“Let’s surprise her.” She didn’t put it past Flora to throw a bucket of water over the floor of her apartment if she needed to. “It will be spontaneous and supportive if we just show up.”

“Great idea. How did I end up with someone as special as you?”

“You got lucky, I guess.” Izzy made the joke and pushed aside the guilt. It was all in a good cause. He’d thank her later. Maybe he’d even admit it had been a massive mistake.

From now on it’s just the three of us. I don’t need anyone but you and Molly.

They wrangled Molly into the cab and headed into Manhattan. As usual the traffic was grim, which meant plenty of thinking time. As views of the skyline flashed past the windows, Izzy pondered the likely scenario awaiting them and Flora’s speechless embarrassment at being caught out.

In the end, she was the one who was speechless.

As they stood in the doorway of Flora’s apartment, Molly stared in wonder from the safety of her father’s arms. “Why is your home underwater?”

“A pipe burst in the apartment upstairs and it brought my ceiling down and flooded everywhere. I’ve had an exciting morning.” Flora was bright and cheerful, but Izzy could tell she was close to tears. Her voice was high-pitched and her smile was a little too wide.

Brave, Izzy thought grudgingly. If it had been her apartment—and please God don’t ever let her live anywhere this bad—she would have fallen face-first into the flood and tried to drown herself.

Now Izzy was wishing they hadn’t come and seen it in person. It was truly awful. She was pretty sure the apartment Flora lived in didn’t look that great when it was dry, but with water sloshing around the ankles it was dank and depressing. Izzy couldn’t believe anyone lived here.

The uncomfortable images she’d had of her father and Flora using her apartment for secret sex vanished. There was nothing romantic about this place. She’d seen her father’s bank account online and there had been no hotel bills, so unless Flora was paying, which seemed unlikely given the fact that she couldn’t afford a cab over to Brooklyn, they still hadn’t had sex.

That gave Izzy hope. Sex wasn’t always serious, she knew that. Half her friends had done it just because they felt it was time, not because they were “in love.” But she had a feeling that for her father sex would make a relationship serious. Her mother had always said that she’d married Jack because he was a forever type of guy.

Izzy wished she hadn’t had that thought because now she was thinking of her mother and with the thoughts came utter misery followed by anger. Why? Why?