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Chapter Seventeen

Harford was separated from the real world by an arched sandstone bridge that crossed a pretty stream and elicited polite little paps from car horns as all the happy drivers encouraged one another to go first. There was an old mill and an even older church, as well as lots of adorable limestone houses and gardens full of colourful summer flowers, hollyhocks and delphiniums, which towered over garden walls, almost as tall as me. Even though it had been part of my life ever since I was a little girl visiting grandparents, it still felt unreal to me, the kind of place you might expect to see on an early Sunday evening BBC drama where members of the clergy solved gentle, quirky crimes. And after my conversation with Sarah, I suspected I might be the next victim of said crimes.

She took the news incredibly well and naturally, she was super cool about it. Or at least she was after she'd finished screaming and throwing things at me, demanding to know how I'd dared keep my secret for so long. By the time we got to the end of the whole drama, even she had to admit the Joe situation was a little more complicated than she'd first assumed but there hadn't been enough time to dig in any deeper. The morning rush reached fever pitch just as I was telling her how he hung the sheet across the cottage and Sarah's skills were needed at the espresso machine.

‘The most obvious answer here is that you never should've lied in the first place,' she said as she wrapped the strings of her apron around her waist. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, it doesn't matter what other people think.'

‘At least once more,' I replied, tying them in a big bow behind her back. ‘And that might be the most obvious but it's also impossible unless you have a time machine. Any other bright ideas?'

‘Not yet but I'm sure I'll have it all worked out by this evening. You know me, I'm a problem solver.'

‘You're amazing is what you are,' I replied, meaning every word.

‘It's the only way I know how to be.' She handed me my promised cookie then slapped me on the backside. ‘All right, Este, on your way. Text me if you need me, otherwise I'll see you tonight.'

As I stepped out onto the high street, the world felt a little bit lighter. Sarah was ecstatic for me, even if it did mean she couldn't read Butterflies ever again (her words, not mine) and she completely understood why it might make things difficult at school if the truth came out. She was also ready to fight my mother to the death, which would've worried me more if she hadn't hero-worshipped my mum ever since she caught us pouring vodka into our orange juice at a New Year's Eve party when we were fifteen and, appalled with our choice of amateur screwdrivers, took us into the kitchen to teach us how to make dirty martinis. My mother was a big believer in learning all the essential life skills early.

In the sunshine, picture perfect Harford looked especially camera-ready. Not only was it steeped in the usual old English charm, but brightly coloured bunting stretched across the street, hundreds of red, yellow, pink and blue triangles of fabric zigging and zagging along, barely even fluttering in the still morning air, and drawing me down to the green where people were setting up for the summer fête. My heart lifted at the sight of pasting tables and folding chairs and skyrocketed when I spotted the candyfloss machine. When I was little, the fête was my favourite part of the summer holidays, running around with five pounds in my pocket and a bellyful of sugar. Just being in close proximity to a game of hook-a-duck made me feel like I could run through a brick wall. I scoured the scene for a fudge stall, suddenly overcome with the desire to put my pancreas to the test, but it was too early to tell what anything would be, no one had their signs up yet. All these tents and booths could be for anything – home-baked biscuits, guess how many sweets in the jar, bric-a-brac, white elephant, which was basically the same as bric-a-brac but the fête organisers had a ‘no two stalls alike' rule, unless that stall sold cake. You couldn't have enough cake.

No matter how muddled I'd felt when I left the cottage, it was impossible to be miserable when the world was sunshine, blue skies and strawberries and cream. The air smelled sweet and full, the taste of summertime tangible on my tongue and there was something about the green grass under my feet that made me smile. Well, the grass and the tremendous amount of coffee I'd consumed at Sarah's. There had to have been at least three shots in Mr Atkinson's coconut flat white because I was pretty sure no one else around me could hear the buzzing sound that echoed in my ears.

I skirted around the edge of the green for fear of being drafted into helping to set up the best vegetable competition, and without planning on it, found myself in front of another new addition to Harford's high street. There it was, right where the greengrocer's once stood. The flaking green paint had been replaced by a fresh vivid blue and there was a neon sign in the window, and another hand-painted above the door, both of them declaring this to be ‘Charlotte's Bookshop'.

‘Wow,' I said softly. ‘It's really real.'

