I reached for my phone and signed up to Instagram again. I wanted to see the photos that Emma had posted of her home. Their home. I saw their kitchen; they’d had it remodeled last year and she’d posted before-and-after photos. The kitchen table stood near their patio windows and I guessed he’d be sitting there right now, looking out at their garden. He might well be tormented but I bet he was there all the same, eating toast from the toaster I could see on the counter, drinking coffee from the French press that was almost out of shot. I scrolled and scrolled through those pictures until I wanted to cry and then I came to my senses and deleted the app yet again. Just like last time, I vowed I wouldn’t use it again. This was like heroin to me. I had to stop.

After breakfast I couldn’t bear to be in my flat anymore. I didn’t feel safe there. Outside the sun was bright and full of promise for a long, hot day. I set off to walk along the river. It was pretty deserted down there at that time of the morning, with just the odd dog walker around, and I kept my head down and walked and walked for miles.

I should have known Harry would have tried to warn me he wasn’t turning up that night. I should have known he wouldn’t let me down like that. I forced myself to think about whether I still loved him. I knew I had. Then I remembered something he’d said, shortly before he left the café.

“Just because it didn’t last between us,” he’d said, holding my hand tightly. He and I both knew that this was the last time we’d touch each other. “Just because it didn’t last, it doesn’t mean it meant nothing to me. It meant everything, Ruby. For all those months you were the world to me.”

I rubbed my eyes, determined not to cry again. I’d doubted him for so long. All those nights I’d spent after I’d left home, it was Harry who’d been on my mind. When I met him a year and a half ago I’d felt as though a light had come on in me and, when he didn’t turn up that night, I thought it had died. Now I wasn’t sure.

But I didn’t want a man who could leave his pregnant wife. I knew that. We shouldn’t have had an affair, but I knew that I wouldn’t have gone near him if he’d had children. Envy shot through me. I wanted Emma’s life.