‘Look, Declan, I’m not saying I don’t love you, it’s just that I love Justin too, and my life belongs with him,’ she said, and her heart actually swelled. She had become visible again in her husband’s eyes and, now that they were about to become parents, their life together was assured.

Justin had warned Claudia before they married that he and his first wife had seen a fertility specialist and that ‘his little swimmers’ weren’t Olympic material. But he had never given up hope of fathering a child of his own, and Claudia’s news had been exactly what he had been waiting for. She had succeeded where Sasha had failed.

‘But you can’t live a lie,’ Declan insisted.

Claudia stirred two mugs of coffee and pushed one towards Declan. ‘And what lie would that be?’

She hoped he wasn’t going to accuse her of deliberately seeking him out as a glorified sperm donor because that wasn’t true, not completely. She had allowed herself to fall for Declan’s charms because she had been starved of Justin’s attention. It was simply a happy coincidence that she had become pregnant.

Declan was shaking his head in disbelief.

‘What?’ she asked, prepared to make her argument.

Before he could respond, his phone bleeped. It was in his back pocket and he glanced at it briefly, intending to continue their conversation, but his head snapped back to the screen.

Claudia sipped her coffee. ‘Is it important?’

In answer, Declan went to the kitchen window and opened it a crack. She could hear the wail of an alarm.

‘Is that coming from the theatre?’

‘I’ve had an automated message. I need to check it out before Phillipa finds out,’ he said, but he stayed where he was. ‘I don’t know, maybe I should stay. This is more important.’

Claudia wasn’t listening as she pushed past Declan and hurried to the tiny living room. When she had arrived earlier, she had hung her bag on the back of a chair, kicked off her shoes by the door, and hung her cream cashmere coat on a hook. She hadn’t been expecting Justin to phone while she was at the ballet, so she had left her mobile in her bag, along with the programme for the ballet that Declan had given her to shore up her alibi. She gathered up her things.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Declan.

‘I’m supposed to be inside the Empress. Phillipa will expect a blow-by-blow account of what happened. I have to be there.’

In truth, Claudia was perfectly capable of lying her way out of it, but she had delivered the bad news to Declan, and this was the perfect opportunity to leave. She would spend the next couple of hours sitting in the car if she had to.