And then another fear hit me. Maybe he’d had a heart attack. He was forty-one. Surely that wasn’t a dangerous age? Had the stress been too much? But he seemed healthy enough, an advertisement for his own products, and he hadn’t seemed stressed when I left work the evening before. He was nervous, of course, but he was happy. Vibrant. He was about to have a final meeting with Jane, Emma’s sister, who was working for Sheridan’s as their chief accountant. Jane was leaving work that weekend to go back to university to study for an MBA. We’d based the date we’d leave home on her departure date as neither of us wanted to work with her once she knew Harry was leaving her sister for me.

I bumped into her by the lifts as I was about to head off home.

“Sorry I’m so late to see Harry,” she’d said. “I’ve been rushing around all day. I need to hand over all my work. Is he in his office?”

“He’s still in a meeting with Rick Brown. He shouldn’t be long.”

I felt so awkward as I took her to my office and made her some coffee. She told me about her new course and her hopes for job opportunities afterward, and I felt like the worst kind of woman, chatting to her when her brother-in-law was planning to leave her sister to be with me.

“You go off, Ruby,” she said after a few minutes. “Sorry to have kept you.” She took her coffee into Harry’s office. “I’ll wait here for him.” She pulled her phone out of her bag and I could see that I was dismissed. “I’ve got some calls to make before I go.”

•   •   •

I stayed in the hotel room all day, calling for room service, waiting for Harry to show up. I was still expecting him to come flying through the door, apologizing like crazy, kissing me and hugging me and wanting reassurance that I hadn’t changed my mind. The room was reasonably big, but I felt confined. I hated sitting still all the time and found myself pacing, walking around the two armchairs and coffee table, around the desk and leather chair, just walking and walking around the room, counting each step I took to try to stop myself obsessing about where on earth he was.