If he doesn’t say it back to me,I remember thinking while he took the call, I will jump into this canal right here and right now.He didn’t. At least not in so many words. But what he did say later on was, ‘I heart you.’ The L-word, he explained, doesn’t come easily to him, which I understood perfectly. I mean, aren’t all Alpha males a bit emotionally retarded when it comes to expressing how they feel? So, ‘I heart you’ became our little private in-joke, which we’d say to each other last thing at night and at the tail end of phone calls if we were apart. And that’s what I’m thinking as I look at him now, all tall and commanding, explaining everything away. I heart you, Sam. So, so much.

Somehow, it all comes to an end and we do actually get out of there, but the next few, awful minutes are a nightmarish blur. Us being ushered out of the cop shop and blinkingly pouring out onto the street outside. Me, Maggie, Sharon…and Sam.

‘Emm, by the way, these are my sisters, Maggie and Sharon,’ I say to him, to break the silence more than anything else, as the tension between us is starting to crackle like an electric current.

‘ Stepsisters,’ says Maggie, scowling at him and lighting up a fag.

Sharon, meanwhile, is gazing up at him fascinated, like he’s some kind of alien from another planet. But then there’s not too many blokes with Rolex watches, Prada loafers and Bentleys hanging around Smiley Burger in Whitehall. I throw her a quick flash of a warning look, mainly because knowing Sharon, there’s a fair chance she’d ask him straight out if he’s any single friends he could match her up with.

Next thing, Sam politely excuses us, then grabs my arm and firmly steers me away from the others and towards where his car is parked, a few feet away. I look up at him, determined to let him speak first. But when he does, it’s not what I expected at all.

‘I could have pressed charges back there, you know,’ he says coolly. ‘Trespassing on private property? Letting yourself into my home without my permission? How would you like it if I pulled a stunt like that on you?’

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not how this conversation is supposed go. There are coherent sentences ready formed in my brain. Trouble is, not one them will come out.

‘What exactly were you thinking?’

I manage to stammer out something about the article in the paper about him coming home early from Spain and how rumours were flying around that this meant he wanted to get back with me, but he immediately cuts me off. This is all because of one crappy piece in a gossip column? At my advanced stage of working in the media, don’t I realise that journalists make stuff up? Besides, the only reason he cut his holiday to Spain short was because he was asked to deliver a keynote speech tonight at the K Club on start-up businesses. Which is where he’s meant to be right now.

On and on he goes, working himself up to a crescendo of quiet, understated fury. Detail always coming before emotion. He’ll get his people onto this straight away, he says and with great luck, maybe, just maybe, it can be kept from being leaked to the papers. And I can hand him back his house keys right here and now so there’ll be no repeat performance of this horrible, horrible evening.

Sam never raises his voice, ever, and somehow when you’re on the receiving end of a tongue lashing from him, it makes it all the more intimidating.

But there’s no calling me Woodsie, like he always does. No ‘I heart you.’ I’m rooted to the spot, staring at him like an imbecile with nothing to say for myself. And still he goes on. Why was I pestering him with phone call after phone call? And harassing Margaret in the office too when she’d quite enough to be getting on with? Wasn’t it obvious that he didn’t want to speak to me? Didn’t I understand what was meant by ‘taking a break’? Then the real killer. The one that makes my heart physically twist in my chest. Maybe, he said, maybe there was a time a few weeks ago after the split when he might have considered a reunion, but now it’s out of the question. Not after this. The subtext being: because who wants to be with some kind of obsessive, house-breaking bunny boiler?

I don’t even bother defending myself. I just stand there taking it. Like an abused wife who somehow feels it’s all her fault in the first place. Because he’s right. I have behaved like a woman demented. I deserve my carpeting from Axminster. I’m not quite sure how much longer I can stand it without my eyes beginning to seep and I’m determined not to let him see me crying. But as usual, my body lets me down. I hear sobs and realise they’re coming from me. Then, sure enough, the tears start to fall. Big ugly tears too that signal to Sam he should run as far away as possible but under absolutely no circumstances get involved. A second later it’s all over. And I really do mean, all over.

‘Gotta go,’ he says brusquely. ‘I was just about to start my speech at the K Club when the call came for me to drive here to troubleshoot this. Little did I guess I’d end up having to deal with all this crapology.’

He’s leaving. Really leaving this time. Getting into his car to go. Out of my life forever. I’m on the pavement beside him, numbly willing him to say something else to me. Crapology can’t be the last word he ever says to me. It just can’t.

Next thing, the window of his car glides down and he sticks his head out. His sunglasses are on now, so I can’t make out his expression. Irritation? Annoyance? Or, worst of all, pity?

‘Oh and by the way?’ he calls back to me, revving up the car to pull out.

‘Yes?’

‘The red hair is bloody awful.’

Half an hour later, I’m sitting in a pub across the road with Maggie and Sharon. They’re both stuffing their faces with sausage and chips swimming in a disgusting, gloopy-looking oniony gravy while I nurse a brandy, shaking and shivering, looking and feeling exactly like a car crash victim. I don’t even remember much about how we ended up here. All I know is that after Sam whooshed off, I felt exactly as if someone had just stuck their fingers down my throat and squeezed right down into my bowels.

Then I remember Sharon and Maggie’s voices beside me, bickering amongst themselves. Maggie threatening that if she didn’t eat a proper dinner within the next five minutes, that she’d torch down the whole town of Kildare, which with her wouldn’t necessarily be an idle threat. So they linked me, one arm each and dragged me into this pub.

Anyway, now that the pair of them have eaten and are happily rubbing their tummies waiting for dessert to arrive, they’re both in miles better form and are actually making touching little efforts to drag me out of the deep mire I’ve sunk into. Without even realising it, they’re fully obeying all ex-boyfriend break-up rules. Rule one: they’re both bitching about Sam as much as is possible. Rule two: they even order a second brandy for me. Which, considering I can’t afford to pay for it, is more than kind. It takes ages to come, so long that Sharon snaps at the lounge boy, ‘How exactly is that brandy getting here anyway? By Saint Bernard?’ Also, the pair of them are missing all their soaps just to sit here. Which is the equivalent of diehard soccer supporters missing the FAI cup final, just to put it into context. Even Maggie, who loves nothing more than kicking me when I’m down, is keeping her claws well and truly reined in. Which, just for tonight at least, I appreciate.

‘Tell you something,’ says Sharon, ‘I’ve seen Sam Hughes’s photo in the paper loads of times, but up close, he’s not even all that good looking. He has very tufty hair for starters. Even worse than Simon Cowell’s.’

‘And the head is nearly a perfect square,’ Maggie throws in. ‘He’s built like a rugby player, but with a really stupid-looking unibrow.’