The party was well underway. Cara wasted no time introducing her to the two new care workers who joined the team a mere two weeks before. They were sisters who had just come over from Kerala. They were soft-spoken and smiling and downing their GnTs surprisingly fast.

Vico had not only been serious about coming but also brought with him two colleagues who were on an internship for the summer. Their names were Luca and Francesco, both Italian, exceptionally handsome and exceptionally flirty. Luckily, Lora was saved by Mike, who whisked her to the side under the pretence of wanting to talk to her about her new roster. She would be starting in Isaac's shift as he was still on his own and considerably new.

"So, how have you been, Scout?" he asked meaningfully when they were safely away from the throng that was just on the verge of becoming overly friendly.

Lora's eyes automatically flickered to the other corner of the deck, where Owen was leaning against the railing, sipping on the same Gin and Tonic Mike handed him an hour ago.

He looked heavenly under the soft glow of twilight. Lora longed to go up from behind him and wrap her hands around his middle. She longed for his closeness, the scent of his warmth and the chocolate tones of his voice. But that would only cloud her mind, distress her heart and upturn everything in general.

Instead, she took a large gulp from her glass. "Wonderful. Brilliant. Living the life!" she replied with too much enthusiasm and Mike laughed heartily.

"That bad, huh?" he cracked.

Lora tried to hold a straight face but eventually, her shoulders sagged and a soft sigh left her lips. "No, not really. It's been really good, actually. The kids are fine. Krista and Jess are happy. We're all moving on well, you know?" Lora stole another glance at Owen.

He was looking out onto the shoreline, still visible from a distance, and she soaked in his appearance for a bit longer than she would have done if she didn't have three strong shots of gin circulating in her bloodstream.

"Maybe, that's the problem. Maybe, I'm not used to things being so good. I thought... I thought it would get easier but... You know how sometimes you write down a word, and you know it's correct and yet it just doesn't look right? That's what this feels like."

Mike looked between her and Owen, barely raising a brow. "Well, maybe you should just trust that it's right, take a leap of faith. You're quite smart, Lora, very good at spelling and grammar if I remember correctly. Maybe you should trust that God is sending a gift your way for a change?" He smiled and Lora saw the kindness in his eyes.

"You know, you're not the first person who said that to me today," she replied softly. But before he could emphasize his point, Lora's arm was yanked on painfully, almost making her lose her balance.

Turning around, she found herself face-to-face with a smiling Cara, eyes slightly out of focus and yet not a hair out of place.

"Let's dance!" she ordered pulling her towards the centre of the area where absolutely nobody was dancing or even swaying to the summer beats blasting on the sound system.

"Dance?" Lora replied horrified as she tried to guide Cara back to a safe, inconspicuous corner. "I haven't danced since my wedding!"

"Well then, now is the perfect time!" And with one final tug, Cara led Lora into a nice spin and with her arm around her waist, they stepped into a weird modification of the salsa.

Seconds later, the Sharma sisters joined them, and Luca and Francesco took it as a sign that the dance floor was open. Cara grinned at Lora and, giving in to the music and the cheerful faces and the endorphins swimming in her brain, Lora laughed out loud. She felt her burdens, her many thoughts slipping away slowly and making way for a lighter, happier feeling of nothingness. She and Cara swayed across the deck, occasionally losing their balance slightly and holding on to each other, laughing harder every time.

"Tequila shots!" one of the Sharma sisters screamed as she passed around a tray of shot glasses, lemon wedges and salt.

Lora was just about to politely decline when Cara took her hand and lifted it, palm down and spread her fingers apart. She poured salt in the crease between her thumb and index finger. "Here. Hold this between your teeth," she told her pushing a lemon wedge into Lora's mouth when she opened it to protest.

Then, to Lora's great bewilderment, Cara licked the salt off her hand, chugged the shot of clear liquid down her throat and sucked the lemon from her mouth following it up with a gentle kiss on her lips earning cheers and hoots from everyone around them. Cara spat out the lemon rind and smiled back wildly.

She laughed at the perplexed look on Lora's face and started pouring more salt on her own hand. "Come on," she urged in a low voice. "Let's give Nessy something to talk about." Then she popped a lemon wedge into her own mouth and held her hand with the line of salt up to Lora's mouth.

