‘The right thing for who? For Fi? Because it certainly wouldn’t have been the right thing for me, or for you.’

‘But you were married, Scott! Shit! I mean Adam! Being married meant it wasn’t right for any of us.’

‘I never set out to hurt either of you.’

‘Maybe not, but you’ve managed to.’

‘I know and I hate myself for it, but I can’t live without you, Jem. I wasn’t lying when I said I love you only. I do love Fi but it’s a deep friendship thing. With you, it’s the real thing. I’ve tried to tell you the truth so many times, but I’ve bottled it because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. I’ve vowed to end it with Fi so many times, but the timing’s never seemed right.’

‘The timing’s never right to dump someone. Especially your wife.’ I downed the rest of my wine and took a deep breath. ‘Tell me about the twins. A wife was a hell of a surprise. Twin babies took it into another stratosphere.’

He closed his eyes for a moment and the strain this had taken on him was obvious from the slump of his shoulders. I could see he was broken and I wanted to reach out and hold him but I couldn’t do that. If I held him, there was no way I’d be able to let him go because, as I’d told Leah earlier, I couldn’t just switch off my feelings. I still loved him.

He opened his eyes and gave a weary sigh. ‘I knew I’d let it go too far and that there’d never be a good time to tell Fi so I’d just have to blurt it out. I’d been working away and I marched through the front door announcing that there was something I had to tell her. But she said she had to give me her news first. She was pregnant. She’d already had another two miscarriages by that point and she was under strict orders to take things easy and avoid any stress. I cursed myself for not having the guts to end it before because, obviously, I couldn’t tell her about you at that point. I couldn’t risk being the cause of another miscarriage.’

He looked as though he was expecting me to agree with him but the enormous lump in my throat prevented me from getting any words out.