‘I do understand why you feel deceived,’ I sniffed, ‘and I know that all I’ve ever done is let you down, even though you’ve shown me nothing but kindness . . .’

The dreadful realisation of how I had treated the wonderful man sitting next to me hit me hard in the chest and I began to cry. What an idiot I had been to let Dolly talk me into coming here this afternoon and asking if we could still be friends. Her blasted ‘cancer card’ had a lot to answer for.

I let out a longer, unrestrained sob. How was I going to manage without her? How was I going to negotiate my way through my life when she was no longer in it? I felt Beamish shift closer. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side.

‘Please don’t,’ I said, trying to move away. ‘I’m not crying to make you feel sorry for me.’

‘I know,’ he said huskily.

‘And I’m not crying about us,’ I told him, determined to stick to the truth about everything. ‘It’s something else.’

‘Oh . . .’

‘I can’t tell you what,’ I carried on, ‘but I am truly sorry about the way you’ve been caught up in my mess of a private life, Beamish. Had I known this was all going to happen, I never would have agreed to come to Wynbridge. Although,’ I added, ‘I am relieved to be rid of Jonathan and our poisonous relationship.’

Beamish didn’t respond for a moment but then let out a long sigh and squeezed my shoulder.

‘It’s actually the poisonous part of your relationship with that man which has stopped me walking away from you for good.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When I saw your Facebook profile,’ he told me, ‘and discovered that you were in a long-term relationship, I couldn’t believe it. I was angry with you for keeping it from me. When I saw those pictures of the two of you together, my opinion of you changed completely. You weren’t the person I thought you were and I felt hurt. But then . . .’

‘What?’

‘Seeing those bruises,’ he said. ‘Those marks on you, and meeting Jonathan in the flesh, it all got me thinking about my parents, how off-kilter Dad’s manipulation skewed Mum’s take on reality, and I began to wonder if under the circumstances and my understanding of them, if I could justify being so angry with you.’

I held my breath, not daring to interrupt.

‘Those images online weren’t representative of your real life at all, were they?’ he went on. ‘Come to think of it, very little of what anyone posts is actually the truth. It’s just the filtered and edited shiny best bits, isn’t it?’

I nodded.