I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting but it wasn't this. This looked like a proper bookshop. Not all the way finished yet but even from the outside I could see how great it was going to be: the open shelves, the cute little reading nooks and even a branded ‘Charlotte's Bookshop' mirror for selfies. My sister had done all this and passed her exams? The results weren't in yet but she had never achieved anything less than top marks for as long as she had lived. She was even in the top percentile for growth and weight when she was a baby so I had no doubts.

It wasn't much after ten a.m. and, aside from the flurry of activity around the fête, our sleepy town was still quiet, save the odd woollen-socked rambler beginning or returning from an adventure in the peaks. I was still staring in Charlotte's shop window when a car trundled up the road, slow enough to suggest it was looking for something. When it rolled to a stop, I realised it was a car I recognised.

A Range Rover.

‘Not the sister I was expecting to see here,' Joe said as he opened the door and hopped down to the pavement, phone in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. A not particularly pleasant mix of anxiety, arousal and caffeine spiked in my bloodstream, and I shrank back a step. Somewhere in the evolutionary mess, my fight-or-flight reactions had both been accidentally set to ‘curl up into a ball and hope it goes away', which I was fairly sure only worked on bears. Or was it wolves? Either way, it definitely wasn't going to work on Joe Walsh.

‘You're meeting Charlotte?' I combed my hair through with my fingers, all too aware there was nothing I could do about my creased-up dress and comfy old cardigan. He looked fresh and crisp, I looked like I'd got dressed in the dark.

Which I had.

But Joe didn't seem to notice. He never once took his eyes off mine.

‘She wanted to show "Este" the shop where she'll be making her first-ever public appearance.'

I looked away first, turning my gaze to the unfinished window display.

‘What happened to telling everyone it was a mistake?' I asked, fingertips lightly touching the glass. ‘I thought it was all going to be straightened out by now.'

‘Small bump in the road with that plan,' he replied, screwing up his face with evident frustration. ‘Your sister doesn't believe me. She says—' He paused and pulled out his phone to accurately quote her message. ‘I'm eighteen not an idiot, see you at the shop, Este, then there's about five thousand kisses and a gif of Lisa Simpson dancing.'

‘Mad to think we're living in a time when we don't believe someone, even when they're trying to tell you the truth.' I rubbed my temples as he turned the phone around to show me the message, Lisa Simpson undulating underneath a row of X's and O's.

‘Perhaps if we were telling her the whole truth, she might be more inclined to believe it.'

‘And perhaps if you hadn't said you were Este Cox last night—'

‘Hey, Sophie, here's an idea. Do you want to continue this pointless fight inside?' Joe interrupted with a glorious and unbothered smile. ‘Charlotte's running late, she gave me the keycode to let myself in. Although how she got my number in the first place is a mystery.'

‘My sister could find Amelia Earhart's contact details if she put her mind to it. I'm sure your phone number was no trouble whatsoever,' I replied, declining to acknowledge his comment about the pointless argument, even though he was right. Especially because he was right. Why would Charlotte believe he'd made something like this up? Even I wasn't really sure and in theory he'd explained it more than once.

Concentrating, he tapped a six digit number into the silver keypad on the blue door and I noticed the distinctive pink shade of his cardboard coffee cup as he brought it up to his lips.

‘Where did you get the coffee?' I asked.

‘Coffee shop,' he replied smartly. ‘Down the street.'

We must have just missed each other. The thought of Joe buying coffee from Sarah without either of them knowing who the other was gave me an unexpected thrill I hadn't felt since she worked weekends at the big Tesco when she was sixteen, and texted to tell me Dev Jones, my unrequited sixth form crush, was looking at condoms in the personal care aisle.

‘It's pretty good for outside London,' he added.

‘Wild that something as rare as coffee exists outside a capital city,' I replied, leaping to Sarah's defence. ‘There are other places in the country, don't be such a snob.'

Biting his lip to restrain a grin, he held the door open with his body, forcing me to sidle past him to pass through the old narrow entrance, coffee and pastry held up above his head. The smell of last night's barbecue clung to his hair, the smoky aroma blending beautifully with his warm skin and fresh deodorant. I breathed in as I passed, my back brushing against his front, and my head swam.

This man was going to be the death of me.

