Ashley thought about the sofa at home, with its worn patches that her mother had mended and mended and then given up mending. She thought about how hard her mother had struggled to keep everything together after her dad had died. The hours on her feet. The snatched meals eaten standing up. The permanent frown. The falling asleep on the sofa.

Can we go and play, Mommy?

Not now, I have to work.

At sixteen, Ashley had worked, too. She’d got a job in the local pizza restaurant, waiting tables. She’d learned to ignore the complainers, the diners who ordered and then changed their minds and blamed her, the mean tippers and the men who hit on her. She ignored the long hours, the way her legs ached after a long day standing, the way her cheeks hurt from smiling when she didn’t want to smile. She was working for a purpose, and that purpose was money. She gave most of her earnings to her mother, and put the rest into her college fund. It was depressingly small, but it was hers and it was something. When she wasn’t working, she was studying. She didn’t have a dollar to her name that she hadn’t earned by being on her feet.

She thought about Cliff, but thinking of him made her feel as if someone had her heart in a vise so she stopped.

She decided that one day she wanted to live in a place like this, in a home that she actually owned, a place that didn’t constantly show you its shortcomings. Most of all she wanted to have enough money so she didn’t have to work every hour of every day. So she didn’t have to constantly tell her child she was too busy.

The glass doors were open onto the terrace and Ashley could see Joanna sitting on one of the loungers by the pool. She was wearing shorts, and oversize sunglasses, and her hair fell loose over her shoulders like flames. She looked like a rare, exotic bird and Ashley wished she had half her quiet elegance.

Joanna had a book on her lap, but she wasn’t reading. She appeared to be staring out across the ocean and Ashley couldn’t blame her for that because she’d never seen a view like it. If she owned this place she would never have left it but maybe when you were rich fancy properties and incredible views were something you took for granted.

Or maybe there were other reasons Joanna wasn’t reading.

Was it being back here? Or was it because Ashley was with her?

She strolled onto the terrace. “It’s stunning here.” There. She sounded confident. Not at all as if her insides were quaking with nerves. “Thank you for breakfast. Did you cook the pastries?”

“No, I don’t cook. I arranged for the place to be stocked with food before our arrival.”