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‘No, you say nothing! This has to come from me and to be honest he usually only comes to me when he wants something, and he knows my focus is on the retreat this week.’

Rita folded her arms tightly, hurt finally catching up with the anger. She shook her head once. Her voice then cracked. ‘He should’ve just told me.’

Jago’s expression softened as his fiancée began to cry.

‘It’s not even the sleeping together,’ Rita stuttered, staring at the dark laptop screen. ‘They’re adults. It’s the looking me in the eye day after day while I stood there none the wiser. He blatantly lied to my face that there was nothing going on.’

‘I don’t think he meant to hurt you.’

‘No, and I get it. I do. But it brings back all those awful memories of when he lied to me about Archie’s will and it broke my heart then that our relationship was fractured.’ She let out a sob. ‘And now I don’t know what to do.’

She fell into Jago’s arms, and he held her tightly against him, rocking her gently like he could somehow steady all the parts of her that had suddenly come loose.

‘Now,’ he whispered into her hair, ‘what we do is we go to bed and get a lovely sleep, because nothing ever seems quite as bad in the morning.’

Almost on cue, both babies started crying.

Rita let out a laugh against his chest.

Jago closed his eyes briefly. ‘OK. Apparently nobody’s getting that lovely sleep.’

Then together, with the farmhouse creaking around them and the snow starting to fall again quietly outside, they headed upstairs to the twins.

THIRTY-NINE

The next morning, the retreat lay transformed beneath a hush of snow. Pale winter light drifted over the orchard and meadows, washing everything in a soft silver-blue glow that made the landscape shimmer as if dusted with frosted icing. Snow clung thick to the stone walls and hedgerows, smoothing their edges into gentle, sculpted lines. Even the fairy lights still threaded through the grounds, glowing faintly in the daylight like embers refusing to fade, adding a quiet touch of warmth to the cold, still beauty of the scene.

Inside the Nook, Christmas tunes drifted lazily through hidden speakers, old classics mixed with Noddy Holder suddenly screeching out, ‘IT’S CHRIIIIISTMAAAAS!’

Zenya had already transformed the long table in the crafting area into five festive workstations, each carefully arranged with bowls of gingerbread pieces she’d baked that morning, piping bags of coloured icing, and little dishes overflowing with sweets, sprinkles and decorations for the retreat guests to build their sugary creations.

Rita adjusted the blanket around the twins in the double buggy as she nudged open the main door to the Nook with her hip.

‘Right,’ Rita greeted Zenya, then groaned. ‘We have two new little helpers this morning. Chloe’s sick.’

‘Oh no, nothing too awful, I hope.’

Rita hesitated before she answered. Truthfully, she wasn’t surprised Chloe had called in. She had been obviously upset last night, too quick with her goodnight, eyes suspiciously shiny as she hurried through the kitchen and out of the door.

And this was exactly what Rita had predicted the second she realised her son might be about to get himself tangled up in another tale of lust and longing that of course came with complications.

Yes, Chloe was without doubt very pretty and also, Rita had learnt recently, exceedingly kind. But her charming, clearly emotionally unavailable son had a habit of repeating the same old situationships.

Rita loved Thom and Sen unconditionally, but with regards to their love lives, she occasionally wanted to shake sense into both of them.

Her jaw tightened as she manoeuvred the buggy further into the room.

Neither of them had been in touch, but why would they be? They clearly had had a lot to hide. Was she that much of an ogre that they couldn’t tell her? But she had categorially said to Thom not to get involved and Sennen just knew from past conversations that the Brimble boys had never been a viable option for her.

Normally she would have asked Sennen to watch the twins for an hour. But that would involve conversation of a dangerous kind, and she really didn’t want to upset the balance of the retreat by throwing bad energy around.

She still couldn’t quite understand it. What was it with her twins and their apparent fascination with siblings from the same family? A family where one of them had burnt down the very building they were now in with a stray lantern. And another was renowned, along with his father, for dodgy planning applications, or rather lack of them.

Rita genuinely wondered if there was some scientific explanation for it. Shared genetics causing similar attraction responses. Familiarity recognition. Similar mannerisms. Some subconscious sense of emotional safety. She made a mental note to see if Jude had a book on the subject. She tried to banish her grumbling thoughts from her mind and focus on the job in hand.

‘She thinks it’s some twenty-four-hour fluey bug thing that’s going around,’ Rita replied to Zenya with a pained face.

‘Rita? Are you alright? Could you not ask Sennen, maybe?’