‘Really?’ Fran pulled a face. ‘I don’t think you do, Maddy. Caroline and Drew have gone back to Jersey. Together. And are showing no signs of returning. He loved you but how much longer did you think he’d keep battering his head against your bloody ridiculous moralistic brick wall? There are women, beautiful, available women, on the racing circuit, slavering. Don’t you think he’s given up on you and already gone for one of them?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Maddy intoned through clenched teeth. ‘Why will no one listen to me? He lied to me! He let me believe that they stayed together because he felt sorry for her! It wasn’t true! He only stayed with her for the money!’

‘I still refuse to believe that Drew is totally dependent on Caroline – and even if he is, at least give him the choice. You love him, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Maddy raised her head. ‘Desperately. But I am too afraid of being hurt again. Anyway, I do have principles, and I had to give his marriage a chance.’

‘His marriage hasn’t had a bloody chance for years!’ Suzy was doing her make-up in a smeared mirror at the table. ‘Stop being so bloody silly, Mad. He was in a no-win situation. If he left Caroline you said you wouldn’t have anything to do with him because you’d have wrecked their marriage. If he stayed with her you wouldn’t be his mistress.’ She spat on her mascara wand. ‘It seems to me that you didn’t want him as much as you said.’

‘I wanted him more than anything ever in my life.’ Tears burned Maddy’s eyes. ‘But properly. For myself. If he was free to be mine, which he’ll never be. So,’ she shuddered, ‘I’ll live without him, which is why I’m being taken out tonight.’

Fran shook her head. ‘You should have been a nun in the Middle Ages. You’d have had a whale of a time with self-flagellation. Anyone hopelessly in love with Drew Fitzgerald does not go gallivanting with Charlie Somerset!’

‘And you’ve changed your tune just a bit, haven’t you?’ Maddy hissed at Fran. ‘You were the one who told me not to get involved with Drew because he was married.’

Fran’s eyes softened. ‘Shit, Maddy. That was before I knew him. Before I realised how perfect you were together, and certainly before I discovered just how much he loved you. I thought he was just going to take you for a ride.’

‘He did. On Solomon.’ Maddy started to laugh, then burst into tears. ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’

‘Screwed up your life, his life, our life …’ Suzy smeared her full lips with glossy scarlet. ‘While, no doubt, Mrs Fitzgerald, the ice queen, when fully recovered from her no doubt profit-making bereavement will be making wine and money and laughing her frozen socks off.’