Lora hesitated for a few seconds, conscious of everybody's eyes on her, waiting to see what she was going to do. Then she remembered Owen and everything she'd been through, every time she wanted to do something and held back. 

Without sparing it another thought, she followed the rebellious streak slicing through her. She licked the salt off her friend's hand, washed it down with the semi-sweet drink and pulled Cara closer as she took the lemon from her mouth with her own. She tucked the wedge to the side of her mouth and kissed Cara in the process of drawing out the bitter liquid from the fruit.

The cheers from their onlookers were even louder as the two women kissed and laughed into each other's mouths. She could distinctly hear Francesco's dramatic exclamations of Mamma Mia! Or was it Luca?

It didn't really matter. 

Soon they were all dancing again, jumping up and down and singing like mad teenagers. Everyone was on the dance floor now, except Owen, who remained in his corner occasionally catching her eyes. But she looked away every time before the guilt could creep in and interfere with her fun.

Lora found herself dancing with Mike, then with Vico, then with the younger of the Sharma sisters. Why on Earth couldn't she remember their names? She turned to Isaac to avoid Nessy, who had been trying to get close to her, no doubt wanting to know more about her little interaction with the infamous Dr Shaw. Then Cara found her way back to her and arched their intertwined hands high over their heads so that they both turned inwards. As they faced away from each other, Lora felt another pair of hands settle on her waist and looking up, she found herself pressed against the tall god-like body of Francesco. Or was it Luca?

She looked up into smiling, deep brown eyes and felt the heat rush to her cheeks as she distinctly heard him sing the word, Bella into her ear. No sooner had his hand moved to the small of her back than she felt him being ripped away from her, and the pair of chocolate brown eyes were replaced by fierce evergreen ones.

Instinctively, her lips curled into a knowing smile and her arms rested on his shoulders after he spun her around and pulled her close again.

"I thought you were going to give me space," Lora mused.

"I'll give you as much space as you want as long as Don Calzone keeps clear of it."

Lora noted the not-so-subtle jealousy in his tone and her smile widened. She turned so that her back was against his chest and mimicked the movements of his hips with hers. He pulled his head down to her shoulder and inhaled her scent, fighting back every urge to kiss her skin.

"So, you're okay with me kissing Cara and dancing with Mike, Vico and Isaac but you're not okay with Francesco putting his hands on my waist," she mused. She realised she liked GnTs. GnTs made her brave.

Owen snorted in response and turned her back to face him. Their closeness wasn't doing anything to help his self-restraint. Didn't she realise what she was doing to him?

"I'm not okay with any of it, but Italians is where I draw the line."

She laughed at his comment and his bitterness ebbed away. "So, is this how it's going to be when we're working together?" he went on half-joking, half-serious. "You pretending to avoid me and me pretending that nobody is flirting with you?"

"Nobody is going to flirt with me, Owen."

"Everybody is going to flirt with you," he scoffed. "Everybody is a threat in my eyes."

"Well, maybe you should get your eyes fixed," she teased as he led her into a low dip.

He pulled her back up and admired the amusement dancing in her eyes. "God, how I love you like this! Smiling and happy and..."

He stopped talking and they stopped moving, both looking longingly into the eyes of one another, their heads inclined sideways as their lips pulled towards each other.

Then Owen noticed it, a single tear at the corner of her eye, and when he wiped it away Lora noticed it too. Suddenly, the world came back into focus. She realised she was in the middle of a crowd, at a party, slightly drunk, knees giving way in the arms of a man who to her, was pure pleasure, pure temptation and consequently, pure fear.

Her heart picked up its pace, her breath hitched in her throat and she stepped back, away from him, unable to speak. Owen's eyes widened in alarm, realising what he'd done and in front of whom and kicked himself internally. He started to apologise but Lora had already vanished into the cabin.

He followed her inside, then through the side door and back onto the front deck where at least they had some privacy. She was leaning against the railing with her back towards him but he knew she was aware of his presence. Eventually, she turned around, tears in her eyes, brown eyes frantic with anxiety, anxiety he was causing her.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Owen, I'm trying, I swear. I want so much for all of this to be real. And then suddenly it is, and I can't think or breathe or... I just clog up! It feels like my head is spinning and my heart is hurting for a million reasons, and I just can't figure out which emotion to deal with first!"

