He seems relieved to have bypassed any more awkward small talk about weather, flights, time differences, hotel room décor and what the food is like in Canada. I waffled a bit about bumping into the village gossip, a fuzzy-haired, eccentric lady called Monica who locals call ‘The Town Crier’ as she always has her finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest beat on the street, and he laughed when I told him I’d fed her a load of exaggerated lies just to get her tongue wagging. But now it’s down to the serious stuff, and there’s no way I’m letting it roll into an uncontrollable snowball. I have to talk this through with him.

‘I just want you to be honest with me,’ he tells me, which I think is very fair of him. ‘I need you to be honest with yourself and with me. That’s all I’m asking, Charlotte. Please don’t live a lie. Life’s too short and you know it.’

I feel pins and needles set in as the pinch of anxiety looms within me.

‘I promise I’ll be honest,’ I say to him. ‘Thanks for giving me the chance to prove it to you. I know I probably don’t deserve it.’

He laughs a little and I imagine his face, his pin-up looks and come-to-bed eyes that have everyone he meets mesmerized.

‘You’re my wife,’ he reminds me softly. ‘I won’t give up on us that easily, but I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t sure if she’s in the right place in her life. Or with the right person. Only you can decide that, Charlotte. I’ll respect whatever it is you want to do or where you want to be. It’s kind of out of my hands.’