Coronation Street‘s Bernie Winter-Alahan already regrets her night spent in a hotel doing drugs with newcomer Mal last month, but it got worse when he turned up in Weatherfield. We already know that he doesn’t go through with the promise to leave after wrapping up his job, and instead he starts trying to get close to Bernie.

However, it’s really going to ramp up in scenes set to air on Friday, 20 February.

After days of trying to impress her by claiming that they have a shared interest in crystals, Mal goes one step further by flat out asking Bernie if she wants to join him at his flat for some alone time.

Bernie is not interested and is happy in her marriage to Dev, but will she feel able to tell him without the risk of him kicking off and revealing details of their night together? And if he refuses to take no for an answer, how will she be able to get rid of him?

“This is sure to be an alarming moment for Bernie,” our Corrie source points out.

“She’s made it clear time and time again that she has no romantic interest in Mal and wants him to leave her alone.

“Mal’s early attempts to pretend to have shared interests with Bernie just seemed pathetic, but now she’s realising that he has no plans to leave her alone. Is Mal about to become a serious problem?”

When the storyline was announced, the soap’s producer Kate Brooks said: “We take Bernie on a really interesting journey as she struggles [over Billy’s death]. It gets to the point where, because it’s been bubbling for such a long time, it eventually erupts.

“When it does, there are consequences for Bernie. It’s not as straightforward as Dev sweeping in and making sure that everything’s okay. It’s a really muddy, murky story that we take her on. I think it just again explores another side of Bernie that we’ve not seen yet.”