She’d been familiarising herself with the online banking system when Matt had come in – checking through the various accounts – and had come across a deposit account that hadn’t been used for years. She’d checked back and found out it was contingency money from a building project completed ages ago. Nobody looked at the statements, not until the year-end accounts were prepared, a process that had been completed only last month. She stared at the figures, the sound of her blood whooshing in her ears as her heart raced.

Nobody will know.

And before she could think about what she was doing, she had transferred nine thousand pounds to her personal deposit account, her details already on the list of payees because she was on the payroll. Easy. Way too easy.

She stared at the screen, heart skipping, hands flying to her mouth and she almost made the decision to reverse the transaction, appalled that she’d done it in the first place. Stealing wasn’t the answer. It’s just borrowing, she told herself, her mind full of Matt’s words, the depth of his hurt. Her hand was shaking, her finger on the mouse undecided. Reverse the transaction or live with her decision? There was a choice to be made.

She logged off the banking site.

I’ve got to choose Matt, got to choose keeping the family together.

Chapter Ten

Sara had been living on her nerves for the last two weeks, ever since she’d transferred the money. She’d lost weight, wasn’t sleeping, had nightmares that she’d be found out and dragged off to jail, leaving her children motherless. Every morning she woke up with the intention of confessing her sins to Matt and seeing if they could work out a solution together. But every day, something happened to stop that conversation. It was never the right moment: there were children to deal with, she had to get to work, Matt was off out to meetings or locked in his office where she wasn’t allowed to interrupt. Life, it seemed, was unwilling to give her the opportunity to address her mistake.

But her biggest barrier to confession was the change in her husband. He was happier than she’d seen him in recent years, whistling, laughing, playing with Ezra, helping the girls with their homework, being affectionate towards her. Family life was a hundred times better than it had been before, and telling Matt the truth would ruin everything. Not just for him, but for the kids. They were loving having him at home, and so was she. He’d even agreed to pick up Ezra from nursery and look after him in the afternoons, on condition he had some time in the evenings to work. On the surface, it looked like everyone had got exactly what they wanted.