After a few hours’ shopping for new clothes, a trip to the hairdressers for a revamp of my usual look, which takes me away from the long tousled do I’ve sported for so long now into a sleek, slightly darker shoulder-length style with a blunt fringe (all booked and paid for by Jack), new Chanel perfume and some make-up treats from Sophie, I’m feeling spoiled and special in a way I haven’t done in a long time. So much of my energy over the last year and more has been consumed by fear and hope about Matthew’s recovery, but now, I decide, it’s time for me to really step up on my own self-care.

In the original plan, now that Matthew is on the up, it would be the perfect time to go and find Tom to see if we can start again where we left off. However, twelve months later, he has his new ‘actress girlfriend Joanie’ and I have Jack. I can’t keep thinking ‘what if’ any more. This is where life is taking me, and so this is where I’ll keep going.

Jack Malone loves me and he isn’t afraid to show it, not only in materialistic ways like he did today, but also by being there for me and cheering me on in so many ways in my teaching career when self-doubt creeps in. When I get home that evening, he has more surprises in store for me than I could ever have imagined.

‘Hang on a minute! You’re taking me where?’ I say to him, my lip trembling with raw emotion. ‘I don’t understand! When? How did you know?’

Jack pops open a bottle of champagne, expertly fills two flute glasses and hands me one, then kisses me on the cheek.

‘Happy birthday, beautiful,’ he says to me. ‘Let’s just say a little birdie told me this afternoon how it was on your wish list, so I booked it while you were off getting your hair done. We go at Easter when you’re off school so you don’t have to worry about taking time off. Is that OK? We’re going to Paris, Charlotte!’

A shiver runs through me from the tops of my shoulders to the tips of my fingers and I start to cry, totally overwhelmed that he would do something like this for me.

‘I can’t believe this! Oh Jack, I love you,’ I say to him, meaning every single bit of what I’ve just told him. ‘How on earth did I ever find you?’

He smiles at me and pulls me close to him, kissing me firmly on the lips, then lifts me up onto the kitchen table and shows me just how much he loves me too.

Chapter Nine

Easter Monday, Paris, April 2017