The shop was even more impressive on the inside than it was from the street. I inhaled the fresh paint, woodstain and boxes and boxes of brand-new, unread books. To me it was even better than new car, cut grass or freshly washed sheets. I wished there was a way to bottle it and keep it forever, but I must've bought at least a dozen different ‘bookshop-scented' candles and was still searching for the perfect blend. No one could capture this magic.

As Joe closed the door behind us, I found myself in front of a table full of contemporary romance. These were the books I'd turned to when things fell apart with CJ, the stories that helped me believe life wouldn't always be so miserable and imagine a time I might feel good again. Emily Henry, Mhairi McFarlane, Elena Armas, Tessa Bailey, Tia Williams, Lucy Vine, Rebecca Serle, Sophie Cousens, Kennedy Ryan, Jasmine Guillory, Sarah MacLean, Beth O'Leary, Fallon Ballard, Ali Hazelwood, Sarah Adams, Hannah Grace, Lucy Score, Lia Louis, the list went on, the list was endless. So many women writing so many words and every single story essential. Charlotte had covered all her bases, historical, fantasy, sci-fi, classics, graphic novels and even a few select thrillers even though I knew they were not her thing at all. The other side of the shop was dominated by her immense YA section and the thrill of seeing so many different books from so many different authors was overwhelming, every kind of person seen, heard and represented. I turned in a slow circle and breathed in deeply. Paper and ink and binding glue. Perfection.

‘I've always loved the smell of books,' Joe said, reading my mind. He picked up a beautiful hardback edition of Wuthering Heights, one I hadn't seen before, opened it up and sniffed. I turned away from the rapturous look on his face and wandered over to the small collection of second-hand books on the back wall.

‘Don't you think there's something fascinating about used books?' he asked. ‘Right this second, you're looking at a book that's been read a dozen times by a dozen different people over more years than you've been alive. I can never get over it, the thought of one person sitting down to write a story and all the different people who pick it up over the years and read it. The same words taking on a completely different meaning every time.'

‘Joe Walsh, you're a secret romantic,' I teased. ‘I never would've guessed.'

A small smile played on his face and he looked over at me, Emily Bront? in hand.

‘Never said it was a secret.'

As usual, Sarah was correct. I barely knew him. Surrounded by books, I felt safer than before, like I was on home ground, like I could be brave.

‘What's the most romantic thing you've ever done?' I asked.

The smile faded into something more complicated and he shook his head very gently. ‘Depends who you ask.'

Turning his back, he took himself off to inspect the historical fiction shelves, leaving me behind.

The bookcases opened up to a space around the till, a beautiful bookish mural of women writers painted on the back wall and a narrow corridor off to one side leading away to the back of the building. I wandered down the corridor, running my fingertips over the walls. Maybe, when he wasn't being impossibly frustrating, Joe was a romantic. Not the breezing-into-a-fancy-restaurant-with-a-dozen-red-roses kind but personally I'd never been interested in those kind of generic gestures anyway. Everyone's definition of romance was different. One woman's rose petals scattered through the house was another woman's hiding a bag of Mini Eggs in your handbag and I for one was definitely a Mini Eggs girl. Imagine trying to feel sexy when you knew you were going to have to vacuum up those petals in the morning. Dried me up faster than salt on a slug.

Charlotte's small back office-slash-stockroom was already full to overflowing, organised chaos compared to the bright and airy front of the shop. Ancient wooden beams supported the low ceiling and there were dozens of cardboard boxes stacked up against whitewashed walls, a heavy-looking desk tucked away in the corner with a computer on top and my dad's old laser printer hidden underneath. The room was dimly lit with only one small window, perfect for protecting delicate books and softening the edges of everything it touched. Aside from the addition of electricity, I could easily believe nothing had changed about this room since the place was built, hundreds of years ago. It smelled old but in a warm, reassuring way. Nothing bad could happen to you in here. Where the shop was all shelfies, selfies, loud debates and sweet cream nitro cold brew, this room was made for cups of tea and curling up with a good book that left you full of feeling, long after the tea went cold. Flicking through a pile of glittery stickers on the desk, I smiled. I was so proud of Charlotte.

‘I've got to hand it to her, your sister has done a good job with this place.'

Joe appeared at the end of the hallway, his shoulders barely squeezing through the door. He stooped to dodge one of the beams, marvelling at his surroundings as he came closer and dominating the enclosed space with his physicality.

