the wine gum and swallowed it. ‘I thought you weren’t on Twitter.’
‘I’m not. Joe sent me an email yesterday. Just a friendly catch-up letting me know how things are going for him in LA. So after that, I was pretty curious.’ He said drily, ‘You don’t need to be on Twitter to look someone up.’
She heaved a sigh and fiddled with the clasp on her bag. It had only been a little white lie, but she always seemed destined to be found out.
‘Handy hint,’ said Zack. ‘In future, probably better to keep the other person in the loop so they know what they should or shouldn’t say.’
‘I’ll make sure I do that.’ The scenery was still whipping past; they were over the border into Wiltshire now.
‘You could have told me, you know.’ She could feel him glancing sideways at her. ‘Why didn’t you?’
Because I’m crazy about you and I don’t want to make a complete fool of myself. Because it’s easier if you think I’m seeing someone else.
Aloud, Ellie said, ‘It was just… embarrassing.’ It was so hard to find the words. ‘You never really seemed to approve of me and Joe in the first place. And that felt horrible. It’s like when you’re sixteen and your mum warns you against getting involved with the local bad boy. So you go ahead and start seeing him, and it turns out he’s a nightmare, a total heartbreaker who treats you like rubbish and cops off with other girls behind your back. But you can’t bear to admit to your mum that she was right.’
Zack didn’t look amused. ‘Did Joe break your heart?’
‘No, God no! It was lovely while it lasted, it just wasn’t right. Well, not right enough.’ Would he understand if she said it? Ellie gave it a go. ‘He was an eight.’
‘I didn’t dislike Joe. He was a good guy.’ Zack inclined his head. ‘He still is. But I could see he wasn’t your type.’
‘Oh.’ She was instantly on the defensive. ‘He didn’t dump me, you know. He asked me to move with him to LA.’
‘So what stopped you?’
‘Well, there’s this guy I work for. Pretty hopeless character. God knows how he’d manage without me to organize him.’ That was better, she’d made him smile. Ellie felt herself relax. ‘Honestly? It was never going to happen. You can’t move to another continent with someone who isn’t a ten.’
Another sidelong glance, another eyebrow raised. ‘And what does somebody have to do to be a ten?’
She raised her chin; he was teasing her now. ‘They don’t have to do anything. Just be themselves, and be right. Go on then, how about you?’ Time to turn the tables. ‘What makes a girl perfect?’
They were overtaking an oil tanker. The countryside continued to whoosh past. The corners of Zack’s mouth began to twitch. ‘It helps a lot if she doesn’t call me Zacky.’
***
‘OK, brace yourself.’ It was five o’clock in the afternoon, the long journey was over, and they were approaching Perranporth. Zack said, ‘Sometimes my family can be a bit overwhelming. If my mother asks any impertinent questions, ignore her.’
Ellie’s stomach was in knots; she’d thought his family knew she was just a friend. It wasn’t until they’d left the M5 behind them that Zack had explained how it had been easier to tell them they were a new couple. ‘It just made sense. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before. My family can’t keep a secret to save their lives; someone would be bound to tell Mya. Whereas this way, only we know the truth.’
Fear-fueled adrenaline was now zinging like sherbet through Ellie’s veins. The old have-to-pretend-we’re-a-couple ploy was one she’d seen in romantic films, but only ever at the beginning of the film when the couple genuinely couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Having to do it when you had a Kilimanjaro-sized crush on your boss and he really didn’t have a crush on you in return was going to be a whole lot trickier to pull off.
Minutes later they turned a corner and there it was, set back from the road at the end of a curving driveway. A long Georgian farmhouse built of pale gray stone and smothered in ivy, with a silvery slate roof and an elaborate old-style conservatory to one side. The gardens surrounding it were spectacular but not off-puttingly formal. The front door to the house was painted emerald green. Almost all the sash windows downstairs were open. Behind the house