With some unexpected last minute faffing and the walk down to the beach, it was more like two hours later when they all arrived. The party had grown and included two other older relatives of Nanette’s – a cousin and a second cousin, as far as Haydon could make out – who were all keen to make the most of the sun and sea. He learned that one of them – Blanche – was from Lille, up in the north as Nanette herself was, and the other was named Jacques and lived in Paris like Bastien.

During the walk he’d got to know them all a little better and they were all open and affable. Molly and Bastien seemed friendly enough. In fact, though Haydon had a natural dread of the teenage species – perhaps driven in part by his need to teach many of the less engaged ones how to play a musical instrument most of them had no interest in learning – he found them really quite likeable. Especially Molly. She seemed mature and thoughtful, and he quickly learned that she played violin; that point alone was enough to win him over.

Ella was sold too, despite Molly being two years her senior, or perhaps because of it. Younger teenagers were often beguiled by the glamour of an older one and Ella was no exception, keen to fit in and impress. Molly was sweet with her too, tolerant of Ella’s excitable chatter, taking her under her wing like an older sister, and the fact that they shared a love of classical music certainly helped them find common ground.

‘So your aunt is a hundred?’ Haydon said as he helped lay a blanket out on the sand, slightly annoyed at himself that he hadn’t thought to bring a blanket to sit on too. Now he and Ella would have to cram onto Nanette’s. ‘That’s pretty amazing.’

‘In our family it is not so amazing,’ Blanche said.

‘Many of our relatives have lived long lives,’ Nanette agreed. ‘We are blessed with years, it seems.’

‘You must be,’ Haydon said. ‘I don’t know anyone who’s made it that far.’

Nanette smiled. But then her gaze went across the beach and she began to wave at two figures walking across the sand.

‘Friends of yours?’ Haydon asked.

‘They are coming to join us, I think,’ she replied. ‘My brother Maurice and his stepdaughter. This morning they were too busy, but perhaps they changed their mind.’

Great, Haydon thought. Although a small part of him was now beginning to enjoy the company of his new friends, socialising wasn’t really his natural territory and adding more people into the mix wasn’t going to make him feel any more relaxed. At least the teens were faring better – Molly and Ella had already sprinted after Bastien as he beckoned them from the shoreline, and they were now leaping over the waves like kids half their ages. Haydon went back to searching for the sun cream he’d hastily stuffed into a bag.

He vaguely listened as he heard Nanette’s greeting and his name mentioned and he looked up to offer a brief friendly smile. And then the world around him stopped, along with his heart, as he stared at the woman who’d come to join them.

It couldn’t be. And yet some unnameable instinct told him that he’d already known she was here – the woman from the market he’d convinced himself was simply a trick of his memory was no trick after all. She was real, and she stood before him now. The name stuck in his throat and came out more like the squeak of a tuning bagpipe than a word.

‘Ashley?’

She frowned. And then, it seemed, realisation for her too – the same disbelief and shock. But as he stepped forward with a million questions suddenly zipping around his head she turned ashen – and stumbled. His step turned into a lunge as he watched her sway, then wobble, and then crumple, and he raced to catch her. But Nanette’s brother beat him to it and caught her nimbly in capable arms.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘Sit here on the sand. You are too tired…’

‘I’m fine,’ she replied faintly, trying, but failing, to wave away his ministrations.

‘I will phone Sue,’ the man said.

‘No.’ Ashley shook her head, glancing across at Haydon again as if she was scared of him. ‘Don’t bother Mum. I’ll be fine in just a minute… I moved too quickly, that’s all – got a bit light-headed, but it will pass.’

She didn’t look much as if it would pass, whatever it was. Was it shock at seeing him? The same shock he felt at seeing her after all these years, and here, of all places? He almost felt like fainting himself, but there would be nobody to catch him if he did, he was quite sure of that.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, the question, even as it came out, sounding ridiculous. Why shouldn’t she be here? She had to be somewhere. But here?

‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she replied.

Haydon forced a smile, but it felt stiff and wrong.

‘You know each other?’ the man asked.

