Genevieve said, ‘Thanks,’ as she looked down at her key. She turned as if to leave. An instant’s hesitation, then she turned back. ‘I know it was me who broke us up,’ she blurted, her eyes large and damp. ‘But I regretted it. To be honest, when you didn’t ask for an exchange of keys I started to hope that you thought we’d get back together again. Then you rushed out of the Parish Meeting after Clancy yesterday evening and I did something stupid. I followed. It gave me a ringside seat when you two got in a clinch.’

‘Ah.’ Aaron cast around for the right response. ‘I’m sorry if that upset you but—’

‘I know!’ She held up her hand to pause his flow. ‘I was the one to end things. But I was hasty. I was under stress with the subsidence at The Mimosas and disappointed you didn’t share my view of our future. I regretted it the second you left but …’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘I understand that you’ve moved on. I can’t pretend that you doing it so rapidly and with someone in the village is comfortable.’ She shrugged again. ‘And I feel short-changed by Clancy because she’d been quite friendly towards me, but I’ll just have to get on with it, won’t I?’

Aaron frowned, his good mood soured by Genevieve’s evident unhappiness. ‘I’m sorry if you’re upset.’ Something about her air of being hard done by didn’t sit well with him though. ‘I’m just trying to understand why you’re so … disappointed that I’m seeing someone else when you are too. The guy you were having breakfast with at the B&B, a breakfast that involved a lot of kisses.’

She gave a half-laugh. ‘I was being pathetic and trying to make you jealous. He was just some tourist I met in Hunny. He went home after a few days.’

‘I see.’ He wanted to say, ‘So you ended our relationship in a snit, you sucked the face off a tourist at the B&B in a half-arsed plan to make me jealous, and somehow this gives you the right to get all tragic about me seeing someone else?’ But he crammed a lid on it. What Genevieve felt, she felt, whether the logic appealed to him or not. He couldn’t change her feelings but he could try and draw things to a close gracefully.

‘We had a great year,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s part as friends. We’ve all got to live in Nelson’s Bar, after all.’

With a sudden snap to her movements, she lifted her chin. ‘Have we?’ Then she managed a small smile before she turned away, leaving Aaron reflecting on the fact that telling himself he’d done nothing to feel guilty about didn’t stop him feeling guilty.

When you made someone unhappy, you felt bad.

Chapter Nineteen

A lukewarm shower rid her of the last of her drowsiness and Clancy thought tingly, anticipatory thoughts about the evening to come as she dried her hair, bending over to blow air on the roots.