I head towards the kitchen as the children skid to the lounge. They’re possibly already on a sugar high, I realise guiltily. I was a bit distracted in the park, not quite as ‘brilliant in goal’ as Holly claimed I was. My mind was on the photo I’d found on Jason’s phone, his exchange of messages with Mark. Jason and Mark go back years, right back to their errant youth. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that they swap boyish messages. I’m more surprised that Jason would comment chauvinistically about a woman’s appearance. But then, women do that sort of thing all the time. The gossip about six-packs and who’s met who online is rife in the administrative assistants’ office at work. As I’m the office manager as well as personal assistant to the chief executive – to whom they imagine I might report back – there’s usually a lull in the conversation whenever I go in, but not for long. I’m as up for the juicy details as the rest of them. That Jason hadn’t immediately deleted the photograph though, and that he’d scored the undeniably beautiful woman, bothers me. If he’d replied ‘not my type’ or even ‘nice’, I might not feel so uneasy, but to have been so impressed, to have actually asked Mark if she had a sister…

I know it’s just a turn of phrase, but I can’t help thinking that Jason might be tempted elsewhere. That – with the problems between us and the many arguments lately – our marriage might be floundering along with his business. Might Jason be growing tired of the responsibility of having a family? We were so young when we married, after all. Is he fed up of being tied to one woman? A woman who’s constantly nagging him and apparently not overjoyed at the prospect of having sex with him?

Icy trepidation prickles my skin, despite my repeated attempts to reassure myself. I so wish I hadn’t looked at his messages. With things so unsettled between us, my suspicion seems to have gone into overdrive.