Fired up, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen, where Matt was standing looking in the fridge, his hair sticking up all over the place. He turned when he saw her, gave a sheepish grin. ‘Just going to make some supper. I completely lost track of time out there.’

‘Who was that woman?’ She hadn’t meant to go on the attack, but she couldn’t help herself.

He frowned, looked confused. ‘What woman?’

‘The one who was in your office just now. I heard her leave.’ Sara’s voice was getting louder, higher, her finger jabbing the air.

He laughed, looked back in the fridge. ‘I think you must have been dreaming, love. Nobody in the office except me.’ He pulled out a packet of ham and the tub of margarine, opened the bread bin and slapped a couple of slices of bread onto the worktop. He turned. ‘Shall I make you one as well?’ The kettle came to the boil. ‘Cuppa?’

His nonchalance whipped her anger away. She shook her head and made her way back to bed, thoroughly puzzled. Was I dreaming?

Chapter Fourteen

Sara woke the next day to the sound of Matt singing in the shower. She felt groggy and unsettled as she fumbled her way out of sleep. Working full-time was exhausting, and poor Matt had been doing it without a murmur of complaint for all these years. She hadn’t appreciated his efforts, she realised; had focused instead on her own niggles of discontent, always wanting a bit of what he had. Now she wasn’t sure why she’d felt like that. She wanted things to go back to how they were. Was that possible?

Be careful what you wish for. Who’d said that to her? It might have been Fiona. She had a saying for every occasion and liked her daily motivational posts, which popped up on her phone. Or maybe it was Hailey. She couldn’t remember, but it had struck her as an odd saying at the time. Now she understood. Thank goodness half-term was only two weeks away, at which point her full-time stint would have finished and she could take some time off. Then she’d take a step back and decide what she really wanted.

In her heart, she already knew. Family had to come first, and working full-time while Matt got his business going was part of keeping their home life stable. It was disruptive as well, though, because while she was out all day, the housework wasn’t being done, they kept running out of things, which meant a dash to the shops, the kitchen floor was… She stopped her mental list, knowing that she’d feel more despondent if she laid it all out.