‘He’s a bit up himself. Dresses like a fashion plate. In a scrapyard, I ask you. And he’s a neat freak. You seen his desk? All the pencils in line. Pitiful.’

‘Benedict’s OK. He just likes things orderly. He’s been great in the business, he got all the licences straight, gets the ads word-perfect in the trade mags, he even sorted out how to isolate the precious metals from the catalytic converters. He says you ignore him.’

Aysha shrugged. So what? She’d noticed how attractive Benedict was, of course she had, she wasn’t a nun. But God! Did she really want to start all that again?

‘You’re not . . .’ Connor started, then hesitated.

‘What?’

‘You’re not still hung up on that berk Joey, are you?’

Aysha’s lips grew thin. ‘I don’t give a fuck about Joey Minghella.’

That was true. Granted, Joey was the most beautiful man she had ever seen and she had loved him, wanted him. But all that had come to an end when she’d seen his true colours.

‘Well thank God for that,’ said Connor.

Shauna came in, wiping her hands on a tea towel, her face like thunder. ‘You two going to give me a hand out here?’ she snapped, and turned on her heel and walked back into the kitchen.

They exchanged a look, stood up and followed.

115

115

‘I’m happy you’re back,’ said Claire, snuggling in against Josh as they lay in bed together.

‘Me too,’ said Josh.

He’d come through the door and instantly they were kissing, caressing each other, hungry for love, desperate for it after their too-long separation. They fell on to the floor in the hall in a tangle of arms and legs, laughing, kissing, tugging each other’s clothes off until finally Josh could thrust his cock into her warm, waiting body and know he was truly home again.

Afterwards, they went into the bedroom and fell into bed and hugged each other.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ said Claire. ‘I was so sorry about your daughter’s baby. That was awful.’

‘She’s a tough girl,’ said Josh, thinking that once that hadn’t been true. Now, it was. Aysha seemed to have grown a hard shell over the hurt of the miscarriage and the disaster that was her brief marriage to Joey Minghella.

‘It must have been horrible for all of you. How did her husband take it?’

Josh filled Claire in on the story about Joey, the gardening job and his two pals getting banged up on a charge of manslaughter. He told her about Joey grassing them up, and the families baying for Joey’s blood.

‘So he legged it. Aysha tried to stop him going, and he shoved her arse-backwards down the stairs and that’s how she lost the baby,’ Josh told her.