‘Christ, Con. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?’

She opened her eyes, letting out a long sigh. ‘Don’t know. Lots of reasons. It didn’t seem real …’

The hikers were scraping their chairs back, calling goodbye and thanks to Angie, drifting in clumps out of the main door, leaving a trail of cold air. Connie told Neil everything. As she did so, she saw incredulity burgeoning in his eyes.

‘Wow,’ he said softly, when she’d finished relating a potted version of the last few months. ‘I told Brooks Jed must be crazy.’

Connie felt, in the telling of her secret to Neil, that she’d been shamefully exposed, as if someone had suddenly stripped her naked in public. Her friend was staring at her across the small café table, but all she could do was shake, tears not far from spilling down her cheeks. She must have looked pale because Neil, without a word, got up and went over to the counter.

‘Can I have a glass of water, please, Angie?’

Angie glanced across to Connie. ‘Everything all right?’

Neil said, ‘Not really.’

‘Connie’s not ill, is she?’

‘No.’ He didn’t elucidate, and his expression must have warned her off asking more questions because she went quickly to get the water, which he set down in front of Connie. She grabbed it and drank the lot in a few gulps.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, after a silence.

She shrugged. Although she was beginning to realize there was only one option. ‘Tell Devan, I suppose.’

Neil sucked in his breath. ‘God … poor man.’

‘Don’t.’ She shook her head miserably. ‘I loathe the sight of Jared now – or Jed, as he likes to call himself. But when we first met, it was this crazy attraction, a really insane lust I couldn’t resist … or didn’t try to. I still know virtually nothing about him. He’d arrive unannounced, we’d have astonishing sex – at my age, Neil – then he’d leave till the next time.’ She paused. ‘All of which now just seems creepy and horrible.’ She gazed, bewildered, at her friend. ‘Has anything like that ever happened to you?’

Neil nodded. ‘Sort of. An older guy who came and went in my life for a while when I was in my teens. It wasn’t great sex, though, he was just using me. I think I was flattered because he was famous.’

‘Who was that?’

He waved dismissively in the air. ‘Another time.’ Reaching over to lay a comforting hand over hers, he said, ‘You know, it could very well be curtains for your marriage if you tell him, Con. I can’t see Devan taking too kindly to being cuckolded by the man he’s currently having a budding bromance with.’

It was true: Devan was obviously loving his new friendship with Jared.