I lay for nearly an hour in that bath and felt just as bad when I got out as I had when I got in. Harry had broken his promises to me by sleeping with Ruby. I’d felt released from my own promises to him, then, but still my head thumped at the knowledge I’d broken my own moral code by sleeping with another woman’s husband. Each time I remembered Tom kissing me, touching me, I recalled the look on Harry’s face as he kissed Ruby.

In bed I clutched my phone, wanting to talk to Harry, to ask him how we got to this place. I started to type a message: I wish we could go back to the way we were but I thought of him reading it with Ruby by his side and I just couldn’t do it. Tears blurred my vision and I deleted the message and switched the phone off.

By the time I fell asleep it was nearly seven and sunlight flooded the room. I slept until noon, then woke, my mouth dry and my head aching. There was a message from Harry on my phone, apologizing for not picking up my call the evening before. He said he’d been just about to board and couldn’t talk. I switched off my phone. My eyes focused on our wedding photo on the bedside table. Harry stood behind me, his arms around my waist. I leaned back against him, my eyes glazed with happiness and desire.

I could hardly recognize us now.

CHAPTER 27

Eighteen months earlier

Ruby

I could hardly wait to go back to work after New Year’s, after meeting Harry the week before. Tom was waiting for me when I came home on Friday night. He was still on his Christmas break. He had a glass of wine in his hand and I could tell from his flushed face that he’d started early that day. It was a bitterly cold day and I ran from my car up to the house, slipping on the icy patches on the driveway.

“Hi,” he said, as though he hadn’t been ignoring me for several days. “How’s work?”

“Fine.” I stamped my boots on the doormat, then sat on the stairs to take them off.

“Where are you working now?” he asked, as friendly as you like.

“Sheridan’s,” I said. “On the industrial estate. They sell healthy snacks and send them out by post.”

Within five seconds Tom was on his phone, looking them up. “Who’re you working for?”

“Harry Sheridan. The MD. I’m working with a woman called Sarah. We both work for him.” There was always safety in a female companion. I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t met Sarah yet because she was on holiday that week, or that Harry and I had spent most of the last two days chatting rather than working.

“What’s he like?”