‘Perfect,’ he interrupted before holding the bottle to his mouth again and draining it. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know but lighten up a bit.’

Lighten up a bit? There was nothing wrong with wanting everything to go well, was there? He was the one always keen to impress work colleagues. Molly turned away, hurt feelings forming a lump in her throat.

Luckily for the success of the party, Jack reached for her, pulling her back into a hug. ‘I’m sorry, Mol,’ he whispered, his lips buried in her hair. ‘It’s my night for apologies. I’ve a lot on my mind, it’s making me grumpy.’

Don’t take it out on me! The words were on the tip of her tongue and she’d have used them if the doorbell hadn’t chimed, silencing her. She pulled away from his embrace. ‘I suppose I’d better let them in.’

Forty people had been invited and almost everyone turned up. By eight-thirty, the room was buzzing with the sound of laughter and conversation. Molly moved from group to group with a wine bottle in her hand, topping up glasses, adding comments into conversations, introducing newer friends to older ones, work colleagues of hers to work colleagues of his.

‘Have something to eat,’ she urged everyone, waving towards where the hors d’oeuvres were laid out. ‘And don’t worry, we didn’t make them,’ she added to a chuckle of amusement from those friends who knew her well. She was, as she’d rush to admit, not a good cook.

Nods of appreciation came from those who did partake of the food, and Molly was pleased to see Jack doing his bit. He was standing chatting to Amelia, one of her oldest friends. He didn’t like many of her female friends, found them too domineering, too, as he always phrased it, in your face.

Too intelligent. That’s what she thought. Her friends were vocal, clever, bright women who took no prisoners. She never told him, because he’d have been horrified, but in the intelligence stakes, he lagged far behind most of them. It hadn’t been his brain she’d fallen for. She’d been swayed by the humour in his blue eyes, his cheeky grin and the way his dark-blond hair curled back from his forehead like a Roman emperor. From the first time they’d met she knew he was the one, and twenty-one years later although he frequently drove her crazy she loved him just as much.

She watched as Amelia threw her head back and laughed at something he was saying and smiled. The party was a success. Molly allowed herself to relax.