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The Man She Should Have Married

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It was bigger than fear.

He loved Nia with every beat of his heart, and she loved him. But finding a way to persuade her of that was going to be a challenge after the way he’d acted and what he’d said.

He pulled out his phone.

It was time to make a few calls.

Turning onto her side, Nia stared out of her bedroom window. It had rained most of the night, and the snow of a few days earlier had all but vanished. In its place, the raw umber-coloured bare earth looked stark against the washed-out blue sky.

She had forgotten to draw the curtains last night, but it wasn’t the daylight that had woken her.

It was the distant drone of a helicopter’s rotor blades.

Her eyes ached from the crying bouts that had punctuated the hours since Farlan had left yesterday, and she felt her throat tighten around the lump that refused to shift.

Then he had just been leaving the cottage. There had still been hope in her heart that he would return.

But now he was leaving for good.

He hadn’t said as much, but he didn’t need to.

She knew he would never be coming back, and that today would just be the first of many endless days, stretching out to the horizon. An infinite, empty expanse of regrets and shattered dreams and loss. Hope followed by despair, just like the first time.

Her heart felt as if it was being squeezed by a fist.

No, she thought, it won’t be like last time. It will be worse.

This time there were no misunderstandings—at least not on his side. Farlan couldn’t have made it clearer. He had spelled it out as if he was making a public service announcement, not breaking her heart.

He hadn’t been looking for a future with her or dreaming of something fixed and for ever.

What they had shared had been enough for him.

Her fingers bit into her duvet.

The sound of the rotors was growing louder.

She knew Farlan would have to fly over the cottage on his way to London, but it was agonising to hear the helicopter getting closer, to remember the time he had landed in the field and swept her off to lunch.

That had felt like a turning point in their relationship. It had been the first time he had opened up to her about himself, about his life before they’d met. She had really thought it meant something—not just to her, but to him too.

She couldn’t have been more mistaken.

He hadn’t wanted a second chance.

He’d just wanted sex and closure.

The helicopter was overhead now, and she gripped the duvet tighter. And then it was gone, the sound fading faster than she could have imagined.

She glanced round the room, tears weighting her eyelashes.

He was like the snow.

There was nothing to show he had ever been here.

It was as if she had dreamt all of it.

Staring through the window, her eyes followed the movement of the helicopter as it skimmed over the fields and then dissolved into the pale February sky.



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