‘I’m not going to be around this weekend,’ Greg said as he put the camera phone down and picked up his rod again.

‘Not around?’

‘Taking Annie to Norfolk.’

‘Cromer?’

‘Yeah.’

‘A bit out of the blue,’ Ray said. The perch went proudly into the keep net with his growing haul. ‘There’s a match on tomorrow.’

Greg hadn’t forgotten about that. It was one he’d been particularly keen to fish.

‘What’s brought this on?’ his friend wanted to know.

‘Annie’s acting a bit funny,’ Greg admitted. ‘Thought it would do her good.’

‘Hormones,’ Ray said sagely, checking his arrangement of rods. ‘This is the thing, matey. Men – we’re wired like circuit boards. Every morning, same thing. No surprises. Click on. Click off. Women – they’re like a jar of jelly beans. Shaken up every damn day. You never know what colour you’re going to get. Or whether you’re going to like it.’

Greg nodded thoughtfully. Annie had never been like this before. She seemed so discontented, so out of sorts. Could hormones really do that much damage overnight? His wife had never been overly troubled by those things, but then he had to admit that they never talked about such matters. If she had any problems in that department, she would have gone straight to her twin, Lauren, not him. Their marriage had always worked like that. Sometimes he wished that Annie would share more with him and less with Lauren, but he’d long accepted that her closeness to her sister was unlikely to alter.

But now this sudden change? It was like a perch suddenly behaving like a pike. What was he to do? Clearly, something was worrying his wife. It worried him too – even though he didn’t know what it was. And he had to concede that, at the moment, it seemed like Ray had a point.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Lauren surveyed the buffet nervously. They’d had caterers in who’d put out a lovely selection of finger food on the boardroom table. There were tiny blinis with smoked salmon and cream cheese, slivers of pink roast beef with fresh horseradish, puff-pastry horns filled with a light asparagus mousse. It all looked wonderful and she couldn’t face a single mouthful.

Despite the tough economic climate, the sales team had pulled in a lot of revenue this year – down, in no small part, to her own efforts. Jude had decided that he’d put on a reception in the boardroom to say thanks to all the staff at Happening Today. She closed her eyes, thinking of the last time she’d been in this room. Her emotions were mixed, to say the least.

‘Bringing back memories?’

It was Zak.

She turned, arms folded. ‘Of what?’

‘We did this at the same time last year, didn’t we?’ There was a twinkle in his eye.