‘Because I’ve been thinking about you. A lot.’

Alan looked up at her in alarm.

She started walking slowly towards him, unbuttoning the top of her dress.

‘Angie…’ he began, holding up a hand to stop her. But already she could see he was conflicted. He wanted her. He was thinking about her in that bikini on holiday. Perhaps he thought about her at night too, when he was lying in bed. She’d always had power over men. Well, all men apart from Jack. She shook the thought of her husband from her mind.

‘I want you. And I think you want me.’

‘Angie, please,’ he said. He was almost begging her.

She finished unbuttoning her dress. Underneath it she had put on the bikini she’d worn on holiday as a final touch. She looked at him and he looked at her, and she knew she’d won.

Over the next three months they met up a few more times. She would text him and he would come. Afterwards it was always the same; they knew it was wrong but they both knew they’d be back for more. And then a couple of weeks before Christmas, Alan finally ended it for good.

‘This has to stop, Angie,’ he said, as he buttoned up his shirt. ‘I’m serious. I’m done.’

She considered trying to persuade him otherwise but she knew he was right. It had already gone too far, way too far. The worst of it, she realised afterwards, was that she didn’t even care. Alan was not the answer to all of her problems. If anything, he’d made them so much worse.

She nodded. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation before.’

‘Look, no one knows about it. Perhaps no one needs to. Why don’t we just put it behind us and move on. Too much is at stake otherwise.’

She could see the relief on his face and knew that she had given him the get-out clause he’d been desperately hoping for. Men were all the same, even the nice ones.

‘I think that’s a good idea,’ he said.

‘Okay, so we’re agreed.’ She stood up and started getting dressed too. They turned away from each other, both conscious of their naked bodies now they had agreed to stop.

As he pulled his jumper on, he said, ‘I want you to know, I’ve never done anything like this before in my life.’

‘I know.’

‘I love Sophie.’

‘I know that too.’

He nodded. When he was finished dressing, they went back down to the kitchen. He opened the back door to leave, and then turned to look at her sadly.

‘Bye, Angie.’

‘Bye, Alan.’

She watched him disappear through the gate into his own back garden. And it was then that the crushing realisation of what she’d done finally hit her. She’d been living in a fantasy. Alan was not her knight in shining armour. They were not going to run off into the sunset together. He was the husband of her neighbour, her friend, and she had done a terrible thing.