She was sure she spotted a shimmer of suspicion in his eyes, but soon he began to search through his phone in silence. He wouldn’t find the messages between Neena and her; she had already deleted those. Any traces that the phone had been in her possession were gone. She had even wiped her fingerprints off the screen. His post hadn’t shown anything untoward. She had a knack of steaming open the envelopes, reading the contents, and re-sealing each envelope with a glue stick. The steam had felt good on her wounded hands.

‘Aren’t you going to thank me?’ she asked.

He looked up suddenly. ‘Gosh, yes. Sorry. Thank you for finding it.’

She smiled. Behind it, she was seething.

Richard wasn’t perfect at all; he was a fraud. That almost made her angrier than the betrayal itself. She loathed stupidity, and her husband had become the typical, adulterous fool that so many men turned out to be. He wasn’t one of a kind, but a tedious cliché.

‘You really do look beautiful,’ he said suddenly.

Not beautiful enough, she thought.

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s a shame you’re not staying in tonight.’

He eyed her from the bed with a hunger she knew well.

‘Don’t worry, I have a surprise for you later.’

‘What kind of surprise?’

‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

‘You and your games,’ he said.

We all have games we play, she thought. But some are better at them than others. I always win, Richard.

‘That’s what you first loved about me. I played with you until you couldn’t take it any more.’

Samantha appeared in the doorway. She had changed out of her school uniform and into a casual purple top and jeans. She was soon to be a teenager, but as she stood in the doorway, she still looked like Amber’s little girl. Amber dreaded the day her daughter would begin to sprout breasts and start the painful journey to womanhood. Her precious daughter had no idea how hard it was to survive in a world ruled by men. Luckily, she had Amber as a mother, who would teach her everything she needed to know to survive.

‘Are you feeling better, Mummy?’

‘Much better, sweetheart. Thank you.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Richard asked. ‘You’re sick?’

‘No, no. I was just tired, that’s all.’

‘If you’re sick, you should stay home. Don’t go next door and waste your energy.’

‘It was a false alarm. You know I’m a hypochondriac.’

‘Well if you feel the slightest bit ill, come on home again.’

‘We’ll look after you,’ Samantha added.

‘Aren’t I lucky to have such a wonderful family I can trust to look after me.’

She eyed Richard in the mirror and watched him flinch.

‘Have you done your homework?’ he asked Samantha.