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“You’re right,” Owen says, and I freeze. “I don’t love her like I loved you. I love her so much more.”

My legs wobble, threatening to give way as I bite my lip.

“And how long will it last? What about when she wants a family?” Pippa bites back, and I can’t stand listening to this anymore.

I pull open the door and take my place by Owen’s side.

“He is my family. He is my everything. Why would I want anything else?” I tell her.

Owen looks at me, then slips his hand in mine and squeezes.

Pippa’s face screws up. She’s down on the gravel while Owen and I stand on the middle step towering over her, and she looks so small, so insignificant.

She glares at me, then at Owen, and I see something change in her face, a realisation dawning on her that she isn’t going to walk away this time having got what she wants.

“When you left me, I thought it was the worst day of my life. Now I see it as the best. If you hadn’t left me, I’d never have met Alice,” Owen says, his finger stroking the back of my hand. “You need to leave now. And don’t ever come back.”

Her eyes narrow like she’s gearing herself up to say something else, to raise the glove one more time for a last cheap shot, but as she looks from me to Owen, something stops her. Her shoulders deflate, and she shrinks further into her hoodie.

“Well, when this doesn’t work out, you’ll be the one coming to find me, and then it might be too late,” she scoffs.

Owen laughs. “Not a chance.”

Pippa turns, the gravel crunching under her feet, and we watch as she scurries over the car park and disappears between the stationary cars.

Owen turns to me and wraps his arms around my waist. I fall into his embrace, relief, warmth, and love rushing through my veins.

“How much did you hear?” he says.

“Enough,” I say, pulling back slightly. “Was it true, what you said?”

He smiles. “Every word.”

“God… I’ve been half convincing myself you were only with me because you were sad about Paul, that you were in the throes of grief and I was a bit of a crutch to get you through it all. I was terrified you’d wake up one day and realise that’s all I was, and then it would all go wrong and⁠—”

“Alice,” Owen says, halting my runaway train, his eyes meeting mine like that’s where they’ve always meant to be. “I love you. I loved you the first time you spoke to me in the staffroom. I loved you every time you tried to speak to me, even though I was foul and grumpy. I loved you when you came to work with a spot on your cheek and told me you’d named it Fred. I loved you when you tried to convince me to come to the work Christmas party by telling me there’d be tea available. I loved you when you asked me if dogs had chins, and that your favourite food was ice cream, and that your idea of the best day ever would be if we were allowed to come to work in pyjamas. I’ve always loved you, Alice. I was just too scared to see it until now.”

I place my hand on his chest, for once, words getting caught in my throat.

He loves me. Me. Alice Sutton with my crazy notions, my runaway mouth, my overactive imagination. Not the pretend Alice I’ve spent so long trying to mould, or the Alice I throw out to prospective boyfriends because I try and be what I think they want me to be.

No. Owen has fallen in love with me. The real me.

“This is the part where you tell me you don’t feel the same, and I look like a complete idiot,” Owen says.

“Actually, this is the part where I tell you that I’ve spent my entire life looking for love, and I’ve found it where I least expected. I thought it didn’t exist until I met you and found out you were single and straight and that you love gardening and clothes and dogs and chilli and that you don’t mix your salad and you’ll never try hummus.”

Owen smiles, shaking his head at the mention of hummus.

“I’ve never been sure exactly what love is, but I know now that it’s this feeling inside that I only get when I’m with you or when I think about you. And the fact that I don’t need to be a tea expert or a horticulturalist or a fashion critic for you to have fallen in love with me is the most amazing thing of all.”

Owen brushes his thumb across my cheek, then kisses me lazily before picking up the pace and pulling me into him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

I pull back. “What are you sorry for?”

“You missed Sydney’s wedding.”