‘She really has,' I agreed, wrapping my cardigan tightly around me, my last line of defence. ‘You forget so quickly, don't you? I should've known she'd ace this, she's so sure of herself. I definitely had more faith in myself when I was eighteen.'

‘When I was eighteen, I didn't have a clue.' He followed up with a rich, deep chuckle that echoed off the low ceiling and reverberated through me. ‘I was human chaos back then. Always acting on impulse, no concern for what might come next.'

‘Do you act on impulse now?' I asked before I could bite back the words.

He looked down at the copy of Wuthering Heights still in his hands, opened the cover and flicked through the pages before setting it down carefully.

‘Sometimes.'

I backed into the edge of the desk, feeling my way around until I was safely behind it, and dropped my bag on the surface with a dull thud. There was a single box of books next to the computer and I feigned interest in its contents, afraid that if he caught me in his gaze again I wouldn't be able to move. Inside was an untouched stack of freshly printed pink books. What else but Butterflies? My own book was now officially stalking me.

‘A chaotic romantic with impulse control,' I replied with a hitch in my voice as I closed up the box. ‘Sounds dangerous.'

‘Mmm. If I were you, I'd stay away from a man like that.'

‘I'm trying.'

It was so quiet. No whirr of air conditioning, no rumble of traffic, only the muffled sound of footsteps on the concrete floor and my own erratic breathing.

Joe reached his arms up over his head and grabbed hold of one of the wooden beams, testing its hold before leaning into it. His body blocked out almost all the light from the little window, casting him in shadows and making it impossible to read his expression. I ran my hand across the smooth surface of the desk. It felt solid.

‘What changed?' I asked, running his words back to myself.

‘What do you mean?' Joe replied without moving.

‘You said you were human chaos. What changed?'

He didn't reply right away, waiting until he knew what he wanted to say before he said it.

‘It wasn't one thing,' he said with a tilt of his head. ‘My mum left Boston, moved back here, up to Scotland, a couple of years earlier and she wasn't in the best health. I wasn't enjoying my job, and there were, I don't know, other things.'

‘Romantic things?' An undeniable stab of jealousy stuck in my side.

‘Lots of things,' he said vaguely. ‘I needed a change. I needed to change.'

‘So you moved back to London.'

He nodded. ‘New York is an incredible place but it's very easy to play Peter Pan for way too long. As long as you take your career seriously, you don't really have to take life seriously, and my New York decisions were not always that smart.'

‘But you're different now?' I said. I hoped.

‘How come you went into teaching?' Joe asked, deflecting my question with a question. ‘Your whole family is in publishing one way or another but you're a teacher. Why?'

Sinking into the chair behind the desk, I rested my chin on my clasped hands. If he didn't want to answer my question properly, I didn't have to answer his properly either.

‘Because I'm only teaching kids until I find a rich husband,' I reminded him. ‘I must still be looking.'

Maybe I was imagining it but even in the low light of the stockroom, I thought I could see a pink tint take to his complexion. ‘I might have been wrong,' he replied. ‘But you aren't easy to read, Sophie Taylor.'

The chair behind the desk was very comfortable, a heavy wooden frame with old, soft leather cushions. Once upon a time, I imagined it might've been too firm, too overstuffed to stay in for long, but now, when I sat back, the cushions gave and I sank into them with ease.

‘The truth is, I don't really know why,' I confessed, meeting honesty with honesty. ‘When I was younger, I really wanted to be a writer. You should see the Twilight fanfic I wrote when I was a teenager, actually, no you shouldn't. No one can read that ever.'

Joe laughed softly but let me carry on speaking.

‘You're right though, it should've been easy. Both of my parents, my godfather and my brother were already in the industry, any of them would've helped me find a job.'

‘You wouldn't have been the first publishing nepo baby,' he agreed. ‘What stopped you?'

I traced the patterns in the surface of the desk. The grain of the wood had been smoothed out over who knew how many years by people sitting here doing who knew what. Maybe great novels had been written at this desk. Or love letters. Or maybe it had only been used to do the accounts and play snakes and ladders. There was no way to know.

