What ‘bombshell’ news was dropped on Kate Middleton in a PARKING LOT? It threatened to change her life forever…

It was the moment Kate Middleton thought it was all over – and that five years of close relationship with Prince William had come to nothing.

Catherine was 25 and working as a fashion buyer for Jigsaw when, according to author Tina Brown, her world exploded.

And it happened on a spring day – in a parking lot.

The pair had first met in 2001 at the University of St Andrews, but in 2007, as William continued his career in the army, they spent more time apart.

Kate imagined herself leaving her home in London before working as a fashion buyer for Jigsaw

The Jigsaw HQ car park where Kate received Prince William’s heartbreaking phone call in 2007

“In a terrible ‘let’s just get it over with’ phone call in April to Kate while she was at the Jigsaw office, he dropped the break-up bomb,” Brown writes in her bestselling Palace Papers.

“She had to excuse herself from a meeting and walk around the parking lot for an hour-long heart-to-heart that left her in pieces.”

Jigsaw gave her compassionate leave and Kate fled back home to Bucklebury.

Luckily, her mother, Carole, was there to help.

She took Kate to a friend’s house art exhibition in Dublin.

When they returned, she had a job waiting for her: compiling and editing catalogs for Party Pieces.

Her younger sister Pippa, a recent University of Edinburgh graduate, was called in to get Kate out of town.

The sisters would “exude the vibe of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,'” Brown said.

Kate, then 25, was determined to show everyone – and one person in particular – that she was living life to the fullest and wearing thigh-high dresses and skirts to get her point across.

Pippa and Kate Middleton attend the book launch party of ‘The Young Stalin: The Adventurous Early Life Of The Dictator’ in London in May 2007

The future queen taking part in a training session with the Sisterhood Cross Channel rowing team on the River Thames in August 2007

Pippa and Kate Middleton partied the night away at the Mahiki Club in London in February 2007

Kate was also invited by a close friend to join an all-female rowing team called The Sisterhood.

The 21 girls challenged the boys’ team The Brotherhood to race across the Channel in a dragon boat for charity.

Kate was at the helm and cut a striking figure as the group trained three times a week on the Thames. (Although she would eventually withdraw).

If the intention was to stir up a little jealousy in William, it seems to have worked.

In June, it began to dawn on William that his ex was as much of an asset as he was, Brown suggests.

‘Beautiful, confident and now with a royal shine. Kate could have become the wife of a duke or a billionaire in a Highgrove minute.”

Fortunately, their split was short-lived and the couple reconciled a few months later in June.

Reports emerged at the time that William had reconnected with Kate at Sam Waley-Cohen’s 25th birthday party at his family’s country home in Oxford, where they reportedly shared a passionate kiss.

Prince William pictured leaving London’s Mahiki Club with his royal detective in April 2007, shortly after his divorce from Kate

Prince William and his girlfriend Kate at the Central Flying School at RAF Cranwell for his RAF wings graduation ceremony in April 2008

Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate Middleton at The Concert For Diana at Wembley Stadium, London, in July 2007

Kate was also spotted the following week at the memorial concert for his mother, Princess Diana, at Wembley Stadium.

During the couple’s engagement interview in 2010, Kate reflected on their time apart. “I wasn’t very happy about it at the time, but it made me a stronger person,” she says.

‘You discover things about yourself that you may not have realized. I think when you’re younger you can get quite wrapped up in a relationship and I really appreciated that time for me, even if I didn’t think so at the time.’

William also added that it was “just a bit of space” when the couple was growing up.