Rebecca nearly jumped out of her skin with shock. When her ex-husband – her ex-military husband – wanted to be, he was one scary man, and so she shouldn’t have been surprised by his actions. But she wasn’t in a good place herself. She wondered if he ever switched off. Was he still living in the past?

‘Don’t shout like that. You know how it scares me.’

‘Well, then, tell me. Where is he?’

Rebecca let out a jaded sigh, and her shoulders slumped in resignation.

‘Look . . . really . . . I honestly don’t know where any of them are. I came home, and they were gone. There are two suitcases partially packed upstairs, so I think they may have left me . . . ’ She peered at his cold expression. ‘He never really wanted to be with me anyway, you know.’

Lance watched a level of serenity wash over her face. She appeared resigned, almost helpless, and it showed in her eyes. She was a lost child. For a split second, he wanted to laugh. Rebecca Mullins, the MP – with the perfect life, her nose high in the air, who could give lessons on how to patronize people – now reduced to an ugly mess. Then he remembered how easily she could manipulate people, her ability to go from powerful and measured, to giving off this pretence that she was just a sweet girl. It had worked on him many a time. But that was in the past. He’d learned from his mistakes with her. She couldn’t bullshit him anymore.

‘So, let’s get this right. You came home, and they were gone. That’s how it was. Is that correct?’

Rebecca wasn’t listening; she was staring off at nothing, wishing her life had turned out differently. Why had she done it? Why had she fallen for Alastair and played away from home every time Lance was on tour? Well, it wouldn’t take a psychiatrist charging her two hundred and fifty pounds an hour to tell her the answer to that question! She’d been lonely – very lonely. She was hungry for affection and Lance was fucking three thousand, five hundred, and thirty-one miles away in Afghanistan. And it wasn’t as if her present husband wasn’t a good catch: Alastair was probably the biggest dish of them all. The tall, broad, handsome man with eyes that would have her knickers off in two seconds flat. He’d been what she needed – at the time.

‘Tell me this, Rebecca. Where does Alastair work?’

The impromptu question dragged Rebecca completely out of her thoughts. ‘Er . . . what?’

He smirked at that response. He knew it. She didn’t have a clue. He thought he would push her buttons a little more. ‘Do you even know what he does?’