‘Who?’ Josh asked, because why ever would he consider that Cat’s ex-boyfriend, from whom she’d come to the Tour hoping to recuperate, from whom she truly thought she had moved on, was currently in Paris and intruding into the depths of her being, jeopardizing the confidence and security she had recently found.

‘Who No Longer Exists,’ Cat said quietly, ‘Him.’

Josh faltered, this was not what he was expecting and he felt rather ill-equipped to help. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘what does he want?’

‘Me,’ Cat shrugged.

All Josh really knew about the man was that he had hurt Cat very deeply. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked measuredly.

‘Bewildered,’ Cat defined.

Josh regarded her. Much as he liked Ben, he knew what he had to ask next. ‘Do you want him?’

After a loaded pause, Cat shoot her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but he’s here and he’s an obstruction.’

Josh frowned.

‘He’s a horrible symbol of very unhappy times, and a harbinger of back home,’ she continued. ‘Though the last few months were terrible – communication was impossible – and the final throes were quite vicious, I had five years with him and did love him very much.’ She looked out of the window. Paris. A little overcast. They’ll be on the Champs-Elysées now.

‘Still?’ Josh asked.

‘Once,’ Cat replied. She was speaking clearly if softly. ‘Eventually, the reason for us to be together, all the elements that once were so loved, were simply no longer known. I was wrong for him. He was increasingly mean to me. I was clinging to all that had been and, in an ideal world, all that we’d hoped for. He wanted out. I was so low I was convinced an unhappy life with him was preferable to all the uncertainties I’d face in a life on my own.’

‘Your self-esteem was decimated,’ Josh said.

Cat snorted. Then she was still. Finally she nodded. ‘When someone scolds you enough, you end up believing it.’

‘And yet you’re confused now you’ve seen him again?’

Cat shrugged. ‘He’s come to find me. There were good times.’

‘Do you love him still?’

‘I love still the idea of it all.’

‘Ben?’ Josh asked, a tiny thought zipping into his mind that poor Ben might have been but rebound fodder.

‘I am in love with Ben,’ Cat declared. ‘For me, he symbolizes everything that my future should be about. Through him, I got my bounce back.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just my past isn’t merely haunting me today, it has thrust itself across the path of my journey forward.’

Her eyes darted and she reached for Josh’s shirt, giving it an absent-minded tug. ‘My strength feels sapped,’ she said, ‘my mind is in a knot.’

‘Don’t let him do this to you,’ Josh said fairly sternly, pressing for a lift which he didn’t want, ‘you owe it to yourself. And us.’

Cat nodded for Josh while her brow twitched for herself. ‘Ben?’ she whispered. ‘Ought I to pull back now?’