‘We bought a house. Harry and me. Spain’s lovely, but there’s a time for everything.’

She knows what the answer is going to be before she asks.

‘You’re moving back home? To where?’

‘Langevik, of course, why in the world would I live anywhere else? We bought Susanne Smeed’s old house over on the ridge. Or Sigrid’s, I should say. So, my sweet lamb, before you know it, we’ll be neighbours.’

*

‘Bloody brat!’

‘Is that any way to speak of our unborn child?’

Leo has come out of the shower and is rubbing his wet hair with a towel. Naked, unabashed.

‘I was referring to Sigrid. Do you know what she has gone and done?’ Karen says and pulls the corners of her mouth down in an attempt to hide the joy she feels just looking at him.

Here, with her. For now, she reminds herself.

‘She broke up with Keris and is now engaged to Evald Johannisen, or something along those lines, I assume? At least judging from the look on your face.’

‘She sold the house she inherited from her mother.’

‘OK, well, we knew she was going to. So she finally found a buyer, isn’t that good?’

‘Yes, except that the buyer happens to be my mother,’ Karen says darkly. ‘And Harry Lampard. They’re moving in at the end of the summer.’

Leo stops drying his hair and looks at her.

‘No kidding. Bloody brat!’ he says.

Then he drops the towel.

*

There’s still time to save herself, she thinks and turns back onto her side. No harm done yet. She can still get out of this in one piece, even if Leo leaves. She’s not completely lost yet. So long as she keeps a cool head.

Then she feels the duvet being lifted and a newly showered, still-damp body against her back. The smell of toothpaste and shampoo.

‘I have to head into the studio for a few hours,’ he mumbles in her ear.

She says nothing.

There’s still time.

He lifts up her hair and nuzzles his face against her neck.

‘You smell good. Dammit, I don’t want to go . . .’

Then she turns to face him, her eyes meet his. Holds his gaze without a word.

And he slowly begins to move down, still with his eyes locked on hers, until his head disappears between her legs.

She closes her eyes and realises it’s already too late.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maria Adolfsson lives in Stockholm where she worked as a communications director and now writes full-time. The Doggerland series has been sold into 18 languages to date, and has sold over 330,000 copies in Sweden alone.

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