He spoke easily, seemed to be telling the truth.

‘Bit of a coincidence,’ she commented, as he held the pub door open for her.

‘I prefer to think of it as synergy,’ Jared said.

Connie walked out into the deserted pub car park. Turning to him one last time as she approached her car, she said, her tone cold and uncompromising, ‘Just go away, Jared, get on with your life.’ She looked him directly in the eye. ‘Or it’ll destroy us both.’

‘Let’s ask someone else with Jed,’ Connie said to Devan, when she got back with the groceries. She was still hoping, vainly, Jared might do as she’d asked and cry off. But she knew that was unlikely. At least if there were other people as a buffer, his opportunities for mischief would be reduced. Her husband was sitting exactly where she’d left him, with the addition of a glass of red wine on the table beside him. He looked up and frowned.

‘We could. But I thought it might be nice, just the three of us. You could get to know him better. He’s a lot of fun.’

‘We owe the Birtwhistles.’

Devan groaned. ‘Please, no. They only ever talk about house prices and their super-clever Oxbridge grandchildren.’

She laughed. ‘We’ve got to have them some time.’

‘Yeah, but not tomorrow. Let’s just have a cosy evening with Jed.’

Connie looked on in disbelief as she watched Devan and Jared, sitting at the kitchen table, begin to tuck into the pasta that her husband had cooked. How did this even happen? She was unable to raise a forkful to her own mouth. She knew she must, and praise Devan’s cooking into the bargain. But she felt as dumb and inanimate as the fork in her hand.

‘Connie travels,’ Devan was saying. ‘She’s a tour manager for a train company. Goes all over Europe, don’t you?’

She stared blankly at her husband. ‘Umm, yes.’ She couldn’t look at Jared.

But she heard him say politely, ‘That’s a difficult job, I imagine. All those people to herd on and off trains.’

‘I love it,’ she said dully.

‘Tell Jed where you’ve been,’ Devan urged, giving her a puzzled look. Connie was usually the best of the two at providing lively conversation at their suppers.

Forced to respond, she finally met Jared’s eye with a half-smile. ‘Oh, you know. The usual – Italy, Germany, France.’

For a second his gaze seemed fixed on her, his eyes so glazed and intimate she was sure Devan would notice. She frowned and he snapped out of it.

‘Have you been to the Italian lakes?’