing those Orkney breezes. And you x

I’m missing you, too. Evie bit her lip, remembering how safe and warm she’d felt in his arms, her head on his chest, and the thump, thump, thump of his heart soothing her asleep. “This.” She shared his text.

Sunita craned her neck, reading the screen. “Nick’s missing Orkney? Well, that’s a first. Must’ve been some orgasm on Saturday.” She sat back as Evie lowered her phone.

“It was! His, mine…”

“So that answers my next question.”

“Which is?”

“Any regrets?”

“Sun, you’ve asked me that five times since Saturday.”

“You might’ve changed your mind.”

Cocking her head, Evie squinted into the morning sunshine.

“I know that smug look. You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?”

The smile Evie had been holding back burst out into a cheek-plumping beam. “Would you say no to the best sex of your life? And we cuddled for ages till we fell asleep. He helped me clean up, too.”

“The bothy?”

“No!” Evie motioned with her eyes toward her apron and the lap of her yoga pants. “Me.”

Sunita snorted. “And people say romance is dead.”

“Don’t mock! Sharing responsibility afterward felt respectful and mature…and kinda sexy.”

“Well, it was the least he could do, not bringing condoms,” said Sunita.

“But I didn’t either.” Down on the beach, the director’s shout of “Action!” stole Evie’s attention briefly. “Strange to think it was my first time having sex without, but…I trust him.”