His heart stilled then thundered in his chest. She loved him. God those three little words had never meant so much in his life before.

Her face fell as she registered the words that had fallen from her lips. She suddenly scrabbled off him, backing up to the far side of the hot tub.

‘I didn’t mean that. Ignore it. It’s not true, I don’t love you.’

Isaac moved towards her. ‘Bella, it’s OK, don’t look so scared. I—’

‘I’m not scared. I don’t love you. I told you I don’t believe in love. Being in love just means leaving yourself open for a whole load of hurt and ultimately rejection. Being in love means handing someone your heart and letting them stamp all over it.’

‘Wait, Bella, that’s not what love is.’

‘And you’d know, would you? Someone who has never been in love in his life. Someone who drifts from woman to woman and never commits to anyone. You’re a great advocate for love.’

Bella scrambled out of the hot tub and pulled on his robe and then ran off in the direction of the summerhouse.

Isaac stared after her for a moment as the finale of the fireworks exploded in the night sky. What the hell had just happened? It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. He had been so careful not to tell her he loved her so as not to scare her away that when she had taken him by surprise and told him she loved him, he hadn’t even said it back. He should have said it back. He would tell her. He would march into the summerhouse and tell her that he loved her, that he had never felt this way about anyone before.

He quickly climbed out the hot tub and grabbed his robe. He walked into the summerhouse but the doors that led up to the hills were flung open and there was no sign of Bella anywhere. Her clothes were still in a neat pile on the bench, her bag with all her things in was there too, but there was no sign of her. He moved to the door and looked out. She was gone, seemingly wearing only a dressing gown.

* * *

Isaac pulled up outside Bella’s house a while later to find her sitting on the doorstep, wrapped in his robe, sobbing into her hands. Her feet were bare and covered in mud from her run across the hills and it was utterly devastating to see her this way. She was always so happy and full of life, but this was what defeat looked like.

He got out the car, and using the key she had given him, he unlocked the door to her house, then knelt down and scooped her up and carried her inside. She wrapped her arms round his neck but she didn’t look up or say anything.

Alfie came wandering out to see who was disturbing his sleep, but when he saw that it was Isaac and Bella he returned to his basket with Rocket.

Isaac kicked the door closed behind him and carried her through to the sofa. He laid her down and then lay next to her, holding her to him.

She didn’t say anything but her crying seemed to have subsided a bit now.

‘Bella, I love you. I think I have been in love with you since that first weekend we spent together. I want to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you and what that really means, not this tainted image that your parents left you with.’

Her eyes flicked up to his and they had real fear in them.

She suddenly sat up and clambered over him.

‘This isn’t going to work between us.’

He sat up, feeling like he had just been punched in the gut. ‘What?’

‘This. It wasn’t supposed to happen,’ Bella cried. ‘I never wanted this. I was perfectly happy until you came into my life.’

‘I thought I made you happy.’

‘You do, but it’ll never last, will it. I need to stop this now before I fall any further in love with you.’

‘Wait a minute. I love you, you love me and you want to break up with me because of it?’

She started pacing. ‘I thought I could make it work, I thought about what you said about my dad never really loving my mum and that was the problem, not me, and I thought maybe you were right, maybe it had nothing to do with me. But I found out today that they got married again shortly after my mum dumped me with my aunt and uncle. They’ve been married for twenty years. It was always me that was the problem. I’m unlovable. There’s something wrong with me if my own parents didn’t want me and you’ll soon realise it too. Every other man I’ve dated has dumped me a few months after dating me and I’m sure you will too. I need to get out now. You’re the only one I care about and it will break me when it comes to an end if I let myself fall any further in love with you.’

Isaac stood up. How could this perfect night have gone so badly wrong? ‘So you’ll end it now and hurt us both?’ The only woman he had ever loved was standing in front of him telling him she was walking away. He moved towards her, stopping her pacing with his hands on her shoulders. ‘I love you; I have never felt this way about anyone before. We have something special here and I can’t believe you would walk away from that.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you; that’s the last thing I want.’

‘Yet you’re doing just that.’ Emotion clawed at his throat. He was losing her and there was nothing he could do about it. ‘This is killing me and you don’t care enough to stop it. Clearly you don’t love me after all. This was always just a bit of fun for you.’

