She waited five minutes to make sure he’d gone, then opened the gate and hurried across the street, a taxi blaring its horn as it braked to avoid her. Her breath was coming in ragged gusts by the time she opened the front door. She slammed it shut, pulled all the post from the letter box cage, found a single folded sheet of paper and jammed it into the top of her open handbag.

She heard Jack’s key in the lock and hastily pinned a smile in place. Seconds. That’s all she’d had to spare. ‘Hi,’ she said, dropping her eyes to the post, hoping the slight tremble in her voice wasn’t obvious to him.

‘Hi yourself,’ he said, dropping his briefcase on the floor and his coat on the banisters. ‘You’re late home.’

‘Oh, someone was leaving and there was a bit of a do in the office after work. I felt obliged to pop in for a few minutes.’ Yet another lie falling glibly from her tongue.

He took her explanation without comment. ‘Mine?’ he asked, nodding at the letters.

‘Yes,’ she said, handing them over. ‘I was expecting an invoice from Freya’s university,’ she added. It might have been true; all the invoices for both Freya and Remi’s universities were addressed to her for convenience.

He frowned. ‘Didn’t you pay recently?’

‘It was for extras.’ She shrugged without elaborating.

Throwing his post, unopened, onto the hall table, he shook his head. ‘They’re going to cost us a fortune.’

It was impossible to miss the underlying worry in his words. Molly opened her mouth to ask him if everything was okay, giving him an opportunity to tell her what the problem was, but before she could get the words out he’d walked away and into the kitchen. Following him, she watched as he took a beer from the fridge, swigging from the bottle as if he couldn’t wait to get the alcohol into his system.

Her handbag was in her hand, looking down she could see the top of the sheet of paper. She was desperate to read it, and yet afraid to. What could the man possibly want with her?

‘Bad day?’ she asked, standing by the door.

‘Usual,’ Jack said shortly. ‘What’s for dinner?’

The wonderful Rebecca had always left something ready for them. All they had to do was pop it into the microwave or oven, following whatever instructions she left. We’ll eat out more often, Jack had said when she’d pointed this out to him, but during the week they were rarely in the mood to leave the house once they’d come in from work.

She’d planned to stock up with quick frozen ready meals but so far she’d not got around to buying them. ‘There’s pizza,’ she said, opening the freezer door.

‘Again?’ he muttered.