I unlock the door and walk in to find our home ever so slightly better off than when I left it: the breakfast things are gone from the counter by the sink and the mail has been cleared into a neat stack, but there’s still a ring on the table from where Lachie sloshed too much milk into his bowl this morning, and breadcrumbs on the board from his lunchtime sandwich preparation. I scan the contents of the fridge, relieved to see that my boyfriend at least remembered to go to the supermarket. But, before I can ponder what to cook for dinner, I have a flashback to Alex’s email and reach for an open bottle of white wine instead. I really, really need to talk to someone about this. I have to talk to Lachie, but I don’t really want to. I want to talk to Bridget, I realise. It’s Friday morning in the UK – I wonder if she’s busy. I grab the phone and go to the sofa, taking a large gulp of wine and kicking off my shoes before dialling her number.

Alex and I met about six years ago at an eighties club night in London – he was on a stag do and I was on my Aussie friend Polly’s hen night. We ended up talking and bonding over the course of the evening and he confided that he’d recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend, Zara – or, technically, she’d broken up with him, labelling it ‘a break’. Later, he walked me back to my hotel and we spent the night together. It all happened so fast, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. I really liked him, way more than I could’ve thought possible, considering we’d only met earlier that night, and the feeling seemed mutual.

So we both felt torn and confused the next morning when Zara texted and asked to meet him for lunch, claiming that she’d made a mistake. I was only in the UK for a couple of weeks for Polly’s wedding, so the smart option seemed to be saying goodbye and going our separate ways, but it hurt.

A year and a half later, I went back to the UK, this time on a one-year work visa. I’d landed a job at Hebe, the aforementioned magazine. To say I was shocked when Alex turned out to be the new Art Director is an understatement. I was thrown to discover he was engaged to his former ex and set to marry her later that year. We formed a tentative friendship, but the chemistry between us intensified until it became overwhelming and he stepped right back. He didn’t want to leave Zara, whom he’d been with for a decade. They had a shared history that felt too hard to walk away from.