‘No it wasn’t. I know I said that but I never meant it. This was something wonderful and it will destroy me if you finish with me,’ she sobbed.

‘So you’ll finish it and destroy yourself. You’re not making any sense,’ Isaac yelled.

She flinched away from him and he knew he had to calm himself down.

‘Bella, I know you’re scared. You’ve been hurt horribly in the past. And you’re trying to protect yourself from it happening again. But love, real love is worth the risk. What if we carry on exactly how we are, spending time with each other, enjoying each other’s company and one day, when you’re ready, we get married to each other? What if this never ends?’

‘What if it does?’

He groaned in frustration and walked away from her. Anger, hurt and betrayal burning in his veins. There was nothing he could say to change her mind. She had been hurt earlier, he’d seen it at the fair, and he should have talked it through with her then. Instead he’d let it build in her mind; escalate into something so much more than it was. Maybe she just needed some time. He needed to walk away from her before he said something he couldn’t take back.

‘I think you should go,’ Bella said, quietly.

‘Maybe I should.’ He whistled for Rocket and the little dog looked up from where she was cuddled around Alfie. And reluctantly, after a few moments, she climbed out of the dog bed and walked over to him. Even Rocket didn’t want to be with him.

He grabbed Rocket’s lead from the hook where it was hanging on the wall and walked towards the door. He turned back to Bella, hoping she would say something to call him back.

‘I have no home here, I can run my companies much easier in London than I can here. I’m going back to London tomorrow. Give me one reason to come back here at the end of the week. At the moment, you’re the only reason to come back. Give me that reason, Bella.’

She looked absolutely devastated at the prospect of him leaving but she didn’t seem to realise that she was the only one who could take that pain away.

She took a step forward but still said nothing, tears running down her face.

He turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Bella watched the door close and then burst into tears. What had she done? She had overreacted in the worst possible way. This had been eating away at her all day and instead of talking about it rationally she had buried it inside until it came out in a big mess of emotions. And now Isaac had seen the crazy irrational side of her that came out every time she thought of her parents, he wouldn’t want anything to do with her even if she apologised. She couldn’t blame him. And the worst thing was her parents had won again. Her whole life had been blighted by their rejection and she had just let them ruin the best thing that had ever happened to her.

She quickly ran outside to stop Isaac, but his car was gone. But what would she have said to him if he had been there? She still believed that he would walk away from her. She was unlovable. It was better to get out now before she fell even further in love with him. But as she walked back into the house, she knew it couldn’t possibly hurt more than it hurt right now.

* * *

Isaac threw his bag on his boat the next morning and then lifted Rocket aboard. It was still early and the sun was only just above the horizon, so he didn’t really expect to see anyone, least of all Rome running towards him. Although as he watched him, he realised that he was in his running gear so probably not deliberately running towards him at all. Rome’s face cleared with recognition as he drew close and he pulled his headphones out of his ears and stopped.

‘Isaac, we’ve not properly met. I’m Rome, Bella’s brother.’

He offered out his hand and Isaac shook it.

‘You’ve made Bella happier than I’ve ever seen her, so thank you for that. I have to say, I wasn’t too impressed when I heard how you lied to Bella at the beginning, but I was clearly mistaken about you and I’ll be the first to admit that. You’re good for her. It’s good to see her smiling again.’

Clearly Rome didn’t know what had happened the night before.

‘Well, you won’t need to worry about me being bad for her. We broke up last night,’ Isaac said, hurt and anger still boiling through him.

Rome looked aghast. ‘What? Why?’

Isaac shrugged and turned back to the boat, but Rome caught his arm. ‘Wait. This is to do with her parents, isn’t it? We saw them yesterday and I know Eden told her even though I told her not to. I knew it would ruin her to find out that her parents were happily married, that they carried on with their lives after they abandoned her.’

‘I know about her parents and I know how devastating that must be for her, but if she won’t trust me there’s nothing I can do.’

‘Don’t give up on her, please,’ Rome said urgently. ‘Her parents rejecting her messed her up spectacularly; she built these walls around her so she couldn’t get hurt again. You’re the only one who she has let in. I’ve never seen her as happy as she is with you. If you care about her at all, don’t walk away from her.’

