Mike had been her undoing. ‘Come work for me and you’ll have enough money to go to Paris within the year,’ he had promised her. A year later and it was, ‘Keep the baby and let’s build new dreams together.’ And his last words to her, ‘Let me go, and I promise you’ll be happy again.’

Coming out of her reverie, Tara realised her friends were watching her. She blushed. ‘Not that I’m wishing Molly away,’ she said quickly. ‘But she has no idea of the sacrifices I made when I found out I was pregnant.’

‘I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to be a mother,’ April added. She tore off a piece of focaccia and picked at the warm dough. ‘Did I tell you Bree and Callum are trying for a baby?’

‘How nice for them to be able to pick up and carry on as if nothing happened,’ said Faith.

‘As far as Callum’s concerned, it didn’t,’ April replied. ‘If you were me, would you tell him?’

Unfazed by April’s hard stare, Faith said, ‘I can understand how someone in your position would want to know the extent of their partner’s betrayal, but if there are no suspicions, why inflict unnecessary pain on an innocent party?’

When April’s scowl persisted, Faith rolled her eyes. ‘I do know you’re talking about Nick here. And in his circumstances, no I don’t think it would serve any purpose to expose the affair. Erin isn’t going to be punished for her sins, is she? The family seems to have placed her on a pedestal, and they’re raising a lot of money in her name. I’d say keeping quiet is the charitable thing to do.’

‘You seem well informed,’ said Tara.

‘I know you must think I’ve lost the plot, but I haven’t gone into this with my eyes closed.’

‘But why go into it at all?’ asked April. ‘I thought you liked your independence.’

‘I’m allowed to change my mind,’ she said, ‘and Nick reminds me so much of Derek.’

‘In what way?’

Faith swallowed a forkful of lasagne before replying to Tara. ‘For one thing, they both look good in a suit.’

‘You like the successful businessman types,’ April surmised.

‘There are worse vices in the world,’ admitted Faith. ‘But I’d say what links them most is their persistence. Nick knew I wasn’t interested, but that made him all the more determined to win me over. Derek was the same. The less interest I showed, the more he pursued me. It took my darling husband almost two years before I was ready to give in.’

‘Then why did it take Nick less than two months?’ demanded Tara.

April put down her fork. ‘Wait. Was Derek still married when you met him? Is that why you rejected him at first?’

Faith shrugged.