‘Come on, I will show you to my finest suite, it’s in the west wing. I changed the sheets just yesterday.’

I let myself be escorted but protested. ‘Patrick, I couldn’t. The couch is fine.’

‘Me and that couch have spent many a cosy night together. Besides I could sleep in the kitchen sink tonight and I wouldn’t know the difference, whereas you and that baby need a proper bed.’ Patrick opened the door to his bedroom. There was a musky smell of deodorant that had been sprayed many hours previously, but besides that there was a perfectly comfortable-looking double bed. On the bedside table was another framed picture of Patrick and Eve.

‘Do you think Eve will mind?’ I said as I edged my way into the room, already looking longingly at the bed.

‘She wouldn’t have it any other way. Now in you get. You need a straight head on you if you’re going to try and do any business tomorrow.’

‘I miss her,’ I said as I felt my face crumble.

‘I know. I know.’ Patrick put his arm around me. ‘It’s so damn hard without her.’

I wiped my eyes and blew out a breath.

‘You know sometimes, Daisy,’ Patrick spoke soberly, ‘I think I loved her too much. I mean if that’s possible. I know she loved me and you said how she felt about me but I loved her furiously, with so much passion, sometimes I had to conceal it because I feared I may damage her.’

Patrick kissed me on the head, then turned and walked back to the lounge, leaving me with his parting words lingering in the air.

24

ANNIE

I missed Ben terribly. When he left me for her the first time, I was angry, then I felt there was hope. But this time I felt even more betrayed. If time away was what he needed then he could have it. Getting married so soon and then months away from becoming a father was all too much for him. It was a stupid mistake and he needed to realise that. I knew I had suppressed his innate abilities as a child by not letting him play with friends or have the kind of upbringing that you read about in an Enid Blyton novel: biking off at dawn with a ham sandwich and a bottle of ginger beer and returning when it was just getting dark. No, I kept him close by, watched his every move and made sure he was never in the way of trouble or danger. I had to. I had no choice. But somehow, he still felt he needed to prove himself that he was capable without me.

Daisy thought she had shown him that in their short time together, but Daisy was a fool. She thought she could bring out his independence, make him feel he was capable. Then what did she do? She threw it all back in his face. I didn’t hear exactly what she said to him that day before he left, but I got the gist of it. She pushed him away with her accusations. But he had already seen what she had done, I showed it to him in black and white. He was a sensitive soul. He can’t handle that kind of stress in his life. No, he needed to be somewhere where she couldn’t get to him and busy his brain with all her white noise and anxiety. My boy needed time alone and to be as far away from that wife of his as possible.