‘I’m sorry things ended this way,’ he mumbled, standing up as if the conversation was over. ‘As I said, I’ve taken the rest of my stuff from the cottage. I’ve left you the pictures of us.’

The fact that he didn’t even want to remember their time together stabbed into her already injured body. Was he just going to erase her from his life, like the last five years had never happened? Did he not even want to acknowledge what they’d had when it had been good?

‘Later we can talk about the mortgage or we can go through our solicitors. I don’t think it’s a good idea to discuss it right now. It’s all still too painful … for both of us.’

Huh, she doubted that. She doubted any modicum of pain he felt was anywhere near the tearing heartache of reading his letter or the resounding sorrow it had caused every day since. It sounded like a tacked-on platitude because her glower had scared him. Did he think she’d launch across the classroom and attack him with the safety scissors?

Unlike Mr Cole she wasn’t going to taint her classroom by swearing in it. Bella crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Goodbye, Evan. I hope to God I never have to see you again.’

‘You won’t,’ he replied quietly as he left.

She watched him go, knowing they both had meant what they’d said and determined that this would be the last time she cried over the man who didn’t seem to care how much he’d torn her life apart.

Chapter 11

Nick watched the huge pot of bolognese sauce bubbling on the stove, proud that he’d made his first attempt at batch cooking. With the log fire kicking out heat and the heating on low to dry the washing he’d just distributed over the radiators, it was verging on tropical in the cottage, but he was up to his elbows in raw chicken and couldn’t stop to do anything about it.