As we started to walk, I heard Mom’s on-camera laugh—it was totally fake—the kind she did when a guest on the show attempted a joke. A frown creased my brow.

“I’m worried about Mom,” I said quietly. “The whole Cash Keller thing. It’s weird for me; I can’t even imagine how weird it is for her. And I have no problem ignoring him and being rude, but she’s so I-am-an-adult-and-a-polite-Southern-lady-and-I-would-rather-die-than-be-rude-even-to-the-asshole-who-abandoned-me-and-my-daughters.”

“Southern women and British citizens have a lot more in common than I’d known,” Jamie said thoughtfully. “Death before rudeness. And also shockingly lethal hunting skills, apparently.”

“Yeah.” I laughed, but I ended up chewing my lip with worry. Oh. Crap. Cameraman Mike’s footfalls in the snow were so quiet that I hadn’t realized he’d been following us. I probably shouldn’t have aired Mom’s dirty laundry like that. Oh well. It was too late now. All the Leigh family laundry was swinging out in the open for anyone to see. A little colorful commentary from me wasn’t going to change anything about that.

“She’s strong, your mum,” Jamie said softly. “She’ll be fine. She handled Ronan’s mum without flinching, and Florence is the most terrifying human of my acquaintance.”

“That’s true. She’s tough. And you didn’t even see her take down the basketball coach.”

“Sorry?”

“On Mom’s show. She interviewed this Ole Miss basketball coach who’d come under fire for questionable coaching methods, and she took him out. Her show’s supposed to be, like, fluffy morning stuff—you know, like, how to make an egg-white frittata, or cost-saving tips for holiday shopping, or whatever. But then this guy made her mad. The clip went viral for, like, a hot second.”

“So your entire family’s famous, then.”

“Except for me.”

“Thank goodness,” he said warmly, and grabbed my hand.

We walked back to the castle in companionable silence, our clasped hands swinging between us. Well, silence except for anytime Cameraman Mike hit a particularly squeaky patch of snow. It really was a lot easier to pretend the camera wasn’t there when I couldn’t see it. And at least I was providing some romance for Pamela and her stupid B story.

“So what should I be expecting, snack-wise?” I asked as we entered the relative warmth of Dunyvaig’s front hall. “Are you a good cook?”

“My cooking expertise falls quite squarely under the domain of toast,” Jamie answered, and led me down the hall and into the formal dining room.

“I said a delicious snack. No way am I settling for dry toast.”

“I may have a few tricks up my sleeve.” Jamie paused in front of one of Dunyvaig’s infinite bookshelves. “Good God,” he exclaimed with shock, “is that Florence in her knickers?”

“What the—”

I turned to look. Jamie grabbed my arm, and we disappeared into the wall.

We were plunged into darkness. I reached my arm out but felt nothing. What had just happened?

“Secret door in the bookshelf,” Jamie explained as he flicked on the lights, illuminating a sparse yellow room with a leather chair and a small side table covered in, of all improbable things, an assortment of Archie Comics. “There’s a lever in one of the volumes.”

“Now that just seems excessive.” Who needed a bookshelf door that led to a tiny Archie Comics reading room? This space was the size of a good closet.

“I thought it was a rather clever way to evade the cameras.”

“Seriously? The point-and-look? Are we in a cartoon?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” he said proudly. “I pointed. He looked. And we disappeared.”

“Yeah. We shouldn’t—We’re not supposed to run away from the cameras.”

“You’re unhappy?” He seemed surprised. Understandable. “I thought you’d prefer to have a moment unrecorded.”

“I would. I definitely would. Pamela just had a, uh, chat with me about not running away from the cameras anymore. And you know that she’s—”

“Somewhat terrifying,” he finished for me. “You didn’t run away from the cameras; I abducted you. And neither of us ran at all; we merely took a shortcut the camera crew was, unfortunately for them, not privy to. And I will happily explain all of this to Pamela during our next encounter. Or perhaps Cameraman Mike will be so embarrassed he lost us that he shan’t mention it at all.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed, but I was still worried. Of course I didn’t want Pamela to sue my mom for contract violation, but selfishly, I wanted to be alone with Jamie, without the cameras. Well, at this point, the damage had been done. There probably wasn’t much to be gained by popping back out of the bookcase, I reasoned. Selfishly.

“Shall we?” As I’d been thinking, Jamie had pulled up a trapdoor in the floor.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. “It’s a secret door that leads to a trapdoor? Like I said. Excessive. Did the Murrays get a two-for-one discount on weird castle architecture or something?”

“When you’ve got a castle, you might as well lean into it, Dylan.”

I followed Jamie down the trapdoor, waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs as he shut the door over our heads and grabbed another flashlight. Was it part of the staff’s duties to leave flashlights at every trapdoor in this castle? Replace the batteries, too?

Jamie, flashlight in hand, led the way down the tunnel, turned decisively right at a fork, and only a few minutes later, we arrived at a set of stairs where yet another flashlight was waiting.

