Ellen knew that Jan had picked up on her tension, the way her shoulders had hunched, every hair on her body stood on end. She wasn’t scared of them, Charlotte and Sara, but she suddenly feared her two worlds colliding. Whilst she was here with Jan she could be the new strong Ellen, but these two represented all that she was, all that her life had become....

“Oh my God Ellen!” Charlotte was first to speak, the oldest and the most dramatic of the three. “We’ve been worried sick! What have you been doing?”

Jan stepped away and let her be enveloped in hugs from her two sisters, giving her the time he knew she needed. Ellen accepted their hugs, their concern, then stepped back to look at them.

“I’m fine, I enjoyed my holiday, things happened, I had the chance to stay...what do I have to come back for?”

Sara’s eyes widened, “us? Family.”

Ellen smiled, “I’m thinking of me Sara, for a change. So much has happened...” She felt the encouraging hand of Jan in the small of her back and turned to look at him with a smile, “Sara...Charlotte, this is Jan, my friend...”

The three shook hands, but Ellen didn’t miss the scepticism on the faces of her sisters.

“So you’ve upset Mum and Dad for another man? After everything they’ve been through.”

Jan held up a hand in front of Charlotte’s face, “Whoa. Let’s not say something we’ll all regret in the heat of the moment. Are you staying somewhere?”

Sara nodded and mentioned a hotel a few blocks away.

“Right, next door is a bar, Bar de Guillermo. You can all meet there in an hour. Calmly, ok?”

Ellen was never more grateful for Jan’s influence than that moment, but she could see Charlotte struggling, she wanted to lash out, that was her all over. So Ellen grabbed Jan’s arm and swerved towards their apartment, confirming “one hour, see you then!” Over her shoulder.

They were both silent as the lift took them up to the top floor, and they were in the apartment before Jan asked, “Are you ok?”

Ellen turned to him and slid her arms around his neck, “will there ever be a time when you won’t know the right thing to do? I do want to stop having to thank you!”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned, “You don’t have to thank me!”

Feigning a sad look, she moved her hands to lift the hat off her head, then to the hem of her vest, “there was me about to thank you in great detail...”

Throwing the vest in his face, she headed across the lounge to the bedroom, kicking off her sandals then skirt as she went. Jan’s face was a picture as he mimicked her actions running to the bedroom behind her.

Later he sat up in bed; Ellen curled into his chest and kissed the top of her head, “are you going to stop avoiding talking about them now?”

She sighed, he saw through every one of her defences, glancing up at him with a smile she asked, “How did you become such a bloody know-it-all?”

He ran a finger along her nose gently, affectionately, “I don’t know, I just feel like I know you, that I can see inside your head!”

“Really?” she asked propping herself up on her elbows, “so what am I thinking now?” She stared at him intently.

His eyes widened and a naughty smile burst from his lips, “Ellen! You are a very naughty girl, and if we weren’t on a tight time frame I’d do the same! Now we’ve got twenty minutes to get ready!”

She was still chuckling as she followed him out of the apartment.

Jan stopped at the door to the bar, “it’s best that I’m not here. I’ll go somewhere else...”

“I want you here....” she heard herself plea shamelessly.

He kissed her forehead so softly, “yep, but you need to talk to them, I’ll only inflame things. Why don’t I take a seat at the bar? I do know the barman here, so I can chat to him, have a few beers?”

“Ok.” She breathed before turning to confront her sisters.

“Hi guys,” she sat opposite them and smiled. Neither looked too happy. “Girls? Why are you so angry? What have I done?”

Sara spoke, Ellen was glad at least she was a little more rational, “Mum’s been in a terrible state since you called the wedding off, Dad’s been awful too, and when you didn’t come home...”

“You thought you’d come here and drag me home kicking and screaming?”

Charlotte shrugged, “we didn’t think you’d fight it, I thought you loved Mum and Dad.”

“Hold it right there!” She held up a hand to silence her sister. “Of course I love Mum and Dad. I’ve not done anything to hurt them! I’m the one who’s had all the shit girls!”

Charlotte shrugged, “mum had to call all the relatives, she’s been in pieces.”

Ellen leaned forwards struggling to control her temper, “that’s not my fault. I didn’t call off my wedding lightly! I tried to explain to Mum...”

Sara held her hand up now halting the conversation, “look we don’t want to get involved Ellen, we just want you to make it good with our folks. After all you seem to have dived straight into bed with another man, hardly the devastated jilted bride!”

Ellen shook her head, “by coming here and initiating this conversation you are thrusting yourself into this and are more than involved. I have been through hell, I’ve never felt so bad...” She could see that her sisters were not receptive to her emotions to her explanations. “Did Mum tell you anything about it?”

