This felt like a life branch or an olive raft. “I promise.”

“Come on then. The river’s this way.”

She risked a smile. “You’re not planning on pushing me in, are you?”

“I’m annoyed, Rosaline. I’m not fucking twelve.”

They’d strolled a little way down the hill—surrounded by the soft purples of an English country evening—before Rosaline plucked up the courage to say, “So I’m taking you not wanting to push me into a river as a good sign.”

He glanced down at her, his eyes gleaming wickedly. “I didn’t say I don’t want to. I said I was too mature to.”

“You know what’s really mature? Calling yourself mature.”

“You know what’s even more mature? Pretending you went to Malawi when you actually didn’t.”

It still made her wince. But at least he was teasing her instead of calling her a liar. “Does the fact you’re taking the piss out of me mean you’re getting over it?”

“Perhaps. I’ll tell you when we’ve got to know each other a bit better.”

Rosaline wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer relief that rolled over her. She wasn’t sure she deserved a second chance, but she was sure as hell going to take it. And yes—as she’d just reminded herself—her priority was baking, not boys. But wasn’t Anvita right? Wasn’t it okay to want both? She’d been taught to aim high, and while her parents weren’t super sold on where she was currently aiming, if she could come out of it with ten grand, a book deal, a new career, and an architect, those were all pretty strong ticks in the “life back on track” column.

Only one problem, though. “There’s not a lot to get to know,” she admitted.

“Really? It seems to me you’ve had quite an eventful time of it.”

“Eventful” was a kinder way to put it than many she’d heard. “Have I?”

“Well, haven’t you? I know what they say about making assumptions, but I can’t quite believe getting pregnant at, what, nineteen or twenty was your original plan.”

“Not exactly. I was going to be a doctor.”

He smiled a little. “So you went dangerously close to the truth on what you were studying and needlessly far from it on where you’d been?”

“I did say I panicked.”

“And you did say you were a bad liar.”

“Yes,” she agreed, laughing. “And I wasn’t lying.”

There was a silence. It wasn’t comfortable. But it wasn’t wipe-your-eyes-with-chili-on-your-fingers awful either.

“So.” Alain paused delicately. It was a pause Rosaline had heard—or not heard—before. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but what actually happened?”

She shrugged. “No big drama. No big mystery. The girl I was seeing cheated on me, and I sort of rebounded on this guy who’d always had a bit of a crush. We were together for a while, but we were careless a couple of times, then lucky a couple of times, then less lucky. And . . . yeah.”

“And he just left you?”

“No, I’m not Fantine. He was very ‘do the right thing’ about it, but neither of us wanted to get married, and it didn’t feel like we should still have to.”

“I wasn’t necessarily suggesting your father should have gone full shotgun. Just—I mean, there’s finances to consider.”

“I get child support.” She shrugged again. “He’s a hydrological engineer now, so it’s pretty generous.”

Alain thought about it for a moment before offering gently, “Seems a bit unfair that he got to follow his dreams and you didn’t get to follow yours.”

Wow. There was really no way to have this conversation without feeling terrible. Worse, it kept finding new and different ways to terrible at her. To be fair, Alas, your dreams are as dust was only a variant on Oh poor you, your life is ruined. But with Alain it was genuinely about her, and who she could have been. Instead of the general principle that nice middle-class girls left university to have careers, not babies.

Something of . . . whatever she was feeling . . . must have shown on her face because he stopped and turned her gently. “I’m sorry, Rosaline,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stir up anything painful.”

It was too complicated. Because, yes, it was painful. It was just that she didn’t quite know where the pain was coming from. She took a deep breath. “No, it’s fine. I made my choices and I love my daughter and . . . and . . . that’s all there is to it.”

“And I understand that. But”—he gazed down at her searchingly—“you must have had...options?”

She knew what “options” was a euphemism for. “Do you mean, why didn’t I get an abortion?”

His eyes flashed in sudden surprise. He probably hadn’t expected her to say it. Most people didn’t. “Well, I suppose so?”

“I didn’t want to. It’s not a big political statement, I’m not religious. It was the right thing for me at the time to . . . not. So I didn’t.”

“And your parents couldn’t”—he made a slightly abstract gesture—“arrange something?”

In spite of herself she laughed. “Arrange something? That sounds like you’re suggesting they have a guy called Joey Nine Fingers give me a concrete overcoat.”

“I more meant they could look after her while you went back to university.”

Of course they’d had that conversation too. “You’ve met my dad. Would you leave the person you love most in the world with him?”

“You seem to have turned out all right.”

Apart from the whole dead-end job, barely paying her bills, nebulous conviction that she was fucking everything up, pinning all her hopes on a TV baking show thing . . . sure. “‘All right’ is very much what I shoot for.”

His mouth had that jump-into-my-curricle curve. “You’re better than all right. And you know it.”

It was just what you said. Obviously, it was just what you said. But she was secretly glad he saw her that way. “Thanks. You’re . . . pretty okay too.”

“Steady on. Flattery like that will turn a boy’s head.”