‘And twenty times hotter!’ We’d all laugh awkwardly, then Luke would slide from the room.

Anna was the one who tentatively suggested that Luke and I might try to have another baby.

‘It’s too late,’ I said. ‘I’m forty already.’

‘Forty isn’t old!’ she cried. ‘You’ve every chance of getting pregnant again.’

I almost smiled. It was such a New York way of thinking, that science could make nature dance to its tune.

‘I’m too…’ I tried again. ‘Anna, I don’t think I was meant to have this.’

‘You can’t give up,’ she said, little and fierce. ‘You need to have hope.’

‘Anna…’ It was so difficult to say the words. ‘Luke…he blames me. For her dying.’

‘No! He doesn’t—’

‘It’s true. He hasn’t said it out straight, but the way he looks at me, it’s awful.’ I choked. ‘I’m so ashamed and—I’m afraid. Me and him, it’s not good, we’re not being nice to each other.’

I’d been reading about couples who’d lost a baby. How, often, they blamed each other. How, frequently, the relationship broke and ended. It felt as if it was happening to Luke and me. Previously it had been unthinkable, we’d been so close, so very much a team. But when Yara died, something had ruptured.

I hadn’t noticed it straight away, because we’d been lurching around, appalled and disbelieving. But now that some time had passed, the landscape was starting to look more settled—and very different from how it had been previously.

I’d catch Luke watching me, almost evaluating me, as if I were a puzzle he needed to figure out.

He was distant. Irritable. At times cold.

And I felt…Well, all I wanted to do was sleep.

We needed to talk but if he admitted that he thought Yara was my fault, we might never get past the damage.

There was a morning when I tiptoed into Yara’s room to find Luke sitting on the floor, holding a small teddy bear and full-on sobbing. I was so shocked—so ashamed—of the pain I’d caused that all I could do was stare, then back away.

We lost our dreams when we lost our baby and now it looked like we were losing each other.

62

‘Morning,’ Brianna said. ‘Your new client is in room three.’

‘Thanks.’ I needed to get my head in the game and focus on Lowry Cooke. He was thirty-nine, cross-addicted to alcohol and cocaine and had been persuaded in here after his life had fallen asunder: his girlfriend had left him; his friends had walked away and he was being sued by a pair of newly-weds for ruining their wedding.

I opened the door and there he was, good-looking in a lanky, loose-limbed, slightly grimy way, waxy jeans hanging loose on his hips, dark hair flopping over his forehead.