‘This is up to her,’ Isaac said. ‘I can’t force her to stay with me. She kicked me out last night – what would you have me do, refuse to leave? Nothing I said had any effect. I begged her not to finish it. I told her I loved her and she still showed me the door. I have to go to London and at the moment I have nothing to come back for. If she changes her mind, she can call me but right now I can’t see any way back from this.’

He climbed in the boat.

‘She loves you,’ Rome said. ‘She might not know it but she does.’

‘If she does she has to be willing to take a risk. Love is about trusting someone and I’m not sure Bella is capable of that.’ He started the engine. ‘Take care of her, Rome.’

With that he manoeuvred the boat out of the harbour.

* * *

Bella knocked on Lucy’s door on Sunday afternoon. She had spent the morning feeling sorry for herself and she knew she needed to talk to someone who would be sympathetic and shower her with love regardless of her stupidity.

Lucy answered the door and smiled when she saw Bella, but that smile immediately fell from her face when she saw that Bella had clearly been crying.

‘Oh my darling, what’s happened?’ Lucy said, swooping around her and pulling her into a big hug.

‘Me and Isaac broke up, well, more specifically, I broke up with him.’

Bella allowed herself to be led inside but stopped when she saw Dougie sitting at the kitchen table. He grinned hugely when he saw her though that smile quickly faded away when he saw how upset she was.

‘Bella, are you OK?’

She nodded, feeling foolish for crying in front of him, and quickly wiped the tears away. ‘Just stupid matters of the heart.’

Dougie stood up and pulled her into a big hug. ‘Do you want me to beat him up for you?’

Bella smiled, sadly. ‘No, that’s OK. It wasn’t his fault, it’s mine.’

‘Dougie, be a dear and go and help Finn in the greenhouse for a while,’ Lucy said.

Dougie took a step back to look at Bella and then nodded and left them to it, disappearing out the back door.

Lucy pushed her down into Dougie’s seat at the kitchen table and sat down opposite her.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Lucy said, gently. ‘You seemed so happy with him.’

‘I am. I was…’ she trailed off, not having any kind of decent explanation for what she had done.

‘Eden told me she saw your mum and dad yesterday morning, is this to do with that?’

Bella nodded. ‘I thought my dad left because he had fallen out of love with my mum but clearly the problem wasn’t with each other, it was solely to do with me. There must be something wrong with me if my own parents didn’t love me. It’s only a matter of time before Isaac realises it and he leaves me too. I needed to get out now before I fall even further in love with him.’

‘Oh my darling, your parents leaving you wasn’t anything to do with you at all. Is that what you thought all this time, that you were to blame?’

Bella nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Lucy sighed and shook her head. ‘I’ve tried to talk about this with you many times while you were growing up but when you were small talking about them used to upset you so much, and when you were a teenager it used to make you so angry. We should have talked about it properly before, but we didn’t want to confuse things and upset you even more. We messed everything up for you and we blame ourselves entirely for how you grew up with this shadow over your shoulder. We thought it was best if we just put the past behind us and moved on but I didn’t realise how deeply it had damaged you or that you blamed yourself for this. Bella, your dad, Alistair, the man you knew as your dad, isn’t your biological father.’

Bella stared at Lucy in shock. ‘What?’

‘Alistair and your mum married very young, probably too young. They enjoyed the party lifestyle and never wanted kids. Your mum was the least broody person I know; when I had Rome and Eden, she didn’t even want to hold them or come anywhere near them. Alistair was so adamant that he never wanted children that he had a vasectomy. There’s no nice way to put this but Alistair was a complete dick. He slept with so many people while he was going out with your mum and I have no idea why she stayed with him. I think we all hoped that that would stop once they were married but it never did. In retaliation your mum had an affair too and she got pregnant with you. Of course, there were many people on the island who knew that Alistair couldn’t possibly be the father and Alistair hated that. Your mum told everyone that Alistair was the dad, she even put him on the birth certificate, but a lot of us knew the truth.’

Bella stared at her, trying to take it all in.

