‘I did see her,’ he said coldly. ‘And that’s when we decided we wanted to make a go of it.’

Indignation burned. ‘Oh, so until then you weren’t entirely sure, and you stuck with me as the consolation prize? I was still in the running but not the odds-on favourite.’

All that deceit.

‘Bella, you have to believe me when I say it was never like that. I never meant to hurt you.’

‘Yes, you did.’ Bella’s voice grew louder, unable to control it anymore. It was the only way to release some of the pain. ‘Whenever I found out about this it was going to hurt. You should have told me as soon as you started having feelings for someone else. If that wasn’t a sign something was wrong with our relationship, then nothing was. Or were you just going to stay with me until you found someone better, whether that was Pepper or someone else?’ Evan didn’t answer at first. ‘You knew you were going to leave me sooner or later, didn’t you?’

‘No, Bella. I loved you. Very much, but …’ He studied his shoes. ‘I mean – I suppose I did feel sometimes that we were heading in different directions, but—’

‘What do you mean?’

Different directions? Was he reciting things he’d read off the internet? Had he googled the ten best ways to dump someone? It all seemed so inhuman.

‘It was clear we were starting to want different things.’

That was the first she’d heard of it. ‘Like what?’

‘I started to feel more and more that I wanted to live in the city, but I knew you’d never want that. Pepper and I love going to the cinema, or to the theatre.’

‘I love trips to the theatre,’ she responded, feeling the need to defend herself.

‘You like a day trip to London but you like coming home from all that and we don’t. We want it more.’

We. He was already talking about him and Pepper as a ‘we’. The ‘we’ that used to be her and Evan. It was the ultimate betrayal and the crucial sign that he’d already completely moved on.

‘You love being here in Meadowbank, but I was finding it increasingly claustrophobic. You wanted a family and I—’

‘You wanted a family too,’ she interrupted. ‘You just said you weren’t ready yet. Not that you never wanted a family.’ Or had he just not wanted a family with her? The way he turned to look out into the dark playground gave her the answer and her heart ripped apart again. Swallowing down her tears, all traces of anger buried under her agony, she said, ‘Why didn’t you say anything? This is all so … so out of nowhere.’