‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with that. You’re a stunner, even for a woman your age. Especially for a woman your age. Maybe you’ve got bad breath? Paula’s always telling me that I have.’

‘That’s not particularly helpful,’ she said grumpily.

‘Come here, I’ll check. I’m your friend. I’m allowed to tell you these things.’

She started to laugh as Ralph hauled himself out of his chair and lumbered towards her, steadying himself on the edge of his desk on the way.

‘No! Go away!’

He crouched down with difficulty and gently took her chin in his hand, laughing too. ‘Breathe!’ he commanded.

‘Stop it!’ She wriggled away, feeling that moment of euphoric drunkenness where life seems suspended in happiness, like an insect in amber.

Ralph always cheered her up. When the three of them got together on the wine, horseplay and a lot of giggling weren’t unusual. Ralph and Paula’s son, Jackson, now twenty, had witnessed this a couple of times, much to his disgust and opprobrium. This, however, was the first time it had happened without Paula there to be the third corner of the triangle.

Ralph was still squatting at her feet. She had always thought what nice eyes he had – kind, green, and surprisingly clear for a man of his age and prodigious alcohol intake. And despite the undertone of JD, he smelled amazing.

He stopped chuckling and put his palm heavily on her knee as if to haul himself back up. Then he paused. ‘For what it’s worth, Meredith, I think you’re gorgeous. Honestly. I always have.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling. It was the tender affection in Ralph’s voice that made her lean slowly towards him and rest her cheek on the side of his striped shirt. His shoulder felt reassuringly meaty and warm, and she felt his arms encircle her, his chin digging gently into her neck. At that moment he felt like a dad, and her instant response wasn’t remotely sexual.

‘You smell fantastic,’ she muttered, just stating a fact, but he must have construed it in a different way because he pulled away and kissed her on the lips, so lightly at first that she saw it only as a gesture of affection. She responded…

… And that was the point of no return.

There was always a point of no return.