‘Alistair hated that your mum was carrying another man’s child. He begged her to give you up. I persuaded her not to, I told her she would always regret it if she did. I will always be grateful that she listened to her big sister with regards to that and not him, even though she worshipped the ground he walked on. Alistair carried on sleeping with lots of different women all the way through her pregnancy and that caused your mum to go into a deep depression which I don’t think she ever really recovered from.’

Bella stared at her. It was like a lightbulb going off in her head. ‘They hated me even before I was born? It was nothing to do with who I turned out to be at all?’

‘No, they didn’t hate you. No one could look at you and hate you. You were the most beautiful baby. You had this thick mop of red curls and those beautiful big green eyes. You were adorable. They just didn’t want a child. Well, Alistair more than your mum. Your mum became quite protective of you, especially when you were born. I can’t say she ever settled into the mother role, but I think she wanted the best for you. For the next two or three years, Alistair barely came home, he was always out with some other woman. Your mum spent the first two years of your life crying constantly. I felt so sorry for her but there was nothing we could do. Finn spoke to Alistair about his behaviour and how he needed to face up to his responsibilities as a husband and a father but Alistair was adamant he didn’t want anything to do with you. We started taking you more and more, you’d stay with us for weeks before your mum would feel guilty and come and take you back. It must have been so unsettling for you. But myself and Finn had completely fallen in love with you. We adored you and it always broke our hearts to have to give you back. When you were three years old we approached your mum and asked if we could formally adopt you.’

Bella swallowed down the huge lump of emotion in her throat. ‘You chose to adopt me? You wanted me? Not just because I was dumped on you?’

Lucy frowned. ‘You were never dumped on us. We loved you and we wanted to give you a proper loving home. Your mum agreed. She wasn’t coping with being practically a single parent and Alistair didn’t care. You came to live with us permanently and we started the very, very long road of adopting you formally. But without you there Alistair started spending more and more time at home and your mum started to come out of the depression. Things were clearly on the up for her, she was back to her normal self. She had counselling, something we had being trying to persuade her to have for years. She started visiting you more and more and just before the adoption became official your mum changed her mind. We were heartbroken. At that stage we already considered you our daughter and we weren’t allowed to keep you. It was such a mess. I have never been so devastated in my whole life having to hand you back. You were four and a half when you went back to live with your mum and Alistair after you had lived with us for over a year. Alistair was clearly not happy about this but in his weird, twisted way, I think he loved your mum and he wanted to make it work for her.’

‘But he hated me,’ Bella said.

‘He hated everyone knowing you weren’t his, but that was never your fault. You were a constant reminder of your mum’s infidelity. It lasted six months before Alistair gave your mum an ultimatum. Him or you. Your mum chose you.’

Bella gasped. ‘She did?’

‘Your mum was never going to win any mum of the year awards, she was pretty lousy at it and she knew that, but I think she did love you. Alistair left and your mum just fell straight back into a deep depression again. We hoped she would come out of it, that she would realise that she was better off without him, but she never did. She started being really horrible to you and that was something we couldn’t allow. Every time you came round to my house, you used to beg me to let you come back to stay, as if we had given you back to your mum because we had grown tired of you. It broke my heart. We told her that we were taking you back and that if she allowed us to adopt you formally without any further interruptions or objections we wouldn’t press charges against her for abuse or neglect. I don’t think what she was doing to you would count as abuse in the eyes of the law but telling you she hated you was so damaging for you.’

‘I don’t remember any of this. I just remember staying with you a lot and then going back to my mum and not wanting to live with her because she was so mean.’

‘It must have been so confusing for you. When she brought you round that day you came to live with us permanently, Finn made it very clear that she wouldn’t be welcome there again and if she cared about you at all, she was to stay away from you and never make contact with you again. We just thought it would be too upsetting for you. We thought it was for the best. We never realised that in doing that it would cause so much upset for you over the years, that her lack of contact reinforced her lack of love for you. We thought our love for you would be enough,’ Lucy said, tears filling her own eyes.