Owen took in her words slowly. They choked him and he could barely answer. And yet, he had to. He had to tell her. He swallowed and nodded, more to himself than to her. He sank into the leather seat behind him.

"That's exactly what my mother used to say," he croaked. "She used to say she had so many thoughts riveting in her head that she couldn't make sense of them. She said they hurt her and eventually, it made her sick. They broke her heart and wore her down in the end."

Lora's mouth fell open and her sobbing stopped. This was the first time Owen mentioned anything about his family. Again, she felt she didn't know much about him. So, how was it that she was so irrevocably in love with this man?

"She was in the mental health facility for eleven years before she... before she managed to OD successfully," he went on. "She was a carcass, Lora. She... She just kept on giving and giving until there was nothing left to give. My father was also very abusive."

Lora knew what he was hinting at and at once her defences were up. "Jona wasn't-"

"Yes, he was," he interrupted looking up at her again.

He didn't want to hurt her or judge her but she needed to hear it. He was tired of her defending him all the time. Owen knew he was biased but he hated what he'd done to her. He hated what society had done to her. Lora was nurtured to believe that happiness was practically equal to sin and sacrifice was practically equal to duty and it had crippled her. The burden of her faith had taken its toll on her, exhausted her, and at that moment, Owen Shaw hated the whole world for it.

"Maybe he wasn't as bad as my dad and maybe Jonathan never hurt you physically. And I know he's just another victim in all this mess. I'll even go as far as to say that he was probably the one who suffered the most. Life wasn't kind to him. We weren't kind to him, even though we did everything we could in the end. But he was abusive, Lora, there's no denying it. He manipulated you and everyone around him. He's still manipulating you, to a certain extent. You can't break free of him or of what you were taught since you were little, and I'd be okay with that if it weren't driving you crazy."

Something shifted in her doe eyes and Owen knew was finally breaking through to her. He must have been because she looked away and then turned around, knowing he was seeing right through her. So he stood up and stepped in front of her so that she couldn't avoid him anymore.

"You're not my mother. You don't need me to take care of you. You don't need anyone to be happy. You should have seen yourself back there, you were glorious. You are glorious!"

She shook her head desperately. "I shouldn't have."

"Shouldn't what? Live? Love? Be free? That is why Jesus gave his life for us! So, we can love and be free and appreciate every living moment. I won't be the one to keep you away from your faith. But I also don't want your faith to keep you away from me. Or anything you want to do, for that matter. Do you know how much it hurt earlier when you denied me like that in front of everyone? I've been with you every step of every shitty moment you had this year, and I am someone you don't want to see? I want to have everything to do with you, Lora, but not if it makes you feel embarrassed to be seen with me!"

"I'm not embarrassed! I'm just-"

"You can't let people control your life anymore!"

"It feels wrong!" Lora cried.

"How does it feel wrong? When did it ever feel wrong? Back then, when we were dancing? Or yesterday when we were fighting? Or the day before when you went down on me in the shower?"

"Owen!" Lora looked around anxiously even though there was no one there.

"What? Look, I'm sorry for leaving like that yesterday," he sighed grabbing her shoulders and looking her straight in the eye, wanting to get the message through. "But you need to understand, you have to understand how much this hurts! Being here and not being able to hold you, to kiss you! But I will bury my feelings if they make you uncomfortable. If you tell me you don't love me or that you don't want to be with me, I will not stay in your way. I'll do my best so that you can move on. So that we can both move on. But I'll only do it for you. Not for Cara or Marion or your mother.

"But if you do love me like I believe you do, then let me make you happy. In public! Because love isn't something anyone should be ashamed of. It's beautiful, really. It's holding hands in public and going out to dinner at seven. It's taking the kids to church on Sunday morning and the movies in the afternoon. I am done sneaking around. I love you and there is no reason why I shouldn't."

Lora stared at him, her mind spinning, her heartbreaking. There was no way she would ever move on from him. She did love him. She did want to be with him. She just didn't know how.