Louisa leaned forward slightly and picked up her glass from the table. She put it down again without tasting the wine.

‘I understand why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me enough.’ Tom opened his mouth to speak, but Louisa held up a hand to stop him. ‘It’s the truth. And I didn’t trust you enough to agree to move in with you. So in a way we’re equal, although bizarrely it feels as if the fact that you hid this from me vindicates my decision. If you had simply lied by omission, it would be one thing. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? I asked you how you felt about Jack’s death. I held you as you talked about the shock and how much you miss him. I cried, Tom, when I thought of how much you were hurting. I know your feelings were real when you thought Jack was dead, but when you told me about it and I comforted you, you knew he was alive.’

She shook her head slightly and fixed her gaze on the empty space above Tom’s head. She might never believe that he had planned to tell her everything. She would think Jack’s untimely arrival had precipitated his honesty.

‘Here’s what I think,’ she said, after what seemed like far too long a pause. ‘We have a good time together. I believe we care about each other – no, that’s undervaluing what we have. I love you, Tom. That hasn’t changed. I absolutely understand why you thought you couldn’t tell me about Jack. But understanding is a logical acknowledgement of something that makes perfect sense. There’s an emotional response too – one that doesn’t seem to want to recognise reason, however hard I try to force it. I am struggling to forget those moments when I thought I was sharing your pain, and yet all the time you knew you were deceiving me.’

Tom could sense where this was going, but he wasn’t going to put up a fight. He knew Louisa well enough to realise she would make her own decision and was just as likely to back away if she felt he was pressurising her.