I was just looking at the flights leaving that afternoon, trying to decide where to go to, when my phone rang in my bag. I couldn’t think of one person I wanted to speak to right then. By the time I found it, deep in my shoulder bag, it was silent again.

On the screen was a number I recognized. It was a number I’d said over and again to myself on the day I left home. Why was Harry calling me? And then there was a beep. I had a voice mail message.

As soon as I heard his voice I felt my knees shake and found a seat nearby.

Ruby, it’s me. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I made the biggest mistake when I let you go. Please, please will you forgive me? Can we meet up today? I have so much to tell you. I just want to be with you. His voice softened and automatically my body responded. When I saw you in the café that day, I knew I couldn’t let you go. I must have been crazy to lose you. I love you, Ruby. Call me. Please.

I listened to the message again and again, remembering his voice as he talked to me in the dark in our bed in Paris about his plans for our life together. All the promises we made. For a moment I felt as I always had, that Harry was a prize that was just out of reach, and felt a jolt of disappointment that I couldn’t be with him.

But then I remembered the humiliation of being fired and how I hadn’t even considered he’d had anything to do with it. I’d trusted him. Yet he had. I knew that now. I think I’d known it before Sarah told me. It had been his decision; he wanted to get me out of his life. Then when he realized I hadn’t received his e-mail, he’d lied to me and pretended he knew nothing about it, to save his own skin. I couldn’t trust him now.

And I thought of Emma’s face in the estate agent’s office, brave and proud and so sad, and the way she was devastated when I told her how long my affair with her husband had lasted. She’d stood by me. I could never forget that. I would never betray her again.

I started to tap out a message to explain, to tell Harry that he’d hurt me too much. It could never happen. But as my finger hovered over the Send button, I knew I had to stop thinking of him as my friend. He really wasn’t. I remembered how I’d waited for him to turn up at the hotel that night. He’d written one e-mail and hadn’t even waited for a reply. He hadn’t given me another thought.