When they both shrugged murmuring how they didn’t want to get involve, Ellen saw red.

“I called the wedding off because I found Richard having a blowjob from my best friend, he then told me how I was only really ‘good mother’ material and how he’d fantasised about either of you when we had sex....So DO NOT sit there and bleat about how hard calling a few relatives has been for my mother. I told her what he’d said, what he’d done, and she told me to accept that things were never perfect! Never perfect!?” She laughed sarcastically. The two sisters were gobsmacked, silenced by her outburst. “If anyone should be apologising, it’s her to me, for her lack of support in my time of need. I thought about killing myself before I came here, I really did. But since being here I’ve had some clarity, some insight into myself and what happened. No more the victim for me, and if it means I spend a few weeks, a few months here, then so be it! Jan’s helped me by being a friend, in a time when no one else was. So piss off if you’re not going to listen to my side and stop judging me!”

With that she stood and rushed out of the bar, Jan had heard her raised voice from the bar, and stood staring at the two sisters before sauntering out after her once he’d made his annoyance at them clear.

Ellen was on a bench across the road breathing deeply, trying to fight the tears he knew were welling uncontrollably.

“Hey,” he murmured into her ear as he sat down beside her, “It’s ok, you’re allowed to be upset, I have it on good authority from my sisters that women cry when they’re angry.” He slid an arm around her and she sank in to his embrace.

“I could hate you Mr Know-it-all!” she sobbed into his chest.

He guided her to another bar a few blocks away, getting her away from her sisters. There’d be time to speak to them in the future, but now she needed distance.

An hour later they’d eaten, drank a glass of wine, wandered the promenade with dozens of other people and Ellen was feeling a lot better. Leading him to a street side table she ordered them two beers then turned back to him.

“So tell me about your family. I mean I know you have one brother – a lawyer, and three sisters, but where were you brought up? Do you get on with your mother?”

She thought she spotted a hint of defiance in his eyes, but it passed. “Ok, I’ll start at the beginning, my father was German, and he met my mother an American when they were on holiday in Egypt thirty odd years ago. They settled in Belgium after many homes. My older sister Marta and I were born in Maryland, in the US, Louis and Veronique were born in Lyon, and Catalina was born in Liege. Marta lives near my mother she’s married to Hubert, a successful farmer they have two daughters, Louis is just starting his first job in Paris after graduating from Harvard then doing some sort of apprenticeship in law in Brussels, Veronique is a journalist, a European correspondent for several international papers, her husband Gareth is an English journalist working in Brussels too, they have a boy and a girl. That just leaves baby Catalina, she married after getting pregnant during her first year at University, my mother was devastated, but her husband Dieter is the principle of the biggest University in Munich, so she landed literally on her feet.”

Ellen was trying to digest the huge amount of information, “so where do you fit into the family?”

He laughed, “You mean do they all resent me for living like this?” He shrugged, “my father left a lot of work behind, he’d not really got his businesses where they were running themselves before he died.”

“And she wants you to help?”

He nodded, “but it’s not what I want, not at the moment, that causes her stress...but she understands that I need to live my life too.”

Part of Ellen thought he was selfish, the part that knew she’d never neglect her family was jealous. “So that doesn’t make for good family parties?”

Jan slugged at his beer, “I gave up being what people wanted me to be a long time ago. I know you think I’m irresponsible, but I’m not, this is my choice. I toed the line, had the education my parents wanted for me, did the loyal son thing...but I want some me time, and this year...maybe two, who knows? This is for me. No commitments, no agenda, just a job that pays me enough to live and great company to spend time with.”

Raising his glass she lifted hers to clink it, then sipped the beer thoughtfully.

The planned party evening didn’t really happen, and a few hours later they were curled up asleep in the huge bed that had become so important to them the last week. Jan was snoring comfortably, his arms wrapped around her, but Ellen was awake. There was so much to think about. Firstly she wondered if her sisters would visit again. Charlotte rarely gave up, so she anticipated some contact, and then there was Jan’s unusual insight into his life. His poor mother, no one to help her manage the mess her husband’s death had left. Then there was his insistence that he wanted fun, she didn’t expect declarations of love, or marriage proposals, but she had thought she was more than ‘good company’ to him. She’d done exactly what she’d tried to avoid, she’d gone into this too deeply, cared too much for him, but from now on she had to expect that there was an end to this, that in days, weeks, or maybe months, she’d be leaving, back to normality, it was impossible for her to envisage living in this bubble forever, though it was obviously where Jan wanted to stay. They were travelling on different trajectories, and she had no idea how to change that.