‘Oh god, Lucy. It was enough, I had a wonderful childhood because of you. I felt loved for the first time in my life when I came to live with you. I never realised that you had tried to adopt me formally years before. I remember staying with you a lot but I didn’t realise that was because you wanted to adopt me.’ Bella couldn’t stop the tears from falling down her cheeks. She hadn’t been dumped with her aunt and uncle at all, they had wanted her to live with them. They had loved her as soon as she was born. They had fought with her mum for custody of her. She always thought that love from her aunt and uncle was born out of loyalty and family ties but that hadn’t been the case. And her dad wasn’t even her dad. She had seen the anger from him as she had grown up and she’d never known why, but now it all made sense. This wasn’t her fault at all. She put her head in her hands and couldn’t help sobbing into them. It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. It wasn’t that she was unlovable at all. Lucy held her tight until all her tears had dried up.

She lifted her head. ‘Who is my real dad?’

Lucy hesitated and glanced over Bella’s shoulder. Bella turned round to see Dougie had come through the back door and he was frowning. Bella looked back to Lucy and then back at Dougie in confusion. They clearly both knew who her dad was but didn’t want to say. Eventually Dougie shrugged and sat down at the table next to her.

‘My uncle Tom. He died not long after you were born.’

Bella stared at him in shock. ‘Your uncle was my dad?’

Dougie nodded.

‘We’re cousins. We always joked about being related and now you’re telling me we actually are. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘It wasn’t my place to say. My uncle Tom had an affair with your mum. He was married too and had children of his own. His wife never knew. Tom would come over here on the pretext of seeing my dad but really he was seeing your mum. From what I can gather it was never anything serious between them, it was a summer fling that resulted in you.’

‘And I guess he wasn’t exactly delighted about my arrival either,’ Bella said.

‘Quite the opposite,’ Lucy said. ‘I think he was a little scared initially that his wife would find out, but your mum was never going to tell her; she wanted everyone to believe that Alistair was your father. She didn’t want money or anything from Tom. But he came over to see you after you were born. He was so happy about becoming a father again, he always wanted a big family and he had two sons so he was delighted about having a daughter. I don’t know how he imagined it working out because he didn’t want his wife to find out but he wanted to be a part of your life somehow. He said he wanted to visit you regularly even if he was only ever introduced as a family friend. Alistair didn’t want him anywhere near you. As it happened, Tom died a few weeks later so we never found out how that would have played out.’

‘I have two half-brothers,’ Bella said, quietly.

‘My parents decided to keep it quiet for their sake and for his wife,’ Dougie said. ‘I think a lot of people on Hope Island knew but Sarah lived on St Mary’s so she was spared a lot of the gossip.’

‘That’s why your parents always invited me round for dinner when we were kids,’ Bella said.

‘They adored you. My dad felt responsible for you in some way. Tom wasn’t there so my dad wanted to help. I know he gave your mum quite a bit of money in the beginning,’ he glanced at Lucy. ‘He was quite instrumental in persuading your mum to let Lucy adopt you.’

Bella couldn’t believe it. Dougie was always so protective of her and now she knew why.

‘You knew we were cousins, even when we were kids?’

Dougie nodded. ‘My mum told me when I was very young that I needed to look after you because you were family. I didn’t really appreciate how true that was until I was a bit older. They always referred to you as my cousin. I guess that’s why I started calling you it too.’

Bella couldn’t help smiling. Not only had Lucy and Finn adopted her because they loved her and wanted her but she suddenly had an extended family that cared about her too. She had another cousin, another aunt and uncle who had cared about her. She was loved. She wasn’t unlovable at all.

Immediately her thoughts turned to Isaac. She had been scared by her feelings and tried to protect herself.

‘Oh god, Lucy, what have I done? Isaac told me he loved me and I told him I wanted to break up with him. He’s going to hate me for this.’

‘He’ll be hurt and angry, of course he will, but love is not something you can switch off. Go to him; explain why you felt this way. Don’t be afraid of love Bella; love brought us you and it was the most wonderful thing in the world.’

She looked at Dougie and he nodded. ‘I was in love with the most wonderful woman, still am if truth be told, and I never told her, life got in the way and I could never see a way that we could make it work. I fear now it’s too late but once I move back over here, I’m going to give it a go. Go and see Isaac. Tell him you love him too. Don’t waste time regretting what you should have said or done.’

‘I need to talk to him.’ Bella stood up decisively. ‘I need to go to London and tell him I love him. If nothing else he needs to know that.’

