Hanna was pressing her lips together, her body held in the contracted state before a sneeze, or a sob.

‘And when I look back now, I think I knew you were in love with her too. I think I did know it,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I just . . . refused to see it. I didn’t want to see it. I mean, my wife and my best friend.’ He made a crazy face. ‘Who the hell wants to see that, right?’

Max didn’t reply but he had stopped eating now, his cutlery returned to the plate, his arms splayed on the carver chairs as he sat back, listening. Waiting.

Bell couldn’t take her eyes off him. Max had been in love with Hanna for all those years, before Emil’s accident? He’d been their best man?

‘So maybe I can’t blame you for swooping in while I lay there, not dead but certainly not alive for seven years. Maybe I’d even have done the same. All’s fair in love, right, especially when the other guy’s . . . you know . . . a vegetable.’

Hanna gasped. Bell winced at the savage language.

‘But again – upsides!’ He smacked the table with his palm, an almost jocular gesture were it not for the fact that the look in his eyes in no way matched the words coming from his mouth. ‘You took care of my family and that’s a good thing. I mean, I know they were more than adequately provided for financially, thanks to Nina’s efforts setting up the trust.’ He gave a silent clap to Nina and she nodded her acknowledgement warily. His anger threaded every word and she looked as worried as the rest of them now. ‘I know you set up home together in a house that my family paid for, but you were a father to my son. You kept my wife warm at night. I should be thankful for that. You . . . minimized their suffering.’

‘Emil –’ Hanna faltered, but he silenced her with a look. Of course, there was no real gratitude in his eyes, but there was something else missing too. No . . .

No . . .?

Bell gave a shiver of trepidation at his steeled manner. Everything felt ‘off’, somehow. There was a chilling calculation to all of this that was far removed from the passion, the desperation he had shown upstairs. He wanted his family back, she understood that, but did that mean destroying Max first? Humiliating him? And why wasn’t Max fighting back and defending himself? If everything Emil said was true, there were also mitigating circumstances. Max wasn’t a monster.

The wind gave a low moan, like a dog turning over, just as Emil gave a sigh. ‘But of course, the thorn in everyone’s sides is that I somehow, against the odds – against the gods! – inconveniently recovered. And so now I’m back, and everything’s got to change again.’ The silence yawned as the statement hung in the air like smoke after the bullet’s left the gun, both men staring at one another. ‘Because you know, Max, of course you know, that Hanna’s mine again. You knew it when she heard I’d been hurt again and she ran out in that storm.’