As Catherine slowly re-emerged in public, friends rallied around her. She was photographed enjoying nights out in London with her sister Pippa Middleton, and was briefly linked to shipping heir Sir Henry Ropner.
William, by contrast, spent much of his single summer confined to military barracks as an army officer, a period that reportedly led to second thoughts.
Robert wrote it took barely two months for William to begin missing Catherine intensely, though he feared she might not take him back.
Their reunion came by chance at a costume party at a mutual friend’s country estate. Robert notes the “chemistry between William and Catherine did the rest” after she arrived dressed as a nurse.
The pair talked all night before sharing a kiss on the dance floor. They initially kept the reconciliation private but were soon spotted kissing at a military event at Bovington Barracks in Dorset.
Catherine later appeared at the Concert for Diana at Wembley in July 2007, seated just rows behind William and his brother Prince Harry, 40.
Within months, she had quietly moved into William’s Clarence House apartment for weekends together.
Three years later, in 2010, the couple announced their engagement, with Catherine receiving the sapphire ring once worn by William’s mother, Princess Diana, sealing a love story that had survived its most devastating test.