‘I’ll look after Alfie for you while you’re away,’ Lucy said. ‘Take as long as you need.’

She gave her aunt a hug. ‘When I get back, I’m going to change my last name to Lancaster. I’m not going to carry the name of a man that never wanted me. He doesn’t deserve that.’

Lucy smiled. ‘I would love it if you would take our name. But it makes no difference what you’re called, you’ll always be our daughter.’

Bella kissed her on the cheek and gave Dougie a hug then turned to run out of the house. Before she got to the front door, she turned back. ‘Oh cuz, I doubt very much that you’re too late.’

He grinned. ‘I really hope not.’

She ran out the house and down the street. She knew she had to talk to Isaac and, as daunting as it was, it looked like a trip to London was in order. She’d never been on her own before, but how scary could it be?

* * *

Bella wanted to cry.

It had taken over twelve hours for her to arrive in London. Once she had arrived in St Mary’s she realised she had missed the last plane out of the Scilly Isles and had been forced to take a three-hour ferry ride to Penzance where she found she had missed the last train and had to wait for the sleeper train, which finally got her into London just after five in the morning. To her surprise she had still found it a bustle of people and cars. Not knowing where Isaac was staying and, knowing his office wouldn’t be open for several hours, Bella had sought refuge in a café for a while. It had felt so different to the warmth and friendliness of Rosa’s. People avoided eye contact with everyone else here, staring into their breakfasts and coffees.

She had already phoned Elsie to explain she wouldn’t be in today. She felt awful but now the fair was out the way and the launch of the egg hunt app was happening tomorrow and all the marketing for that had been taken care of, there wasn’t a lot left to do that couldn’t wait a while.

After nine Bella had set out to find Isaac’s office, using an address she had found online. She had caught the wrong train on the underground and when she had tried to rectify the situation by taking a different train she had made the situation worse and ended up in completely the wrong part of London. People were not friendly here – she had tried to stop several people to ask for directions and they had all side-stepped her and hurried on to wherever they needed to be without even a look back. The place was frenetic, filled with people in suits travelling to important meetings, tourists, people clearly going on holiday with their oversized suitcases.

She had finally found Isaac’s office only to be told that she was at the wrong office and she needed to head over to the other side of London again. Now she was standing in front of what she hoped was the right place, a towering glass building that reached right up into the sky.

It was late afternoon and she had been awake for over twenty-four hours. She was still in the clothes she had worn to visit her aunt the day before, it was raining and she was decidedly damp all over.

She caught sight of herself in the mirrored glass doors: with her blue dress and red Converse, she looked like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, whisked away from the small-town life she loved to a magical land – only London didn’t feel that magical right now. Her hair was a frizzy tangle of curls, the bottom of the dress was torn slightly from getting it caught in the train doors and she was pretty sure she didn’t smell that good. Isaac was going to take one look at her and run for the hills.

Bella had called Isaac several times throughout the night and that day but he hadn’t answered, which was not helping her to keep hope either.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward towards the revolving doors, just as a man barged past her with a large suitcase, knocking out her knees. She toppled over the suitcase and landed face down on the pavement. In a puddle.

‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry,’ the man said. ‘Are you OK?’

Bella sat up and stared down at her dress, which was now covered in a muddy wet stain. ‘I’m fine,’ Bella lied, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.

The man offered his hand to help her up and she took it and he pulled her to her feet.

‘Are you hurt?’

Bella touched her cheek which felt sore and looked down at her knees to see one of them was bleeding. She wasn’t going to cry. She just needed to get to Isaac and put right what she had done. ‘No, I’m OK.’

‘I’m so sorry, I just have a flight to catch and I’m running late and—’

‘It’s fine,’ Bella smiled to reassure him. She just needed to get away from him now, because with him fussing all over her, she was going to lose it any second.

She moved off towards the door before the man could apologise or ask her if she was OK again. She pushed her way through the revolving door and went up to the main reception desk, well aware that lots of people in suits were staring at her like something the cat had dragged in.

The pretty receptionist looked up as she approached; she was obviously very professional because her smile didn’t falter at all when she saw the state Bella was in.

‘I’m here to see Isaac Scott,’ Bella said.

The girl nodded. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, I—’

‘I can’t let you up unless you’re on the appointment list.’

