“I love you, Audrey, you know I do. And I will always, always look after you and the baby, I promise. Will you marry me, please?”

He is waiting, she knows, for her to lift her head and meet his gaze. But it feels like a gargantuan task, to heave this great weight from her shoulders. She hears the seconds tick by, feels him stroke the back of her hand, senses the anticipation thicken between them.

She is aware of the points shifting, hears the grinding of gears as she reaches the base of the V where two lines diverge, watches herself hurtle along this new route. She glances sideways out of the window to where the other branch is receding, the distance growing ever greater until there is nothing more than a memory of where her alternative future had once been.

And then she is nodding. Her head is moving independently of her ambivalence. She feels his fingers encase her hand, can sense his happiness radiating from his touch. His words echo in her ears—I will always, always look after you and the baby—and she tries to hold on to them, to take comfort from the reassurance and stability he is offering.

Chapter 14

Lily

Lily sat at her desk, staring out of the glass wall onto the Thames beyond. Steel clouds hung low in the sky, the river leaden and unmoving. A tourist boat drifted across the water, camera flashes blinking into the gray air, its passengers keen to take home a more enviable image of the city.

She forced her eyes back down to the computer screen, the cursor blinking on an empty document. Her fingers moved across the keys, typing out a sentence she read back and then deleted.

The phone on her desk rang, startling her. She glanced down to see her assistant’s name flashing on the LCD screen. “Sophie, I said I didn’t want to be disturbed. What is it?”

She heard her assistant clear her throat, could feel the girl’s anxiety filtering through the handset. “Um, I just had a call from reception. They said your mum’s down there wanting to see you. I couldn’t see anything in the diary.”

Heat rose into Lily’s cheeks and she picked up the glass of water from her desk, gulped down its contents. “Could you go and collect her?”

Replacing the phone in its cradle, Lily stood up and glanced out into the busy open-plan office, her thoughts leapfrogging each another as to why her mum should be paying her an impromptu visit.

The door opened and Sophie showed her mum in.

“Can I get you both a cup of tea or coffee?”

Her mum glanced in Lily’s direction, hands clasped together as if in prayer, before turning back to Sophie. “Thank you, that’s very kind, but I’m fine.”

“Yes, me too, Sophie. Can you check my four o’clock meeting’s still happening?”

As the door closed there was a moment’s silence. Lily gestured to the sofa, her arm extended stiffly, her body reacting against a clash of worlds she usually kept separate. “Sit down, Mum, please. Is everything OK?”