My mind returns to the night of the housewarming party. Was there a familiarity between the two of them, an intimacy with each other, that somehow I missed? I think of when the doorbell rang and he went off to answer it, force myself to replay what I actually saw. He kissed her in greeting, I’m sure of it—but then, he’d kissed all his female colleagues as they arrived. A little peck on the cheek. Nothing strange in that. He’d helped her off with her coat. Perhaps they were standing a little too close together. Did his hand linger on her shoulder, or am I just imagining that because I’m trying to make the pieces fit?

I put the book of paintings back where I found it. Why am I doing this to myself? The worst thing I can do is speculate like this. Chances are I’ve got it completely wrong. Ross has never given me cause to be jealous. Just because Catherine is an attractive woman, it doesn’t mean he fancies her. It’s me he loves. Me he’s going to marry. Not that he’s mentioned that lately. Not once. In fact, the last time I brought it up, he changed the subject pretty much straightaway. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. After all, we’ve got enough to worry about right now with a baby on the way, but still, we could at least be thinking about it. We could at least be making plans.

I should get out of here and go downstairs, stop torturing myself with all this crap, but something is gnawing away at the back of my mind and I find myself walking over to the chest of drawers instead, slowly opening the one at the top. I know it’s an invasion of her privacy, but it’s like an itch I have to scratch. A compulsion to find out more about this woman I’ve invited into my home. Invited into my life. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Some kind of evidence that she and Ross are having an affair?

What if she isn’t sorry about the past at all? My eyes drift back to the discarded bed shorts and camisole top. Has this been her plan all along, to steal Ross from under my nose as some kind of twisted revenge?

I take a couple of deep breaths to steady my nerves, but whatever I’m hoping to find, or rather, hoping I don’t find, it isn’t here. All I can see is underwear and T-shirts, balled-up socks and pairs of tights. I’m wasting my time. Letting my jealousy rear its ugly head again, just because there was a bit of tension between the two of them this morning, which, knowing me, I probably imagined in the first place.