But she couldn’t imagine him there. No more than she could picture herself at his friends’ fortieth birthdays. The only place it made sense was when it was just the two of them, together. She lived for these stolen hours, when she could let everything go and feel him inside her.

From where she was lying, she could see Ross’s shoes on the ground – a pair of Dubarry’s, the dark indent of his foot visible inside. She had the strange desire to press her own foot into the shoe, feel how neat and small it felt in the groove his foot had made.

‘I wish we could stay here for ever,’ she murmured, and felt the hum of his response communicating through her back.

‘Maybe we could get Beth to sell it to us, hmm? Can you picture it?’ she asked. ‘You and me, living together here? Sleeping in the same bed every night. Waking up together. Wouldn’t it be amazing?’

He held her close but didn’t answer. She pressed on.

‘We’d do it up, of course. Put our own stamp on it. And every morning, we could get up early and go to the gym together. Or if the weather was good, we could go jogging, picking up coffees and pastries afterwards which we’d eat stretched out on the grass by the canal. And then we’d come back home,’ she said dreamily, ‘and shower—’

‘Together?’

‘Why not? And in the evenings, we could meet for a drink or go for something to eat, and then come back here and make love all night long.’

She turned over, stretching her body against his.

‘That’s a nice fantasy,’ he said, but she could feel him turned on by her account.

‘We wouldn’t have to sneak around in your car any more,’ she continued as he began tracing her breastbone with kisses. ‘We could be together all the time, no one between us.’

‘Mm-hmm.’ His tongue circled her nipple, his hand reaching between her thighs.

‘And at the weekends, Jo could come over. We’d have the spare bedroom made up just for him. Little decal stickers on the walls of fire engines and trucks. He loves those, doesn’t he?’

Ross had stopped kissing her, his hand moved away. For a moment, he lay propped up on one elbow beneath the covers, a stillness coming over him.

‘What?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’

He said in a quiet voice: ‘I don’t want you to talk about him.’

‘Why not?’

He was looking down, but his eyes weren’t seeing her body; rather they were focused on some inward point that she couldn’t access.