The words seem to hit Ty like a slap across the face. Bonnie sees him start sinking into himself. He steps away, his shoulders slouching and his eyes looking at the ground.

‘Bonnie?’ Darcy touches her on the arm. ‘How about we just get some fresh air for a few minutes and talk it through?’

Is this woman crazy? ‘You did see how he was when he talked about her?’

Darcy falters at this and Bonnie wonders whether she had been paying attention during Ty’s heartfelt ramblings.

In Bonnie’s mind, there is no other option. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t be part of the show knowing that. I quit.’

‘Shit!’ Darcy curses herself as she stands beside Ben, watching the footage back. Their suitor has been filmed admitting he’s in love with someone else!

Shit! Fuck! Crap!

‘What a train wreck.’ The worst part is there were plenty of times where she could have called cut. She could have prevented the whole thing. In the end it had been Ben who saved her butt, pinching her arm and gesturing for her to call it. ‘What the hell was I doing?’ But she knows exactly what she’d been doing. She’d been thinking about Drew and Ed and the whole mess she’d got herself into.

She’s been on the road with the hometown dates for almost a week. She’s spoken to Drew each night, briefly as usual. Neither of them have brought up setting the date, instead filling their conversation with dull occurrences from their day.

But she hasn’t heard from Ed at all. Normally he sends her a text every couple of days to check in. Darcy has composed about a hundred messages to him but hasn’t managed to send one. Nothing feels quite right so she keeps leaving it, aware that the extended silence is only making things worse.

So instead of paying attention to the actual words coming out of Ty’s mouth, she’d been playing out a conversation in her head of what she’d like to say to Ed. She’d been doing exactly that while the ‘Ty still loves his ex’ footage was recorded. She’d momentarily forgotten she had a job to do. And now one of the contestants has quit!

‘Alice will fire me over this.’

‘They can edit around it?’ Ben suggests.

That’s true, they could cut the whole conversation after Ty comments on the photo of Bonnie’s niece and nephews, but then where would they go from there? They have a bit of footage from Bonnie and Ty’s walk along the beach but not enough to hold a segment together. And they still have to explain why Bonnie is leaving the show.