“I saw the way you looked as we walked past the other day.” Tom pulls me into an embrace, his breath on my neck. “Like this was the best doughnut shop in the world and you were starving.” He pulls away to look me in the eye. “Let me treat you, please?”

I look into those green eyes and shake my head. “They are thousands of dollars, Tom.”

“Didn’t I just win twenty-five grand?” He raises an eyebrow. “Please?”

The funny thing is, I could get Leah’s platinum card out right now and buy anything I wanted from Jaeger-LeCoultre. But it would mean nothing. I nod mutely and let Tom lead me inside. The boutique is small and exudes a kind of hushed luxury, like visiting a very intimate museum or the library of a well-respected university professor.

I choose a simple small timepiece with a classic face and a strap in the softest dark burgundy leather. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever owned. Tom chooses a similarly classic style but with a stainless-steel bracelet and blue toning on the face. He hands over almost twenty thousand dollars in cash like it is nothing. The watches are so expensive that we have to complete registration documents for them. It is the first time I have signed Leah’s name. Muscle memory kicks in; I used to sign all kinds of things for her when we were younger.

We spend the rest of the day exploring various attractions on the Strip, including taking a limo to the Las Vegas sign. The day ends with dinner at the top of the Strat, the entire Strip illuminated beneath us.

Back in the hotel, we order more champagne and make love wearing nothing but the watches.

Maybe I should whisper it. I like Leah. The Leah I am when I’m with him. She’s fun and relaxed and evidently a bit witty, as she makes him laugh a lot. She’s happy and it shows. I’m happy. Holy fuck.

Chapter Eleven

On the flight home I allow myself to dream a little. What if… What if Tom and I could have a future? What if it could be more than just a few snatched days in Vegas?

We are somewhere over the Atlantic when I sit bolt upright. Because what if? What if it was Megan who went away? Megan who decided that life was shit and she should start over somewhere else? Her husband was cheating on her. Her job was not quite what she had dreamed about when she was a little girl. She had a fair bit of debt. I don’t actually have any debt, but it would be easy to rack some up. Megan could disappear somewhere, slip away from Chris’s clutches in a way I had never before dreamed was possible.

I have thought of how to escape the confines of my marriage. Of course I have. You didn’t think I wanted to stay married to him, did you? But I knew that he would never let me go. Not amicably, not in a way that let me keep anything I loved. He held me hostage in my own life. “I would be lost without you,” he had told me once. “Unanchored. Set adrift. And who knows what I would do then.” I knew he would hunt me down and hurt me. It was that simple. I had thought about running away, going somewhere far enough from him that he would never find me, leaving everything and everyone behind. The problem being that I couldn’t abandon Mum. But if I became Leah, permanently became her, then I could visit as her. I could still have a mum, and she could still have a daughter.