‘I have a meeting with him, I’m very late,’ Bella lied, hoping the girl would be sympathetic to her.

The girl looked down her clipboard again. ‘Are you part of the Oak and Acorn meeting?’

That was the bank she had spoken to while trying to have phone sex with Isaac. She grabbed the opportunity with both hands. ‘Yes, I’m Graham Miller’s assistant. I’m new and this is my first day in the job. I’m supposed to take minutes in this meeting but I went to the wrong office on the other side of town.’

‘OK, what’s the name?’

Bella hesitated but if they asked for ID she would only have something with her name on. ‘Bella Roussel.’

The girl consulted her list again. ‘I have an Isabella, is that you?’

Bella nodded, cringing inside. She never lied and now the lies were falling out of her mouth one after the other.

‘Isabella Taylor?’

‘Oh yes, that’s my maiden name. I’m just married,’ Bella added another lie to the list.

The girl didn’t look too sure. ‘I’ll just ring up and check.’

‘Please,’ Bella said. ‘This is my first day and I really need to make a good impression or I’ll lose this job and I really need it. Graham is expecting me and I’m already late. My name is down on your list even if it’s my maiden name. I really need to get to this meeting.’

The girl eventually nodded. ‘The meeting has already started, so you’ll need to check in with the reception at BlazeStar to see if you can be admitted. Take the lift to the twenty-fourth floor.’

Bella nodded and walked to the row of lifts, where several other people in smart suits were waiting. The doors pinged open and everyone poured in, pressing several different buttons. Bella followed them in, knowing she stood out like a sore thumb in her pretty summer dress. She looked down at herself; well it had been pretty at one point.

How was she going to play this? She could hardly walk straight into the meeting and declare her love for Isaac. But at least if she was up there she could wait for him to come out.

The doors pinged open on several floors where people got on or got off. Her heart was racing. Would he forgive her? Would he kiss her as soon as he saw her? Would he just throw her out back onto the street?

The doors pinged open on the twenty-fourth floor and she quickly hurried out.

There was another receptionist sitting behind a silvery desk emblazoned with the BlazeStar logo and Bella had no idea how to play this. She couldn’t give the same excuse she had given to the girl downstairs because she certainly couldn’t just waltz into that meeting like she belonged there, especially not dressed as she was. That wouldn’t look good for Isaac and the Umbrella Foundation, not after the phone sex scandal. She walked up to the desk.

‘I’m here to see Isaac Scott,’ Bella said.

The receptionist looked her up and down. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, but—’

‘Mr Scott won’t see you unless you have an appointment.’

‘He asked me to come in and see him today. I work for the Umbrella Foundation.’ Bella was relieved that was one thing that wasn’t a lie, though she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be working there when she had taken a day off. ‘He told me to just pop in whenever I could and he would see me.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Bella Roussel.’

‘I don’t have any record of that name here.’

Bella swallowed down the tears that were threatening to come. She was so tired, her knee was still bleeding and all she wanted was to see Isaac and feel his arms around her.

‘As I said, it was a casual arrangement.’

‘Well he’s in a meeting at the moment so—’

‘Bella?’

She whirled round at the sound of Claudia’s voice but she didn’t seem as happy to see her as the last time she had turned up outside Isaac’s office with Rocket. Clearly Claudia knew that she and Isaac had broken up.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I really need to see Isaac.’

Claudia stared at her for a moment or two then gestured for her to follow her.

‘Let me see if I can get him out of this meeting for a few minutes,’ Claudia said.

Bella didn’t argue, even though she was sure Isaac wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted in the middle of a meeting.

She followed Claudia down a corridor and then she opened a door and walked in. Bella held back when she could see that it was a meeting room and Isaac was sitting with his back to the door listening to someone talk. Her heart soared. Finally, almost twenty-four hours after leaving Hope Island, she had found him.

Claudia bent to whisper in his ear and immediately he turned in his chair and his eyes found hers. He was on his feet a second later and in two big strides he was out of the meeting room, closing the door behind him.

It was just the two of them in the corridor now and he seemed frozen to the spot, not moving towards her, not saying anything either.

She didn’t know what to say but her body took care of that when she suddenly and inexplicably burst into tears.