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“But Ewan has Cressida,” Tia reminded her. “And Hamish has me.” When she spoke those words, she realised the promise wasn’t even a lie. She intended to be married to Hamish for a long time, and for that marriage to be real in this way. She would support him through his mother’s death, if it came to it, just as she would any close colleague of hers. It didn’t make their relationship less professional.

“That’s all well and good, but it’s not the same. The ties that bind siblings are quite unique.”

“They weren’t strong enough to keep Ewan from betraying Hamish, though,” Tia said, before she could stop herself.

Eleanor opened her mouth to object, and then closed it again. She looked thoughtful. Tia wondered if she’d gone too far.

“You remind me of Hamish,” she said, after a long pause.

“Thank you.” Tia wasn’t faking that, either. In the relatively short time they’d known each other, she’d come to admire Hamish more than anyone else she’d ever known. His goodness and purity of character were incredible traits.

“He is loyal, almost to a fault.”

“I don’t think loyalty is ever a fault.”

“The flip side of it is expecting that same loyalty from everyone in return. Cressida and Ewan fell in love.”

“Hamish was already in love with her.”

“It’s not the same thing. They tried to stop it, to keep it private until they’d resolved their feelings. Neither of them wanted to hurt him⁠—”

“But they did.” The voice came from behind Tia, a deep, throaty statement, and Tia’s heart leaped into her throat. She was pretty sure she wasn’t meant to be out here discussing the semantics of his private life, nor upsetting his mother who’d just been diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer.

His eyes swept over Tia, expression unreadable except for the pulse point throbbing at its base.

“But all’s well that ends well,” Tia said on a rush, trying to remind him of their pretence. “If it weren’t for their affair, we wouldn’t be married.”

It took him a beat to soften his expression, to smile, and then he walked to her, the gravel crunching underfoot. “I came in search of you,” he said, holding out his hand. She put hers in it and he pulled her towards him, so their bodies bumped and her dream flashed through her mind. “You weren’t in bed when I woke up. I missed you.”

Two truths and a lie, she thought with a tightening in her chest.

Eleanor spoke from behind them. “Exactly. No sense thinking of the past when the future is so bright.”

Tia barely heard her. Not above the rushing of her pulse, not above the restrained anger she saw in Hamish’s face, not above the way his fingers were tightening around hers. Not above anything.

His eyes glittered when they met hers and she wondered if his anger was aimed at her, or Eleanor, or both?

It didn’t matter. She didn’t have time to think about it. He dropped his head then, and she had a few seconds to gather his intention was to kiss her, no doubt to convince Eleanor of the fiction that they were a deliriously happy couple, but when his lips brushed hers, madness overcame Tia and she parted her mouth and darted her tongue out, flicking his lower lip in an unmistakable invitation. He froze for the briefest moment and yet to Tia it felt like everything. She felt as though she’d put herself out on the line and he might pull back, straighten, separate from her.

Instead, thank God, he wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her properly against his body and parted her lips with the force of his own, his tongue sliding between her teeth, flicking hers, his body taut, hers melting, so her knees felt like they might buckle. “This is a bad idea,” he said against her mouth, so she swallowed the words and wondered in the back of her mind if he’d stop, but he didn’t, and she wanted to weep with triumph but couldn’t do anything other than keep melting, and keep kissing.

“Well,” Eleanor’s voice should have made them stop, but neither really heard. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

Whether it was his mother’s departure or just them, Hamish deepened the kiss, his hands pushing under her stretchy t-shirt, running up her back, over her spine, to the clasp of her bra and resting there.

“Fuck, Tia,” he pulled her against him again, harder, his body somehow making hers feel small and petite. “You have no idea how much I would love to drag you inside and finish this.”

The words alone made her moan, let alone the imagery. But it was madness, just like he’d said. Insanity. They could give in to it and then, what? It would be the end to the complication free marriage they’d negotiated.

Liar, a voice inside Tia pushed relentlessly, as her hands curved his bottom and held him where he was, his arousal a hardness against her belly. What are you really afraid of?

It wasn’t just that this would complicate their contract. It was that she liked sex to be meaningless, without emotions, and she liked Hamish way too much for that to be true here. And for him, sex was bound up in love, he couldn’t do otherwise. She should stop this. She knew she should, but how? When it felt so good to be close to him, to have him touch her and kiss her, finally, and to discover that every single bit of it was better than any of her fantasies.

“Would that be so bad?” she asked, knowing the answer and shocked that she was asking the question anyway. She’d just told herself the reasons this couldn’t happen and now she was moving her hips, shamelessly inviting him with her body to do what he’d just said.

“No. It would be very, very good,” he said, moving his mouth then so they were no longer kissing, pressing his forehead to hers instead. “But it would change everything we’ve built.” He lifted a hand to her cheek. “We need to remember what we are.”

The problem for Tia was that she truly couldn’t do that. It felt as though a fog had settled around them, and the only thing that made sense was this.