Freedom didn't feel like he thought it would.
He'd imagined relief — the kind that came from escaping temptation, from walking cleanly away before mistakes could happen. Instead, Monday morning arrived with a hollow quiet that sank beneath his skin.
He sat at the window of his home office, watching the morning rush blur past, coffee cooling beside him. London never stopped moving, but he felt strangely still — suspended between what he'd left and what hadn't yet begun.
He opened his laptop, answered emails, ignored Richard's message asking how he was doing, if he missed them yet.
He didn't think about her. Not at first.
Then he thought about her constantly.
He kept replaying Friday — her quiet composure at his farewell, the curve of her handwriting on the folded note he'd tucked into his inside pocket, the way she hadn't said goodbye, not really.
He should have felt lighter. Instead, he felt... untethered.
By Tuesday night, he found himself outside the café they'd once gone to after a client meeting, the one near the river where she always ordered peppermint tea. He didn't go in. Just stood there a few minutes, wondering if she ever passed that way.
When he finally walked home through the drizzle, he caught his reflection in a shop window — tired, damp, haunted — and thought, So this is what doing the right thing feels like.
She hadn't imagined how quiet the office would feel without him.
The first few days were manageable — busier, in fact. Richard leaned on her more heavily than usual, the company buzzing with post-launch follow-up. But it was the little things that got to her: no deep voice greeting her in the mornings, no subtle exchange of glances across meetings, no silent reassurance that she wasn't fighting battles alone.
She tried to convince herself it was good for her — less distraction, more focus. But every time she caught herself checking her phone for a message that never came, she felt foolish.
He hadn't written. He hadn't called. Not even a polite check-in to see if everything was running smoothly.
He was really gone.
On Wednesday evening, she poured herself a glass of wine and sat at her kitchen table after the children were in bed. She stared at her phone for a long time, scrolling through their old texts — all work-related, perfectly professional, threaded with that faint, unspoken warmth that had always existed between the lines.
She typed:
Hi, Robert. Just wanted to check how you're getting on.
Then she deleted it.
She tried again:
I hope you're settling in okay.
Delete.
It felt wrong to reach out. It would look like she was clinging. Yet the thought of silence stretching on forever was unbearable.
She set the phone face down and went to wash the dishes, her mind replaying every conversation, every glance, every nearly moment that had passed between them.
By Thursday, he'd convinced himself that he'd imagined it all — the connection, the tension, the fragile thread that had seemed to bind them.
She'd looked composed at his farewell, even serene. Maybe she was relieved to see him go. Maybe he'd misread everything.
He'd spent most of the day in meetings, going through the motions with a new company — he was efficient, detached, professional. They were friendly enough, but he felt like an intruder in his own life.
That evening, he left his flat and walked down toward the river, the air cool and faintly metallic with spring rain. The lights on the water shimmered, fractured, and for a moment he thought about calling her — just to ask how she was doing, to hear her voice.
He took out his phone, thumb hovering over her name.
Then he locked the screen and slipped it back into his pocket.
"Don't be a fool," he muttered to himself, turning away from the water.
But her face wouldn't leave him.
He told himself again that this was for the best.
That didn't stop the ache.
Friday afternoon arrived quietly, the end of another long week.
Her desk was tidy, her inbox blissfully empty for once. The children would be with Clive over the weekend. She should have been looking forward to the break, but instead she felt restless, on edge.
Around four o'clock, she opened the dating app. Will had messaged again a few days ago — kind, polite, asking how she was. She hadn't replied yet.
Her thumb hovered over the screen, then closed it again.
She didn't want Will.
She didn't want anyone who wasn't him.
The realisation made her chest ache.
She stared at her phone a moment longer, then opened her messages and found Robert's name.
Her hands trembled slightly as she typed:
Hi. I hope you're settling in okay. Things here are a bit quieter without you. It's strange, actually. Just wanted to say I hope you're doing all right.
She read it twice. It sounded casual. Friendly. Safe.
Then she pressed send.
The moment the message left the screen, her heart began to hammer. She stared at the clock, the muted hum of the office fading into nothing.
Five minutes passed. Ten.
Nothing.
She sighed, slipping her phone into her bag. Maybe he wouldn't reply. Maybe he didn't want to.
But at least she'd tried.
He was halfway through a meeting when his phone buzzed.
He ignored it at first — a reflex, years of discipline. But when he glanced down and saw her name on the screen, the world seemed to narrow to a single point.
He read the message once. Then again.
Hi. I hope you're settling in okay. Things here are a bit quieter without you. It's strange, actually. Just wanted to say I hope you're doing all right.
He couldn't stop the smile that pulled at his mouth. It wasn't much, but it was everything.
The person on the screen in front of him was still talking, some update about a client pitch, but Robert wasn't listening. His mind was already somewhere else — back in that bright office, the sound of her laugh, the smell of her tea.
When the meeting finally ended, he stepped outside into the cool evening. He stood there under the awning of his building, the rain misting around him, and typed back.
Hi. I'm all right, thank you. Still adjusting. I imagine the office feels different without the chaos.
He hesitated, then added, I miss the coffee machine arguments.
He almost deleted that last line — too familiar — but didn't. He hit send.
Her phone buzzed as she was stepping off the tube at Clapham.
She fumbled for it, reading his name, then the message.
She smiled — actually smiled — right there on the platform.
She typed back quickly before she lost her nerve:
You mean you miss being right all the time?
A reply came a moment later.
No. I miss you thinking you were right all the time.
She laughed softly, startling herself.
The ache in her chest loosened just a little.
They exchanged a few more messages — light, easy, full of the old rhythm she'd missed.
By the time she got home, she was smiling again, her heart light in a way it hadn't been for months.
He sat in his living room long after their last message, the rain drumming softly on the window, the phone still in his hand.
It was ridiculous — a few short messages, some jokes — but it felt like the world had shifted back into colour.
He realised then that he didn't want distance. He didn't want to forget her.
He wanted to see her.
To talk to her, properly.
And he hoped it wasn't too late.