She sat in the living room of the suite, flicked through a magazine – Country Living. The property on offer for the discerning and loaded purchaser was mouth-watering. Perhaps when Jude left his wife they could move somewhere like this. A nice barn conversion or restored Georgian manor house with five or six bedrooms on the outskirts of the city would suit just fine. It wasn’t absolutely essential for the offices of Happening Today to be tied to London. They’d need to have easy access to his children for when they came to stay for weekends, of course, but there was no real reason for them to be there every day. They could look to live in the country. Somewhere not too far away from Annie either. Lauren smiled. She could quite see herself as the Lady of the Manor – finally give their sister Chelsea a run for her money.

Lauren glanced at her watch. Lunchtime. She hadn’t been able to eat breakfast for excitement, but now she was more than peckish.

Jude, she thought, should have been here by now. Time was getting on. She’d been on the internet this week to have a look at some of the touristy things they might do. It was always wonderful to be able to walk through the streets, the parks, wherever, arm-in-arm and not be forever dreading that they might bump into someone that Jude knew.

The magazine she was flicking through was starting to lose its thrall. Should she text him? He always hated her doing that in case Georgia was by his side and, at the moment, there was every chance that they were driving down here together. Her stomach growled. Lauren didn’t want to start lunch without him. That would be rude. And if she went out for a walk, then the moment she left the room, Jude was bound to turn up. Didn’t it always happen like that? She drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa. Maybe she should have brought a book with her, but Lauren hadn’t imagined that there would be much time for reading this weekend.

Channel surfing the television produced no joy. In the end, she cracked and texted Jude. Where r u?

Then she paced the room. The view from the full-length Georgian windows was wonderful. It looked really warm out there. Perhaps they could take an open-top bus tour round the city this afternoon. What was left of it. That would be fun. Or they could try the new rooftop spa today in case the weather turned colder tomorrow. Lauren just couldn’t wait to get out and get at it.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Maybe she should send the message again in case it had got lost in the ether somewhere. Just as she was about to try again, her phone beeped. She snatched it up and scanned the message.

An hour, it said. Maybe more. J xx