She tried to act normally. On the other side of the fence, she suspected that Alan was doing much the same. There was too much for them to lose to blow their cover, she knew it and he knew it. As time went on it became easier. Months went by, life went on. No one suspected a thing and she even began to convince herself that it never really happened at all.

But then that damn summer holiday had thrown everything up in the air again.

She had sensed Alan’s eyes on her all week. She had splashed out on some sexy bikinis and as she paraded around the villa or climbed out of the pool, she knew she looked good. She enjoyed knowing that he was admiring her but she didn’t feel guilty. She liked it when any man admired her and she wasn’t sorry for it. All women liked to know they were attractive. It was just a bit of harmless fun, she told herself, it didn’t mean anything at all. And anyway, Sophie and Jack were so busy having a laugh together that they barely even noticed.

So when Indie took it upon herself to inform her that she was a terrible mother and that her husband preferred the company of other women, bringing her fears and anxieties flooding back again, who could she possibly turn to but her knight in shining armour? The man who had never been anything but kind to her. The man who she knew was attracted to her.

She started thinking about him more and more. She remembered how he had made her feel last time. It had faded as soon as it was over but for a few moments it had been bliss, like a long dead spark inside her had been reignited. She had felt alive and invigorated again for the first time in so long. She knew it wasn’t real, it was a temporary high just like a hit from drugs, but she wanted to feel it again. She needed to feel it. She tried not to think about Sophie.

By the time she got home from holiday, her yearning to see him was so strong that all she could think of was how to engineer a meeting between them. In the end it was easy. Jack was out working on a new TV series and Sophie had rediscovered swimming and, creature of habit that she was, went to the leisure centre at the same time every day. She knew that Alan was working on a house renovation up the road in Barnet. So when she sent him a text asking him to come round as a matter of urgency, he was at her door in twenty minutes.

‘Everything okay, Ange?’ he asked, as she let him in.

‘Yes, it’s fine. Coffee?’

He looked confused. ‘You said it was an emergency?’

‘It is an emergency. I need to talk to you.’

‘What about?’

‘What happened between us.’

Alan sat down on one of the kitchen chairs with a heavy sigh. ‘I thought we’d agreed to pretend that it never happened. It was months ago. Why are you bringing it up now?’