‘Go rest yourselves and dress up in your glad rags. Tonight’s going to be a fine party. You’ll want your dancing legs ready. The fun starts at six-thirty. Don’t be late now,’ she said, still full of energy as always. The woman was a human dynamo still whirling around the kitchen stirring pans, tasting and beaming at everyone and everything. It was, Hannah concluded, wonderful to find the thing that you are so passionate about. She was looking forward to working with Aidan and with the myriad challenges and issues that came up in a local legal practice. Ingrams in the last few years had grown so much that they did much more corporate work, which wasn’t half as interesting as dealing with real people’s lives. Her spirits lifted at the thought of making a change and taking a risk.

She hurried back to the cottage to get ready, hoping that she wouldn’t run into Conor. When she pushed the front door open, closing it very quietly behind her, she listened carefully and heaved a silent sigh. The only movement was the dust motes flitting about in the sunshine that poured through the skylight above the hallway. She peeped into the kitchen which was empty and, feeling like a ninja, she tiptoed across the hall and up the stairs, wincing when the odd one creaked. Conor’s bedroom door was closed, but still she crossed the hall to her room as quickly as she could and slipped inside. Relieved that she’d reached sanctuary, she began to strip off her damp clothes. They’d all been running around like lunatics since first thing and her face and skin were slicked with a sheen of sweat. She felt grimy and desperate for a shower. She rolled her eyes. That was out for starters. Instead she’d have to make do with a quick sluice in the bath.

It was only when she grabbed her bathrobe that she spotted it. A solitary shoe lay on her bed. A plain black sensible court shoe, silhouetted against the white duvet like the dramatic front cover of a crime thriller. She’d entitle it, Death of a Romance. She swallowed hard and stared at the polished leather. There was a small note with it.

Sorry it’s taken so long to return.

The careful placing of the shoe seemed horribly symbolic, a message officially severing the link between her and Conor. It felt like a sad remnant, a wisp of memory from that first evening spent together, as if the last few weeks had been wiped out and that was all that had ever been between them. The apology suggested that he was sorry he couldn’t feel the same about her as she did about him. There was a finality about it that kicked her straight in the gut with an angry punch.