‘I was scared,' I told him, surprised at how easy it was to say out loud in front of him. ‘Everyone thought I would graduate with a great literary novel in my back pocket. Mum was convinced I was going to be the next Donna Tartt, Dad was always bragging to everyone at work about how talented I was, but all I had were a dozen first chapters of a dozen different books and they were all terrible.'

‘I bet they weren't, I bet they were good.'

‘They weren't good enough for Hugh and Pandora Taylor's daughter.'

I thought back to all those nights I spent in front of a laptop, trying to construct clever sentences and create bold imagery, always imagining my parents reading over my shoulder. I desperately wanted to write something important and literary but my heart just wasn't in it.

‘When I gave up trying to write something they would approve of, the thought of taking a job in publishing felt like punishment. I didn't want to move home so there wasn't a lot of time to come up with an alternative career path.'

‘Sophie, no one expects a twenty-one-year-old to have it all figured out,' Joe said. ‘You're being incredibly hard on yourself.'

I shook my head and looked around the room. ‘Charlotte is only eighteen and look at this. If I didn't have something else, I would've been dragged into one of their offices by the scruff of my neck and I couldn't stomach the thought. Teaching seemed like a good back-up plan.'

An unseeable cloud passed over the sun somewhere high above us and filled the whole room with shadows. I rested my chin on the boxful of Butterflies and sighed.

‘I thought it would be easy but it isn't. All those people who think teaching is a cop-out ought to spend one week dealing with a bunch of ten-year-olds, preferably two weeks before the summer holidays,' I said, opening the door to happier memories. ‘But I love it. Obviously not the admin or the bureaucracy, and I swear, some of the parents were put on this earth to test my will to live, but every day is different. I like the creativity and yes, I know it's a cliché but the kids are so great. Mostly because they leave our school before they've been ruined by hormones and social media – but that's a secondary school problem, not mine.'

‘But do you love teaching more than writing?' Joe asked, still holding his position. His face was completely blotted out now, his body outlined by what little light made it through the window.

‘I don't have an answer to that yet,' I admitted. ‘They're so different. With teaching, I'm surrounded by people all day. When I'm writing, it's just me. I don't know if I would like that all the time.'

‘It can be a lonely career,' he acknowledged. ‘Most writers I know are introverts, they prefer their own company.'

‘Maybe most writers you know are psychopaths,' I suggested and he smiled.

Outside, the clouds passed and Joe's features slowly emerged from the shadows. He was staring intently, not at me but at my book.

‘When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer too.' He let go of the ceiling beam and came closer to the desk to pick up his own copy of Butterflies, tapping it against his open palm like he was trying to shake something loose.

‘Really?' It was difficult to imagine. CJ fit the stereotype, Joe didn't. I couldn't imagine him tearing back into his dorm room, hanging up his lacrosse boots and settling down to pour his thoughts into a Moleskine journal. If there was such a thing as lacrosse boots. I needed to read more sports romances.

Thumbing his way through the pages, Joe's eyes scanned my words before settling somewhere in the middle of the book. Somewhere that looked dangerously close to chapter seventeen.

‘I did, but I wasn't very good at it. Not like you.'

‘There are plenty of people who don't think I'm very good at it,' I replied with a laugh.

I watched his eyes scan the pages until he found what he was looking for. Clearing his throat, Joe moved until the light from the window shone directly on the book.

‘When his eyes find mine, everything I've been fighting against falls away,' he read in a measured, certain voice.

Oh no.

It was chapter seventeen.

‘He comes closer until he is all I can see or breathe, the sound of his voice rumbling like thunder in my ears. "Why did you dance with him?" Eric demands to know. I don't have an answer ready and he doesn't give me a chance to think of one. "I've never been so mad at you," he whispers as his hand clamps my upper arm, tight enough to leave fingerprints. "You're the one who left," I tell him, furious at his reaction but at the same time, I felt myself melting at my core, "what did you want me to do?" I wanted him angry, I wanted him mine. Jealousy tightens his grip on my arm and his gaze sears my soul. "I want you to get on your knees," he breathes. "And I want you to show me you're sorry—"'

‘You're not going to believe this but I'm familiar with the story,' I said, curling the sleeves of my cardigan around my fingers to stop my nails from cutting into the flesh of my palms. ‘I don't need a DIY audiobook.'

