He stared at her for a moment, clearly thrown. ‘I just write code,’ he said at last. ‘What people do with that is nothing to do with me.’

He got up and walked into the kitchen. She heard the back door open, then close, leaving her with nothing but a chattering disquiet. Instead of the money she stole getting them out of trouble, it seemed his activities might land them in it. We could both end up in prison. She shuddered. The idea that her children would be on their own, facing the uncertainties that had marred her own childhood, made her squeeze her eyes shut and pinch the bridge of her nose to stop herself from descending into sobs of self-pity.

In doing what she’d thought was for the best, she now found herself in the worst possible situation. Caught in a marriage that made her feel helpless, with a man who was building their future on something that was probably criminal, indebted to another man who had an agenda she didn’t understand, while she herself was guilty of a crime that could separate her from her family if she was found out.

It can’t get any worse than this, she told herself.

But it did.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Later that evening, Sara was making herself a sandwich when Matt flung open the back door and charged into the kitchen, the door bouncing against the wall as he waved his phone in the air.

‘What the hell do you call this?’ His face was scrunched in an angry snarl, a vein popping out on his forehead.

She stopped buttering bread, clutched the knife a little more tightly in her hand as she tried to guess what he was talking about. Had someone spotted her and James together? Had she been seen having cosy chats over coffee, candlelit dinners with champagne, giggling her way back to her room, leaning on James for support? Her pulse sped up as the possibilities scrolled through her mind, every image incriminating if taken out of context.

He thrust his phone in front of her face, and it took a minute for her eyes to adjust and her brain to register what she was seeing. A video clip. One that made her recoil in disgust. A naked man and woman on a bed. The man stroking a hand up and down the woman’s leg before it started creeping higher, towards her breast.

She pushed the phone away. ‘What do I want to see that for?’ she snapped.

He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘It’s you.’ He pointed at the figure, slowly enunciating every word. ‘That is you.’

She frowned, confused. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Look at the tattoo on her thigh.’ His fingers snatched at the screen, making the image bigger.