At the top of the stairs, Jamie pushed, and the trapdoor easily swung open above his head. He stepped up, and I joined him, looking around as he closed the door and replaced the small woven rug that covered it. We’d arrived in the kitchen, but it was unlike any kitchen I’d ever seen before. For one thing, it was nearly as big as the ballroom. Gleaming copper pots and pans hung along every available wall space, glinting in the light that shone down from windows in the lofty arched ceiling. In the center of the room there were six enormous tables with gleaming stainless-steel surfaces and wooden legs. Built into cavernous alcoves along the side of the room were shelving units displaying every kind of bowl and cooking utensil imaginable, and several restaurant-style ovens and stovetops, like a larger, shinier, cleaner version of the diner back home. And then I saw the fridges. So many fridges. Like a whole wall of fridges, all taller than Jamie and such brilliant stainless steel I could see the rest of the room reflected in them.

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s bigger than my house,” I marveled.

“Here, please. Take a seat.”

He pulled a stool out from under one of the tables, and I clambered onto it.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked as he walked purposefully over to a squat stand-alone freezer. “It seems like you know where you’re going.”

“There was something,” he said as he began rummaging through the freezer, “that I thought—I’d hoped—at one point to be able to—aha!” He triumphantly pulled a Ziploc bag containing weird brown lumps out of the freezer and laid it on the table in front of me like a cat presenting a dead mouse to its owner.

“What’s that?” I asked. “They look like frozen poop logs.”

“It’s chocolate, Dylan!” he exclaimed. “Honestly, you’re insane. They’re Mars bars. I couldn’t find Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in Dunkeld, but I think these will be better for frying. The original, isn’t that what you said?”

“Wait, what? You mean the deep-fried candy bars? Like we talked about the first day we met? I can’t believe you even remember that.”

“Of course I remember.” He seemed surprised that I was surprised. “I’ve been memorizing you from the instant I saw you, Dylan. I don’t want to forget a thing. Not a word, not a look, not a moment. I want to remember all of you.”

I felt like I’d never really understood the word “bittersweet” before, except for when it applied to chocolate. But that was all I could think of now. Hearing Jamie say that he was memorizing me caused this swell of happiness, but it was poisoned by the knowledge that he was memorizing me because we had to say good-bye. I didn’t want to just be one of Jamie’s memories, but I knew that was the best I could get. I was resigned to never seeing him again, but I couldn’t bear the idea of him never even thinking of me again—because I knew I’d never be able to stop thinking about him.

“Don’t forget me,” I whispered, horrified to feel the prickle of tears in my eyes. “Promise. Promise you won’t forget.”

“I couldn’t. I swear it. I couldn’t.”

He leaned down to kiss me where I sat, and we collided so forcefully our teeth knocked together. I clung to his back like I was drowning, and we stayed there in one long, slow kiss, until I broke away, embarrassed by the taste of salt that had trickled down with my tears.

“So, what?” I swiped my eyes with my sleeves. “You’ve just been holding on to these candy bars in hopes you’d have a chance to lure me down here and deep-fry them?”

“Precisely. I picked them up from the newsagent while you were sleeping in the van before we left Tilly’s.”

“That first day? Wow. Weirdo,” I teased.

“I cannot play it cool, Dylan,” he said wryly. “I am not cool.”

“Cool is overrated.” I shrugged. “Are you sure you can do this? Deep-frying looks kind of tricky. All that boiling oil…”

“How dare you doubt me! One of the production people let me google how to do this on her smartphone. I am perfectly capable. Watch and learn.”

He poured oil into an enormous pot and set it on the stove to heat, thermometer clipped to the inside rim to check the temperature. Then he began banging around the room, opening cupboards, pulling out bowls and flour and utensils. With great concentration, he whisked together the flour and salt and some baking powder. Then he was off to the fridge, returning with milk and some more oil. That was whisked in a separate bowl, then they were all stirred together.

“Careful, Jamie,” I cautioned as he leaned in to read the thermometer. I could see the oil shimmer with heat.

“Perfect,” he said. Using tongs, he dipped a candy bar into the batter until it was completely coated and then carefully lowered it into the oil. It bubbled and sizzled. We watched the Mars bar bob with bated breath, like witches standing over a cauldron. A few minutes later, Jamie pulled it out with a slotted spoon and set it to rest on a paper towel.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. Well, as beautiful as a greasy lump of piping-hot dough could possibly be.

“Try it! Try it!” he urged, grinning, as he picked the fried candy bar up with his tongs and held it out to me. “Take a bite.”

“Baah!” I exclaimed as I bit off a morsel of molten chocolate. “Hot! Hot! So hot!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Belatedly, he began frantically blowing on the Mars bar.

“’S’okay.” I swallowed noisily. “Let’s try it again.”

Gingerly, I took a bite. There was a slight crunch from the outside of the batter, then the doughy fatty deliciousness, and within, pure melted chocolate. It was so good I giggled involuntarily, like a demented candy gremlin.

“Is it good?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s perfect,” I said.