All right, the leak had troubled him. But nevertheless everything was pretty rosy. Here he was, Charlie Stone, backstreet boy, and now he owned a superyacht just like Javier’s. The manor was expanding, day by day. Soon, it would cover the entire world. And he would be its king. So who the hell was ever going to dare to tell him no?

44

Within days, Nula was out of hospital and resting up in bed. She wasn’t breastfeeding the baby – Christ, she’d gone to enough trouble to get a good set on her, without causing even more problems in that department. So after expressing some milk for him for the first couple of weeks, the kid went on the bottle and Nula set about getting rid of the baby weight.

Young Milly adored the new baby, constantly cooing over him and bringing Belle up from the gatehouse to admire him.

‘He’s so tiny and sweet,’ said Belle, chucking the baby under his chubby chin.

The girls took turns holding and feeding and even changing Jake, then they were pushing him around the grounds in his pram. Harlan kept his distance. The same au pair who’d looked after Harlan now had the newborn to cope with too. She complained and kept taking time off. Finally Nula sacked her.

‘Where’s Janine?’ Harlan kept asking. He’d liked Janine – Nula thought he’d liked the au pair a lot more than he liked her, in fact.

‘Never mind her,’ said Nula. ‘We got a new one coming, a better one. Chrissy from the village. She’s a nice girl, you’ll like her.’

Chrissy, it turned out, was a peach. She settled Harlan down, read books with Milly, and she made sure that Nula was never troubled with nappy changes or night feeds. Everything, suddenly, was running smoothly.

‘To think we put up with that other one for so long,’ said Nula, getting back into the gym for stomach crunches and methodically watching her diet. Within months of the baby’s birth, her figure was back to normal and she could once again bear to look at herself in the mirror.

‘That was the last one,’ she told herself firmly, and she went on the pill to be absolutely sure. She went back on her other pills too, because she was still dogged by awful black moods. But she tried to cheer herself. Kept up her journal, which ought to help. It didn’t, but it was sort of satisfying, writing down all her gripes, all her anguish over her growing hatred of her husband.

Now there was the christening to get through. She wanted to look A1 again for that and she was right on target for it.

‘By the way,’ said Charlie. ‘Did I tell you? I bought a yacht. Thought it’d be nice for the holidays. Take us all off down to the Med. The kids and me and you.’