Ashley glanced uneasily at Haydon and then back at Nanette’s brother again. ‘Sort of. We met many years ago. But we haven’t seen each other in…’

At this, the memory of their drunken encounter made Haydon’s cheeks burn. He wasn’t proud of the way he’d come on to Ashley that night, and he wasn’t sure he wanted these nice, respectable people to judge him by the actions of one crazy evening. Not to mention that Ella was with him, and God only knew what she might make of it all. He’d really liked Ashley, and she’d promised to keep in touch, but she’d disappeared from his life the minute he’d left her apartment to catch his flight home. The rejection had stung, and had continued to do so sporadically until he met Janine a year later. It was beginning to look as if he had quite a talent for getting it wrong if his now-failed marriage was anything to go by. No wonder Ashley had chosen to steer clear in the end.

Nanette, seemingly oblivious to the tension suddenly choking the air between Ashley and Haydon, smiled brightly.

‘You know each other – this is wonderful! So, Haydon, this is also my brother Maurice.’

Haydon forced his gaze away from Ashley, who still looked as bewildered and shell-shocked as he did, and gave Maurice a stiff nod of acknowledgement.

‘Good to meet you. So you’re Ashley’s father?’

‘Stepfather,’ Maurice replied. Though the charged moment seemed to have escaped Nanette, Maurice was watching with a shrewd expression. Did he know who Haydon was? About their past? About what Haydon and Ashley had done that night? Had Ashley told him?

Haydon shook himself. Surely not. Surely it wasn’t the sort of thing a girl shared with her parents – step or otherwise. Perhaps he was paying more attention because he recognised a weird reaction when he saw one, and Haydon had to admit that his reaction was probably about as weird as it got. He was only glad that Ella was somewhere down the beach and out of the way so she hadn’t seen it, because it would doubtless have led to awkward questions later. He desperately needed to pull himself together. If Ashley was half as freaked out by events as he was then she was already a great steaming pile of freaked out, and she probably didn’t need him adding to it.

‘So, it’s great to see you again,’ he said to Ashley weakly. Even as he did he was struck by what a ridiculously inadequate sentiment it was. Great to see you? Like they’d once grabbed a coffee and promised to catch up next time he was in town? Like they’d once been at the same business meeting or been thrown together on an office team-building exercise?

‘Yeah,’ Ashley replied, staring at him as if he might disappear if she closed her eyes for a second. Which was also how he felt, though he tried hard not to let it show. What was going through her head as she looked at him? Loathing? Annoyance? Resentment? Or were there some stirrings of long-forgotten attraction now threading through the shock, as he felt now? She wasn’t eighteen any more, but she was still gorgeous. The same soft grey eyes and that same golden hair that had rested on tanned shoulders that night. Even now, even at this most awkward and inappropriate moment, his gut groaned with desire, stronger with every new memory that assailed him.

His gaze went to the sand so he wouldn’t have to look at her, so nobody might guess at the tumult of emotions beneath the surface that might give him away.

‘Molly is Ashley’s daughter,’ Nanette said into the brief gap.

Haydon’s head snapped up again. ‘Molly’s yours…?’

So she was with someone now? He should have realised that a woman like Ashley would be. She probably got attention wherever she went. How stupid of him to entertain for a single second the notion that they might somehow pick up where they’d left off, that she’d be remotely interested in him. After all, she hadn’t wanted to see him again after Ibiza so why would now be any different?

‘She seems a great girl,’ he said stiffly. ‘She and Ella have really hit it off.’

‘Ella?’

‘Ella’s my daughter,’ Haydon said. ‘They’re in the sea now with Bastien.’

His gaze turned to the shore, and when he turned back he could see Ashley watching them carefully as they splashed about.

‘So…’ Nanette clapped her hands together. ‘We have food. Would you care to eat with us, Haydon?’

Haydon gave a vague nod. The last thing he needed was food, but what else was he going to say? What he really needed was a darkened room. Or perhaps a cold shower.

Nanette bade him take a seat on the blanket and Ashley did the same, sitting next to Maurice, who seemed to be glancing between them every so often as if to work them out. Haydon couldn’t blame him because whatever history they had must have been written on his face at least. As for Ashley, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. The only thing he recognised was that same numb shock, disbelief that this could be happening. Of all the places she had to be right now, why did it have to be here?