‘This makes no sense to me,’ Francesco said. He didn’t move to be beside her, or kiss her, or try to change her mind with his touch. All he had were his words, and already he knew they weren’t enough. Her body language had changed, she’d made something about herself harder already.

‘I promised I would never knowingly hurt you,’ Penny consoled. ‘And you promised to never knowingly hurt me. If we don’t end this now, one of us will get hurt. I just know it. I can’t …’ She refused to cry. Crying wouldn’t be fair on Francesco because then he’d want to reassure her, and she couldn’t make him do that. ‘I just don’t have it in me. This is all too much. I owe it to Uncle David to do this.’

She straightened up, and Francesco could see her literally pull herself together.

‘My mind is made up,’ she said. ‘This is the way it has to be. Let’s be friends. I want that desperately.’

Francesco was blindsided but what else was there to say?

‘Okay,’ was all he could manage, trying to be strong for her, not understanding that what Penny needed was for him to crumble and say he couldn’t live without her and that he’d come as well. She knew, of course, that that would never happen. They’d only been together three weeks. Not even a month. That would be crazy, to go with her. She couldn’t ask him to, and he couldn’t offer.

And so he didn’t say anything except okay.

Okay, even though it was anything but.

Things moved fast. Arrangements were made for Penny’s occasional stand-in chef Billy to take over the cooking at Bridges, and for Stu to run the day-to-day handling of the place. Penny would just about break even in what it would cost to pay everyone more to cover her time, but at least she wasn’t losing anything and the business could truck on without her. She told herself it was for a year – eighteen months, max. It took her a day and a half to decide what to take with her and what to leave behind, and Francesco organized a small hire car for her so she could drive up there herself, and then that was it. She would be leaving.