What I did need was a glass of cold water, a fan and maybe a chastity belt. I felt like a swan, gliding elegantly on the surface for all to see while my legs kicked wildly under the surface, struggling to keep up the pretence. Only I couldn't feel my legs, just the swirling heat between them.

‘It's difficult for me to believe someone as odious as your ex-boyfriend could inspire something as hot as this.' Joe perched on the edge of the desk, still holding the book, his forefinger saving the page. I crossed my legs at the ankles and squeezed my thighs as tightly as possible, hoping to weld them together under my dress. ‘I wish I could understand what you saw in him?'

‘He did inspire it but not in the way you think,' I told him. ‘I was bored and lonely, CJ was what I had, the relationship between Eric and Jenna was what I wanted.'

I shrugged off my cardigan before I could overheat. It was stuffy in the stockroom. Stuffy and close and so hot and why did the smell of old books blend so beautifully with the smell of Joe's skin?

‘So it's your fantasy.'

Questions like that were why I didn't want to do interviews. If there had been any more fire in my cheeks, they could've used me to power a nuclear reactor.

‘Only it doesn't read like a fantasy.' Joe opened the book again, reading on in his head. ‘It reads like someone who knows exactly what she wants.'

He slid his finger down the page until he found what he was looking for and spoke my own words back to me, speaking so soft and low I had to strain to listen, even though I knew every single word backwards.

‘"That sorry excuse for a man could never touch you the way I can," Eric says as his hand moves down my arm, slowly stroking the back of my hand before passing over my bare thighs and slipping between my legs."' Joe paused, his voice cracking, and I heard a sharp intake of breath before he started the next sentence. ‘"He could never make you groan the way I can, he could never make you beg for more. He could never make you come the way I can, until all you see are stars and your body lies limp and breathless—"'

‘I've heard enough,' I said although when I heard the tremor in my voice I didn't even believe myself.

Leaving Butterflies on the desk, Joe stood up, effortlessly shoved the heavy antique to the side, and slowly, never once taking his eyes off mine, knelt down in front of me. He rested one palm on each of my knees and gently pushed my legs apart, moving closer until I could feel his breath, warm against my thighs.

‘You can stop now,' I think I said. ‘I've read Iron Flame, this is not your bookshop, this is not the throne of Tyrrendor and I'm not—'

‘Not what?'

My eyes locked on his.

‘Yours.'

A soft gasp escaped my lips as he let his hands glide over my skin, moving unbearably slowly, until they slid behind my hips, his fingers pressing into the soft curves of my body. He paused for one long heartbeat then yanked me forward until our bodies were flush, my arms instinctively circling his neck, his face tilted up towards mine and mine angled down towards his, drawn to him like a magnet. I couldn't read his mind but I didn't need to. His intentions were very clear and my body throbbed with anticipation.

‘Do you really want me to stop?' he asked. ‘Because I will if you ask me to.'

‘I don't know what I want,' I said, a gentle moan escaping as his lips grazed my jaw.

‘Yes, you do.' He teased the shoulder strap of my dress with one hand, the other still firmly grasping my hip, holding me in place. ‘You want me to make you feel the way Eric makes Jenna feel in your book. You want me to make you come so hard you see stars.'

‘And what do you want?' I asked when the heat of his mouth moved to my throat, his full lips and velvet tongue flicking against the tender skin. Between my thighs, I felt his fingers test the edge of my underwear and my back arched to bring him closer, unable to wait one second longer for what came next.

‘You. More than I've ever wanted anything.'

‘Hello?' a high-pitched voice called out from the other room. ‘Este, are you in here?'

‘Fuck!' The word came out through gritted teeth. ‘Charlotte!'

My thighs slammed shut and I shot upright, pulling Joe to his feet then thrusting him into the chair. If it was even vaguely possible, he looked even more stunned than I felt. He shook his head sharply, blinking again and again as I hurled a copy of Butterflies into his lap to cover his raging erection.

‘OK, that hurt,' he croaked with tears in his eyes.

‘I hope it's you,' Charlotte yelled. ‘Otherwise I'll assume it's burglars and you should know I'm a black belt in Krav Maga. I will kick your arse if I have to.'

