‘You’re not my future employer.’

‘Just tell me, Jenny,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly so concerned, so warm, so laced with caring that, to her astonishment, she found herself telling him. Just blurting out the figure, almost as if it didn’t matter.

He thought about it for a moment as they kept walking. ‘That’s not so much,’ he said cautiously.

‘To you, maybe,’ she retorted. ‘But to me… My best friend signed over her apartment as security. If I don’t pay, then she loses her home.’

‘You could get another job. You don’t have to be beholden to this swine-bag. You could transfer the whole loan to the bank.’

‘I don’t think you realise just how broke I am,’ she snapped and then she shook her head, still astounded at how she was reacting to him. ‘Sorry. There’s no need for me to be angry with you when you’re being nice. I’m tired and I’m upset and I’ve got myself into a financial mess. The truth is that I don’t even have enough funds to miss a week’s work while I look for something else, and no bank will take me on. Or Cathy either, for that matter-she’s a struggling painter and has nothing but her apartment. So there you go. That’s why I work for Charlie. It’s also why I can’t drop everything and sail away with you. If you knew how much I’d love to…’

‘Would you love to?’ He was studying her intently. The concern was still there but there was something more. It was as if he was trying to make her out. His brow was furrowed in concentration. ‘Would you really? How good a sailor are you?’

That was a weird question but it was better than talking about her debts. So she told him that, too. Why not? ‘I was born and bred on the water,’ she told him. ‘My dad built a yacht and we sailed it together until he died. In the last few years of his life we lived on board. My legs are more at home at sea than on land.’

‘Yet you’re a cook.’

‘There’s nothing like spending your life in a cramped galley to make you lust after proper cooking.’ She gave a wry smile, temporarily distracted from her bleakness. ‘My mum died early so she couldn’t teach me, but I longed to cook. When I was seventeen I got an apprenticeship with the local baker. I had to force Dad to keep the boat in port during my shifts.’