‘It’s OK.’ She buried her face in her coffee mug. Moving away from everything she knew had provided lots of distractions. Will had moved on in a brutally permanent way and so must she.

Aaron selected another Hobnob. ‘Actually, Genevieve quoted you. Something about women not being defined by men.’

‘I did say that, but I was talking about myself, not her.’ She began to add something about his love life being none of her business, but then stuttered to a halt when the memory of their kiss in the garden flashed into her mind. That had been a tiny bit of his love life, and it had certainly been her business. Did he ever think of that when he was at De Silva House? Ever look at the nook just beyond the garden arbour …? ‘I hope nothing I said influenced her decision,’ she ended.

Something flickered in his eyes, as if he were reading her mind. After a pause, he said, ‘I don’t think so. I was feeling that Genevieve was trying to manoeuvre me into asking her to move in. I didn’t want that – or not yet, anyway. When you came up with the B&B information, it got me out of that situation and apparently I let my relief show.’

Clancy’s face heated up. ‘If I interfered, it was totally unwittingly—’

He waved her words aside. ‘I’m not blaming you. Gen began demanding answers and I handled it badly. I was honest, I suppose, but not particularly gentle. She asked me if I loved her and I sort of became paralysed. So she ended things. I hate that me not wanting to commit definitely – or indefinitely – caused her pain but I can’t force feelings I don’t have.’ He dunked another biscuit.

Clancy froze. His words had jolted her heart into an uncomfortable rhythm. ‘You feel bad because you can’t care for her as much as she wants you to?’ she clarified.

‘Basically.’ He popped the biscuit into his mouth.

She felt clammy. ‘Why should you share your home with someone if you don’t want to?’

He nodded as he swallowed. ‘That’s it. I live alone because I like it that way.’

A sigh slipped out from somewhere deep within her heart. ‘That must be how Will felt too. Have you got someone else?’ She was probably getting all up in his business even voicing the question but he was being pretty open with her.

His hand froze over the biscuit packet, his black eyebrows up in his hairline. ‘No! I haven’t cheated.’

‘That’s a significant difference.’ Now Aaron had provided the key to the puzzle she felt compelled to share what it unlocked. ‘Will does love someone else. Her name’s Renée. He’s loved her for years but she married a friend of his so he presumed it was hopeless. Then she came back into his life as an employee of an IsVid client. She was single again and his old feelings flooded back.’ She stopped to ease the tightness in her throat with a gulp of coffee. ‘He didn’t know how to tell me … so he kept quiet. I thought it was from malice but what if he couldn’t tell me out of affection? I found out about Renée in a particularly horrible way, but he couldn’t help how he felt about her and he couldn’t help how he felt about me.’ She suddenly realised that Aaron had abandoned the biscuits in favour of holding her hand.