I was about to interrupt, to say that they couldn’t have gone away because I’d seen lights on in their house when I was parked there on Saturday night, watching, but stopped myself. She’d think I was a stalker. And then it registered: he must have set up the lights to come on automatically. His car wasn’t there. They’d gone off in that, together. I knew he hadn’t left home—obviously—but to think he was on holiday with her instead, while I was driving myself crazy on my own in the hotel, was like a punch in the gut.

“It must be great to be able to take off whenever you want, mustn’t it?” said Sarah.

My mind was racing. “Yes. That must be nice,” I said through gritted teeth, when it was clear a response was expected.

“It’s lovely. So romantic. It’s to celebrate his wife being pregnant.”

CHAPTER 10

Ruby

I don’t know how I got through the rest of the phone call. I knew I couldn’t call again to ask Sarah about Harry: Why would I? I doubted I would see much of her; we didn’t meet that often outside of work, though we’d been good friends in the office. And she and her husband were very hospitable, always having friends around for dinner and for parties, though Tom rarely wanted to go. How could she introduce me? Oh, this is my friend Ruby. She dumped her husband to be with a married man, who in turn dumped her! Now, who shall I sit her next to? I could just imagine the way they’d look at me. They’d think I was the enemy of civilized society. So this was my only chance to find out about Harry and Emma.

“I didn’t realize they were having a baby,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. I forced myself to add, “How lovely. He’ll be a great father.”

“He will.” I could almost hear her settling down for a good gossip. She’d kill me if she knew I was keeping such a huge secret from her. “There’s always been talk about children.”

“There has?” I managed to say. “I hadn’t heard anything.”

“It was probably before your time. You weren’t at the last Christmas party, were you? She was there and she wasn’t drinking. We all assumed she was pregnant, but didn’t hear anything more about it.”

I hadn’t gone to the party. We’d agreed we’d never manage to keep our affair secret if I had. I’d given my excuses, saying that we had a prior engagement. Harry told me after the holidays that he’d been bored and miserable without me that Christmas. He told me he’d rushed back to work.