‘So, am I right in thinking that we’ll be spending this evening together?’ he began easily.

I smiled. ‘If you’d like to …’ I locked eyes with him. ‘Would you like to?’

Marcus pulled a wry face. ‘’Course I’d bloody well like to! Shall I book the usual place?’

‘Sounds good. I’ll just powder my nose and then we can go.’

‘The usual’ was a rather cheap and soulless hotel on the south side of the river. Marcus drove us there in his sleek Aston Martin, which he was able to drive in and park underneath the building. Unlike Peter, Marcus had always been paranoid about being caught playing away, so he made sure to go somewhere we were unlikely to run into anyone he knew.

We made our way up to the room and spent the evening having perfectly pleasant but not exactly earth-shattering sex. I felt self-conscious of my bump at first but Marcus didn’t even seem to notice and it certainly didn’t affect his performance. Finally, at around midnight, I decided that Matt and Freya should have gone by now and asked Marcus if he would drive me home.

He was pulling on his trousers and looked at me in horror. ‘Drive you home? Don’t you think your husband might have a few questions about that?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve already come up with a watertight cover story. You’ll be fine, I promise.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, as long as you’re sure …’

After he dropped me off, I hastily squeezed in some eye-drops and rubbed hard at my eyes, causing my eye make-up to smear beneath my fingers. Then I unlocked the door to the flat and walked in.

I listened out for the sound of any movement but couldn’t hear anything. I decided he must have gone to bed, so I dropped my bag in the hallway and walked through to the bedroom. I peered into the gloom but to my surprise, the bed was empty. I frowned, wondering if he might have actually gone out looking for me. It was just the sort of thing Ben might do if he was worried.

I walked around to my side of the bed and sat down, exhausted after all the exertions of the day. Suddenly, I heard footsteps and Ben marched into the room, making me jump in fright. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ he hissed, sounding furious. I had my story all planned out but I hadn’t reckoned on him being so angry. I had thought he would just be worried sick and would be so glad that I was OK, he would just make a huge fuss of me.

I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart and shook my head.

‘Well?’ he shouted. ‘Answer me! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?’

I turned towards him and watched with satisfaction as he visibly recoiled. My trick with the eye-drops had clearly worked wonders. ‘I’ve been at the hospital,’ I whispered, summoning up genuine tears as I threw myself into my story. ‘I thought I was losing the baby.’ I put my head in my hands and was pleased to see that my face was wet.