For a man like Colin, very much an alpha male, it was so much better to suppress the pain and anguish. Rightly or wrongly, it was why Naomi forgave him his outbursts. She didn’t expect others to understand that. Or to understand that their secret – their dirty secret that he hit her – became a bond between them. He trusted her not to tell anyone, she even promised him that she wouldn’t, but only because it was easy to keep a promise that was cloaked in shame and humiliation, that she, an intelligent woman, ‘allowed’ her husband to hit her.

She still felt that shame now and doubted she would ever really lose it. She knew that Ellis had been shocked by what she had shared with him, and that he would never understand how a man like Colin could behave so badly and get away with it.

But who were she and Ellis to judge when, the night of Geraldine’s wedding, they had lain on the floor of that summerhouse and made love? She had been a married woman with her desire fuelled by the need to pay her husband back for his affair, and Ellis had been fully aware of that. So no, she would not judge Colin. The only person she had a right to judge was herself, and over the years she had done far too much of that. But not anymore. With Ellis, she was determined to live with a fresh clean slate.

A few weeks ago, he had taken her by surprise when he’d told her that not only had he renewed the rental agreement on Waterside Cottage for another couple of months but he had been in talks with the owners to buy it.

‘But why?’ she had asked, alarmed. ‘Is it so you can have somewhere to escape if things go wrong between us?’

‘I knew you’d think that,’ he’d said, ‘and it’s absolutely not the reason I’m doing it. Apart from anything else, a beach-front property is a good investment.’

After that awful visit to the solicitor in Chichester, Naomi knew the value of Ellis’s financial portfolio, just as he knew her worth, so she couldn’t really see that he needed yet another investment.

‘I’m thinking ahead,’ he’d explained. ‘It might be nice for Lucas to have somewhere to stay when he visits in the future. And also, Martha and Willow. Overspill accommodation, if you like.’

‘But there’s room here,’ she’d countered.

‘I’m told by friends,’ he’d said with a smile, ‘who already have grandchildren that the more space one can have, the better. Besides, I thought it would be a fun project for us to do the cottage up together.’ He’d then produced some roughly sketched plans that showed how he wanted to open up the ground floor and install bi-fold doors so the beach and garden became a part of the cottage.

‘You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?’ she’d said.

‘I have,’ he’d admitted. ‘I decided that I’d had enough of retirement, I need something to do. You have your garden, which I’m more than happy to help you with, but I suspect I might be trespassing on sacred ground in that respect.’