As her footsteps echoed down the corridor that connected the shop to the stockroom, I positioned myself on the edge of the desk, but I was still far too close to Joe to be capable of rational thought. Grabbing my bag and cardigan, I bolted all the way across the tiny room, assuming what I hoped was a completely natural position, right as Charlotte burst in. Her grin faltered as she looked at Joe, shellshocked and swiping at his already perfect hair, then over to me, buttoning my cardigan, grinning like a maniac and leaning against a recycling bin with my legs tightly crossed.

‘What's happening?' Her tiny pixie face was furious. ‘What are you two doing?'

‘Nothing,' we chorused in unison.

‘You're both terrible liars,' she replied. ‘Why are you so red? And why is he crying?'

‘We were arguing,' Joe managed to say, still a little more high-pitched than usual.

Somehow, I managed to reset my face, raising my chin and pursing my lips to dispel any trace of desire. According to the dusty mirror on the opposite wall, it worked. I looked more like I'd been taste-testing cat food than preparing to … no, no, I would not think about it.

‘About what?'

He cleared his throat but his voice still cracked when he spoke. ‘About our favourite Elena Armas novel. I like The Long Game but Sophie's dead set on The Spanish Love Deception.'

‘That makes sense because you probably love football and if I'd gone out with CJ as long as she did, I'd be fantasising about Aaron Blackford as well. But you're both wrong. True fans know all about The American Roommate Experiment.' Charlotte stood with her fists resting on her skinny hips, a pose I too had inherited from our mother but she definitely pulled it off with more authority. ‘Soph, would you mind fucking off? I need to have a proper conversation with Este and you're bringing down the vibe.'

‘Happy to,' I said, slinging my bag across my body without another glance in Joe's direction. ‘See you both later.'

When I stepped out of the shop and onto the street, I was relieved to discover I hadn't slipped into an alternate dimension where I almost had sex with a man I barely knew on the cold concrete floor of my sister's bookshop stockroom. There were cars and buses and people carrying reusable shopping bags and not a single soul with their hand very nearly in my knickers.

Head rolling all the way back, I rested against the wall of the neighbouring building, a florist owned by a former touring guitarist for Led Zeppelin called Heavy Petal, and waited for all the chemical reactions popping off in my body to dissipate. Why hadn't I paid more attention in biology? Ali Hazelwood would know the scientific reason why my heart rate was sky-high, my pupils were dilated and I could still feel Joe's handprints on my thighs. Imagine writing romance novels and being a literal neuroscientist? English wasn't even her first language, the bloody overachiever. I needed to get a very serious grip on myself.

‘Sophie! You're still here!'

And Joe flying out of the shop looking like he'd just seen inside the Ark of the Covenant wasn't going to help matters.

‘Shouldn't you be talking to the shopkeeper, Este?' I asked, fussing around inside my handbag, a classic avoidance technique and possibly the only reason why women still carried handbags.

‘That's why I need to talk to you.'

He grabbed hold of my forearm and my body betrayed me again, neurons firing, hormones releasing, legs wavering. ‘What are we going to do about this situation?'

‘Which situation?' I asked with a suddenly dry mouth.

‘The situation in which your sister and the rest of your family think I wrote your book.'

He looked almost as annoyed as I used to feel and, I had to admit, I definitely preferred the expression on his face when it was looking up at me from in between my legs.

‘Yeah, um, I think we're going to have to go with it for now,' I said, producing a claw clip from my bag to pull back my hair.

‘Go with it,' Joe repeated. ‘What do you mean, go with it?'

‘I mean, you told everyone you're Este Cox so until one of us comes up with a decent explanation as to why that was a lie, guess what? You're Este Cox.'

‘But I don't know what to say.'

‘Twice in one day. There really is a first time for everything.

For the first time since we'd met, Joe looked completely at a loss. He did this to help you, I reminded myself, still avoiding his piercing blue eyes that had turned large and limpet, a move I was willing to bet he only ever pulled out for truly desperate occasions.

‘Say as little as possible,' I instructed. ‘I know that's going to be difficult but, if in doubt, keep your mouth shut. Talk about yourself instead, I can't imagine it'll be too difficult for you.'

‘Come back in with me,' he begged, ignoring my gentle barb. ‘I can't do it on my own, I'll fuck it up.'

‘No you won't.' Pushing up onto my tiptoes, I leaned in to whisper in his ear. ‘Because if you do, we'll never find out what would've happened if Charlotte hadn't walked in when she did.'

And with that, I walked away.

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