The interview list landed on my desk at half past eight on a grey Tuesday morning in Edinburgh.

Leith Waterfront Partnership. Interviews for the post of General Counsel. Panel: Board Chair, Chief Executive, HR Director, Community Board Member.

There were four names on the candidate list.

The third one was at eleven o'clock.

James Montague.

I put my coffee down very carefully.

Five years ago, James Montague sat across a candlelit table from me in a restaurant on the Royal Mile and ended our four-year relationship in less than three minutes.

“You're lovely, Holly,” he'd said. “You really are. But you're too ordinary. You're happy with ordinary. Your little council job. Your little flat in Leith. I want more than that. I need someone who wants more.”

Then he'd looked at the bill.

“Shall we just split it?”

I'd paid my half. I'd walked home down Leith Walk in the rain. And I'd never spoken to him again.

Now he was applying for a job at my company.

And as of eight o'clock that morning, I was chairing the panel.