Except Lex hadn’t wanted her there, she reminded herself. If he had, he would have phoned and told her himself, instead of letting her hear it from her mother. Perhaps, like her, he had decided that in the end it would just make it harder. So Romy didn’t ring him either, but wrote a short note that said everything that was proper about his father and nothing at all about what she really wanted to say.

That Friday she left Freya with Michael, and made her way to Gloucestershire. The funeral was to be held in the village where Lex’s parents had lived for forty years. A car was beyond Romy’s budget, so it was a complicated journey involving buses, trains and taxis, and she only just made it to the church in time for the service.

Her mother, so long a friend to Faith Gibson, was sitting behind the family. Romy slipped into the end of the pew, exchanging a glance of apology for her lateness with her mother.

In front of her, Faith sat between her two sons. Summer was there, too, sitting next to Phin. They were a family, and yet Lex looked alone. He was staring straight ahead. Something about the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful way he held his head, twisted Romy’s heart. He was suffering, and there was nothing she could do to help.

The organ struck up, and the priest was moving to address the congregation. Romy saw Lex brace himself, and without giving herself time to think she got up and slid into the pew in front. He shouldn’t have to be on his own, not today.

She caught Lex unawares. The vicar had already begun the service, so there was no chance to talk, but Romy saw the startled look in his eyes change to a fierce gladness, and when she took his hand his fingers closed around hers hard. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t look at her again, but he held her hand tightly all through the service, only letting her go when he got up to give the eulogy.

After the service, Romy stepped back, still without a word, and let Lex take his mother to the graveside, while her own mother eyed her speculatively.

‘Is there something I should know?’ she asked after the burial was over and they were walking slowly to the Gibsons’ house behind the family. It was an inappropriately beautiful day, and the village was so small no one had thought to get in a car to drive the short distance from the church to the house.

Romy flushed under her mother’s scrutiny. She had acted on impulse, and she was glad that she had, but to her mother it must have looked odd the way she had pushed into the family pew.

‘I didn’t want Lex to be on his own.’

Incredibly, neither her mother nor Faith Gibson seemed to have heard anything about the time she and Freya had spent with Lex. Summer had certainly known that they were living together, which meant that Phin must have known too, but evidently he hadn’t passed the news on around the family. Romy wondered whether this was tact on his part, or if Lex had asked him not to say anything.

As far as Romy’s mother knew, Lex was no more than a family friend to Romy. Someone you bumped into at weddings and funerals like this. She knew nothing about that crazy week in Paris all those years ago. She had no idea that Lex knew Freya or that he made her daughter’s heart turn over just by walking into the room.

But Romy had had enough pretending, she realised. ‘I’m in love with Lex,’ she told her mother abruptly, and it was a huge relief just to say the words.

Molly’s eyes rounded and for a moment she looked exactly like Freya. ‘With Lex? But how…? When…?’ She shook her head to clear it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ And then, unable to help herself, ‘Does Faith know?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘But, darling, this is wonderful news!’ In deference to the other mourners, Molly kept her voice down, but she couldn’t resist giving Romy a hug. ‘Why the big secret? And why move to Somerset? I thought you wanted to get back together with Freya’s father!’

‘No.’ Romy’s steps slowed. She was remembering all the reasons why going to Somerset had seemed such a good idea. Was still a sensible idea. ‘I just wanted to get away from Lex. I don’t want to love him, Mum. You know what Lex is like. We’re too different. Anyway,’ she said, ‘we agreed it wouldn’t work.’

‘Ah.’ Her mother’s gaze rested thoughtfully on Romy’s face. ‘Does Lex love you?’

‘I think he loves me, yes.’ Romy sighed. ‘That isn’t the problem,’ she said, just as she had to Willie Grant. ‘What if love isn’t enough? What if it doesn’t last? You and Dad loved each other, and look what happened to you!’

‘Oh, Romy,’ said her mother a little helplessly. ‘Yes, I loved your father, but it wasn’t all perfect. It takes two to make a marriage, and two to let a relationship break down. I know how much it hurt you when he left, but I’m not sure it would have been better for you if he’d stayed. Would you really have wanted to have grown up in a home where the adults resent each other, knowing that you were the only reason they stayed together? I don’t think so.’

Romy stopped at that and stared at her mother. ‘Are you saying you think it was a good thing that he left us?’

‘No, never that. Not knowing what it did to you. But it wasn’t actually the end of the world, was it?’ Molly took her daughter’s arm and made her keep walking. ‘I was very unhappy for a time, but then I met Keith, and I’m happier being married to him than I ever was with your father. I don’t have any regrets about marrying Tony, though. We had you, didn’t we? How could either of us regret that? And now I can remember the good times.’

She smiled at her daughter. ‘There are no guarantees when it comes to love, Romy. Maybe it won’t work out with Lex, but maybe it will, and if you never take the risk, you’ll never know how happy you could be.’

Lex’s jaw felt rigid but he kept a smile in place as he went to greet his godmother. He had always been fond of Molly, who had luminous dark eyes just like her daughter’s, but he had been avoiding her, just as he had been avoiding thinking about Romy, who stood now by her mother’s side.

He had been feeling so alone in the church, and then suddenly Romy had been there. The feel of her hand in his had been so comforting that Lex had almost convinced himself that he had made it up. His mother had been too bound up in her own grief to notice anything, and Romy had slipped away when they followed the coffin out to the graveside. It was almost as if she had never been there at all.

