‘He had his moments. Again, I didn’t know much about him and he seemed happy with that. I knew he had an ex-wife, that his mum had passed away but his dad was alive. He had a brother he was really close with but not close enough with to introduce me. He didn’t know me at all like he thought he did … but he was a true gentleman.’

I felt Cam tense beneath me for a second before letting air out between his lips. ‘You cared about him.’

After pressing a reassuring kiss to his chest, I nodded.

That silence fell over us again, the one that seemed so full of words unspoken, so full of emotion, charging the air between us. Understanding what it meant, I felt my chest compress with the gravity of the emotion. To stop myself from saying the words too soon, I stupidly asked what I didn’t want to know. ‘Have you ever been in love?’

When he heaved a huge sigh I tried not to react physically, and when he answered quietly, ‘Yes,’ I tried not to be sick.

It was stupid, of course, to feel pain in my chest, to feel my stomach flip and my brain scream Noo!!! but I couldn’t help my reaction. Cameron had been in love.

Taking a moment to make sure my voice was steady, I sucked in another breath and then asked, ‘When? Who?’

‘Do you really want to know this?’ His voice was gruff.

‘If you want to tell me, I want to know.’

‘Okay,’ he answered gently, his hand sliding down my arm in a caress. ‘It was a long time ago. I met her ten years ago when I was eighteen. Her name was Blair and we met in our first term of uni.’

Blair.

And he’d loved her.

Already I was envisioning some tall, dark-haired beauty with intelligent eyes and cool self-possession like Joss. I pushed those imaginings aside. ‘What happened?’

‘We were together for three and a half years. I thought we’d get engaged, buy a house, get married, churn out some kids. I thought she was it.’

Was that a knife he was twisting in my side? I held still, trying to squash the intense jealousy and hurt I felt at his revelation.

‘However, Blair was offered a placement at a university in France to do her postgraduate degree in French literature. So I broke it off with her. I broke it off with her before she could break it off with me because I knew she was going to choose France and she knew I would never leave Scotland. I couldn’t leave my parents or Nate and Peetie behind. She was going to end it, so I just made it easy for her.’

There was so much in that confession that my throat closed with anxiety. I didn’t say a word, just threaded my fingers through his and waited for the pain to ease.

It didn’t.

A while later, we showered together and then Cam left me to go to the bar. I found myself heading up to the flat in a fog of absolute despondency. I’d tried to pull myself out of my gloomy mood, giving him easy smiles and soft kisses, telling myself that he had not once given me reason to believe that he wasn’t in this with me, that he didn’t feel what I felt when we were together.

I’d almost convinced myself as I entered my flat, but when I shut the door I came face-to-face with Mum. She swayed on her bare feet, her nightdress hanging like a sack on her gaunt frame. Her unfocused eyes and unstable feet told me she hadn’t taken it easy with the drink today. Today she’d wanted to get well and truly pissed.

‘Whereyebeen?’

Not in the mood to talk to her, I replied shortly, ‘With Cam,’ and moved past her, on my way to my room.

‘Where’d go?’

Assuming she was asking where he’d gone, I looked back over my shoulder. ‘Work.’

‘Bar,’ she scoffed. ‘Bit of a loser, eh?’

Since I worked at the bar too, I tried not to take that personally. ‘Actually he’s a graphic designer, Mum.’

‘Mmph, fancy bugger, eh?’ She gave a wee laugh and headed towards the kitchen. ‘What the fuck he doing wi’ you?’

I froze.

‘Get bored wi’ you, wee lass. No smart enough for him.’

Backtracking up the hall, I hurried into the bathroom and locked myself in, listening to my insecurities eat away at me. They sounded an awful lot like Mum when she was drunk.

But she was right, wasn’t she?

Cam had been in love with a girl who had been intelligent and interesting, heading off to Europe to do a postgraduate degree in French literature.

He’d been in love with someone who was obviously my complete opposite.

Worse, it hadn’t ended because he stopped loving her.

It ended because of his fucked-up abandonment issues.

I stared in the mirror, searching for something, something interesting, something unique, something that made me someone that Cam needed to be with.

I couldn’t find anything.

A sob rose up out of my mouth and I let the tears fall.

Today I’d fallen in love with Cameron MacCabe. But how could I ever expect him to love me back when I couldn’t find anything in me worth loving?

19

‘I have pancakes,’ Helena MacCabe announced brightly, reaching for her husband’s plate. I immediately put my own clean plate on top of Cole’s and grabbed Cameron’s too.

‘I’ll help.’ I smiled politely.

Helena and Anderson MacCabe had been nothing but friendly and open with me and Cole since we’d arrived at their house yesterday, but I still couldn’t shake off my nervousness.

It wasn’t just because they were my boyfriend’s parents and I wanted them to like me. It was because they were Cam’s parents – parents he adored – and I wanted them to think I was good enough for their son.

The last week had been strange. At the beginning of the week I’d still felt insecure and weird over Cam’s announcement that he’d been in love with this exotic-sounding Blair person, but since he spent all his spare time with me, and was even affectionate at the bar – seeming unable to keep his hands off me for more than five seconds – those insecurities started to fade into the background until finally I was barely even aware of them.

As Saturday approached, and Cole and I readied ourselves for a night in Longniddry, I grew more and more anxious about meeting Cam’s parents. I confessed this to him and he thought it was adorable. He appeared to be completely confident that they’d like me.

So was Malcolm.

We’d still been texting, and on Wednesday he’d called me to talk for the first time since the split. It had been awkward at first, but tension eased between us when he told me he was dating someone. The said someone was older than me and had a kid, and Malcolm felt a little out of his depth with her. I told him to spoil the working mother of one and he’d win her over in no time. He told me to just be myself and I’d win Cam’s parents over in no time. I had got off the phone wondering which ‘myself’ he was talking about, since I didn’t think I’d ever introduced him to the real one.

On Saturday morning Cam had rented a car to drive us out of the city and before I knew it we were driving down the main street of Longniddry, passing quaint cottages with their beach-coloured bricks and red-slate roofs and the local pub, which looked well-frequented, but I hadn’t been able to enjoy the idyllic prettiness. It was a cool spring day and the sun was out and the little village was fairly busy. But me? I was too busy gnawing my lip. Despite both Cam’s and Malcolm’s assurances, little mini-versions of me had started freaking out together in my stomach. I could feel them kicking and screaming in there.

We turned left at a roundabout, I knew that, and Cam had pointed out the grand red-stone gatehouse to the Gosford estate, babbling on about something his father had told him about it. Cole had replied, so I gathered he was actually listening. I, on the other hand, was just trying not to upchuck.

When we pulled into a well-groomed housing estate and parked in front of a medium-sized whitewashed house with a red roof, I lost my ability to breathe. Cam laughed at my reaction, giving me a quick, hard kiss before ushering us out of the car and into his parents’ house.