And throw up all over them.

‘Goodness gracious!’ One old lady shoots up from her chair, rather fast for an old-timer. ‘Oh! Doris, your hat!’ She swats her friend’s head with a napkin, trying to brush away the lumps of vomit that I’ve sprayed all over the poor old lady. I swipe up a napkin and hold it over my mouth.

‘Oh, Edna, is it ruined?’ Her friend’s hand goes straight for her head and sinks into the sick-coated fur of her hat. I heave violently again.

‘I fear it might be. Oh what a shame! Don’t touch it!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I splutter through the napkin, watching the two old biddies fussing over each other. I can feel eyes punching holes into me from everywhere, and a quick glimpse over my shoulder reveals a bistro full of silent observers. Even the filthy-mannered fatty who’s the cause of my vomiting episode is looking at me with disgust. ‘I . . .’ I can’t finish. Sweat has jumped onto my forehead and heat has jumped onto my cheeks. I’m mortified. And I feel terrible – sick, embarrassed and stupid. I let the corridor that leads to the ladies’ room swallow me up, and I flop over the sink, running the tap and splashing my face before rinsing my mouth. Looking up, I’m greeted by the reflection of a pale, meek-looking creature. Me. I feel rotten.

Which reminds me. Once I wash and dry my hands, I take my phone from my pocket and spend five minutes cringing down the line, explaining to my doctor’s receptionist why I need an emergency appointment. ‘Eleven?’ I ask, pulling my phone from my ear to see the time. My shift finishes at five. ‘Have you anything later?’ I try, already running over a plausible excuse for me to escape work for an hour or two. My shoulders sag when she gives me no other option, then points out hastily that I only have a seventy-two-hour window if the morning-after pill is going to work. Damn. ‘I’ll take eleven,’ I say, giving my name before hanging up.

‘Livy?’

Sylvie is peeking around the door. ‘Hey.’ I pop my phone back in my pocket and snatch a paper towel to dab at my wet face. ‘Am I fired?’

She smiles, her pink lips wide, and joins me by the sink. ‘Don’t be silly. Del’s worried about you.’

‘He shouldn’t be.’

‘Well, he is. And so am I.’

‘Neither of you should be worried about me. I’m fine.’ I turn back to the mirror, not prepared to suffer another lecture about my relationship with Miller.

‘Sure you are,’ she laughs, making me frown at her in the mirror. She’s belittling me. ‘I assume things didn’t go so well after he abducted you from the bistro yesterday.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I seethe, turning to face her. The smile has dropped and shock has replaced it. She assumes because I’m a little off colour that things had gone all wrong last night. That Miller is responsible. ‘I feel a little under the weather, Sylvie. Don’t presume that Miller is the catalyst for everything.’ I dump the used towel in the bin harshly. ‘Miller and I are fine.’

‘But—’

‘No!’ I cut her off. I’m not standing for it any more. Not from Sylvie, not from Gregory, not from William. No one! ‘A disgusting man just spat his Tuna Crunch all over the floor and scooped it up with a filthy finger. Then he ate it!’

‘Eww!’ Sylvie recoils, her hand going to her midriff and circling slowly, like sickness has just jumped up and bit her on the arse. She should have seen it.

‘Yes, exactly.’ I tuck a wayward strand of hair behind my ear and straighten my shoulders. ‘That is why I threw up, and I’m f**king miserable because I’m sick of hearing people griping about me and Miller, and even sicker of receiving sympathetic f**king looks!’

Her eyes widen while I bubble with anger before her, my chest pulsing with laboured breaths. ‘Okay,’ she squeaks.

I nod sharply, determinedly. ‘Good. I have to get back to work.’ I slip past a startled Sylvie and bump into Del in the corridor. ‘I’m fine!’ I snap petulantly.

His head seems to sink into his neck. ‘Clearly. But the two old birds in there aren’t.’

I cringe. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Go home, Livy,’ he sighs.

I admit defeat easily on a slump of my shoulders, grateful for not having to make an excuse to escape for my appointment, and follow through on my boss’s sharp order. I take my drained body down the corridor and into the kitchen, slipping quietly past the two old ladies who I’ve just spewed all over. They’re distracted with fresh cakes and a new steaming pot of tea.

Weaving my way through the tables of customers, my need to escape the confines of the bistro becomes urgent under the repulsed looks of the clientele. I burst out the door and land on the pavement, my head falling back on my shoulders and looking to the heavens. The fresh air hits my lungs, and I close my eyes and expel it on a heavy, frustrated sigh, relieved to be in open air.

‘The signs aren’t good.’ William’s rich tone sucks all of that relief out of me, my head dropping down slowly, my expression tired. ‘I assume you know how to operate the iPhone that I bought for you.’

‘Yes,’ I grate. It’s not even ten o’clock and I’ve put up with far too much already today. Now William, too. He’s leaning up against the Lexus, arms crossed over his chest in authority. He looks formidable. And cross.

‘Then I’m going to assume there’s a perfectly good explanation for you ignoring my message.’

‘I was busy.’ I throw my satchel across my body and square my shoulders.

‘Doing what?’

‘None of your business.’

‘Being blindsided by a handsome man who has seduction down to a fine art? Is that what you mean?’

I bristle, my teeth clenching. ‘I am not answerable to you.’

He laughs lightly, a splash of recognition invading his face. I’m behaving like my mother, and I hate myself for it. But for the first time in for ever, I’m thinking hard about her own battle against the people who obstructed her mission to win William. The man before me included. If this is how she felt, then I’m beginning to relate, and that’s something I never dreamed I’d do. But I’m feeling pretty reckless. Determined. I’ve been there before and I’d probably go there again, if I didn’t now have the support of my someone. Gracie never did, and I can fully comprehend how that impacted her. ‘Tell me how my mother came to love you so much.’

My abrupt question wipes the amusement from William’s face in an instant. He’s fallen into that uncomfortable mode again, shifting and diverting his liquid grey stare from mine. ‘I’ve told you.’

‘No, you haven’t. You’ve told me nothing, only that she was in love with you. You haven’t explained how that came to be. Or how you fell in love with her.’ I’m dying to ask him where his manners are, too, but I refrain, waiting patiently for him to piece together his story instead. I need to know. I need to hear how William and my mother came upon each other. One thing I remember vividly is William saying loud and clear that she put herself in his world for him. But how did they meet?

He coughs, keeping his eyes off me, and opens the rear door of his Lexus. ‘I’ll take you home.’