But he had seen her as soon as she came into the house with Molly, and he had spent the afternoon torn between joy at her presence and despair that he was going to have to get used to her not being there all over again. He hadn’t talked to her. He didn’t know what he would say. The only thing he could think of to say was, ‘Come back, I miss you,’ but what was the point? Romy had made her choice, and he had to live with it. Better not to say anything at all.

So Lex moved through the afternoon like an automaton, talking to guests, agreeing that they would all miss his father, not letting himself think. Especially not letting himself notice Romy, slender and vibrant in the dark suit she had used to wear to work. Today she had substituted a dark purple top for her usual brightly coloured blouses, but she still looked more vivid than anyone else in the room.

She was a flame, constantly catching at the edge of his vision. It didn’t matter that she was only talking quietly to other guests. She spoke to his mother, to Phin and Summer. She did nothing to draw attention to herself at all, but Lex was intensely aware of her all the same. She might as well have been the only other person in the room.

Now Lex kissed Molly’s cheek, and let himself look properly at Romy at last. She looked gravely back at him, her eyes dark and warm, and as his gaze met hers there was such a rightness to it, as if everything were suddenly falling into place, that Lex was sure that everyone in the room must surely hear the click of connection.

His jaw was clenched so tightly he could feel the tendons standing out in his neck. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.

There, he hadn’t seized her in his arms. He hadn’t humiliated himself by begging her to come home. It wasn’t much of a victory, but Lex felt as if he had negotiated a long and arduous obstacle course.

‘Faith looks all in,’ said Molly, apparently not noticing the way her daughter and Lex were staring desperately at each other.

With difficulty, he dragged his eyes from Romy’s. ‘Yes. Yes, she is. Phin and Summer are going to take her home with them.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going back to London too.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes,’ said Lex, unable to keep the bleakness from his voice. ‘On my own.’

There was a pause. ‘I think I’ll go and say goodbye to Faith,’ said Molly.

Lex was left alone with Romy. The moment he had longed for. The moment he had dreaded.

Romy drew a breath. ‘Can I come with you?’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘To London.’

The dark eyes were drawing him in. Lex could feel himself slipping. Any moment now and he would be falling again, tumbling wildly out of control once more. He made himself look away.

‘I think I need to be on my own,’ he said.

Romy put her hand on his arm. ‘No, you need someone with you,’ she told him gently.

‘Romy, I can’t…’ Lex broke off, groped for control. ‘I can’t say goodbye again.’

‘We’re not going to say goodbye.’

Mutely, he shook his head, and Romy shattered what was left of his defences by stepping closer so that his senses reeled with her nearness, with the warmth of her hand, the piercing familiarity of her fragrance.

‘Lex, you buried your father today,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been strong for your mother, but you need to grieve for yourself. Now let me be strong for you. Let me drive you. You don’t have to do everything on your own.’

The longing to be with her, to put off the moment when he had to watch her leave, was too much. Strong? He had never been strong where she was concerned. Lex did his best to resist the temptation, but then handed over his car keys. It felt deeply symbolic. He wanted to say, ‘Be careful, that’s my heart I’m giving you there.’

He didn’t, of course, but Romy smiled reassuringly at him anyway. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m a careful driver.’

Lex was used to being driven. He often sat in the back of limousines, but this was different. He was sitting in the passenger seat of his own car, and Romy was at the wheel, and he was very aware of having ceded control. It felt dangerous. And it felt like letting go.

Letting go of responsibility.

Letting go of the pretence that he could be happy without Romy.

Letting the jumble of feelings overwhelm him. Guilt and grief and resentment for his father. Love and loneliness and joy and despair and desire and everything else that Romy made him feel, everything he had been trying not to feel for so long.

Tears were unmanly. Gerald Gibson had taught his son that long ago, and Lex hadn’t cried since he was a very small boy. He didn’t cry now, but inside he could feel himself crumbling. He stared straight ahead, his face set like stone, his mouth pressed into a rigid line, and his throat too tight to speak.

To his intense relief, Romy didn’t try to make conversation. She just drove him back to the apartment, unlocked the door with the key he handed over without a word, and poured him a great slug of the whisky he had bought for Willie Grant a lifetime ago, all without a word.

Lex sat on the sofa, head bent, the glass clasped between his knees. He swirled the whisky, letting the warm, peaty smell of it calm him before he drank, and its mellowness settled steadyingly in his stomach.

Romy sat quietly beside him, her hand on his back infinitely comforting.

‘He never said well done.’ The words burst out of him without warning. ‘Not once. But do you know what he did? He left me a controlling share in Gibson & Grieve. I had to listen to some lawyer tell me that my father thought I’d done well. That I’d shown I was worthy. He said he was confident that he was leaving the company in capable hands,’ said Lex bitterly.

Romy’s throat ached for him. ‘He was proud of you.’

‘It’s too late for him to tell me now! Why couldn’t he…?’ He broke off, too angry and frustrated to speak.

‘Why couldn’t he tell you?’ she finished for him. ‘Perhaps he was afraid to, Lex. Perhaps, deep down, he was afraid that if he gave you the approval you craved, you wouldn’t need him any more.’

She rubbed his back, very gently. ‘I think you and I need to forgive our fathers,’ she said. ‘I certainly need to forgive mine. I loved him so much, but I wanted him to be somebody he couldn’t be. I didn’t understand that he was just a man, wrestling with his own fears.’