Their clasped hands had somehow slipped down to her leg. Her skin felt chill, as if she’d gone into shock just telling him what had happened. ‘Are they still in the financial knot?’

Absently, she nodded. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t see the possible consequences before they asked me to “put the business first” by leaving it. The directors own equal shares and therefore receive equal dividends. I refused to sign a waiver so they have to keep paying me. Directors’ homes secure borrowing at the bank so Will’s in a tricky situation, as he has no alternative security. He suggested we sell the apartment to separate our finances. I said no. He asked that I sell out to Renée. I said no. Add to that: the others will have to raise the finance to buy me out and you see I left them in a right bloody mess.’

‘Wow.’ It had stretched his brain just to follow it all. He watched her drain her coffee and set the mug down. ‘I don’t know what to say … except that I’m truly sorry you’ve had to endure all this shit. What comes next?’

She shrugged, a world of trouble in her gaze. ‘One day I think I’m punishing Will for something he couldn’t help: falling in love with Renée. Next moment I hate him for letting me find out the way I did, for not keeping his attraction to her platonic until he’d reversed out of our relationship, for letting me be humiliated. Then I think I’m a horrible bitch … One day I suppose I’ll break the cycle and know what to do.’ She sighed. ‘Will’s last email said he wasn’t the love of my life.’

He digested that. ‘What do you think?’

She frowned out at the horizon, where the sea silvered just before it met the sky. ‘We had something built up over time, on respect and sharing. Matching intellects, similar backgrounds.’

He nodded understandingly. ‘I suppose Genevieve and I had all those things too.’

She frowned. ‘But she wasn’t the love of your life and so you didn’t allow yourself to be railroaded.’

‘True,’ he acknowledged gently. ‘She was manipulating things to get a greater commitment; I was manipulating them to avoid it. If I could go back and be more honest sooner, I would. I hurt someone I was very fond of.’

‘Fond of? She’d be hurt by that too.’ She fell to watching nearby fronds of Black Dragon Grass dancing in the wind.

Aaron looked at her hand in his. It was small with a smattering of tiny freckles, her nails neat ovals. She probably wore gloves for the jobs around Roundhouse Row that might break them.

‘I like your garden,’ she said suddenly. ‘When we were young, Alice and I used to say we’d have a garden centre one day.’

‘I didn’t know either of your interests lay in that direction,’ he said, accepting that she needed a change of subject.

‘They don’t. It was just because of our surnames – Moss and Nettles. Do you garden in winter?’