‘I don’t like the neighbours. They’re too nosey, for one thing.’

She knew Rick didn’t like her hanging out with them. He hated the way they gossiped and he was paranoid she’d give something away about his business. He himself stayed well away from them, and on the few occasions he did end up having to talk to them, she’d cringe as she watched the conversation dry up in a matter of seconds.

‘Well, having them round might help to dispel some of their… suspicions about you.’

His eyes narrowed warily. ‘What suspicions?’

‘Like after the cat incident for example…’

Most of the neighbours didn’t know what Rick did for a living. As far as they were concerned, he was just a well-to-do businessman. But she knew that some of them suspected that he was a major-league crook, particularly the people who lived directly next door. Their cat had strayed into the grounds of Rick and Wendy’s mansion one evening and had promptly been chewed to pieces by the Mastiffs – Vito and Frankie – who he put out on guard patrol every night. The neighbours had complained bitterly, but their complaints had soon melted away after some of Rick’s associates paid them a visit.

She sighed. She might as well be banging her head against the wall, trying to get him to act like a normal person.

Sometimes she wondered if having children might change things for the better, might make him a little bit more human. But he’d never once expressed interest in going down that route and she’d never particularly been the maternal type, so it didn’t look like kids would materialise any time soon.

‘You know, Bailey came into my shop the other day,’ she said idly.

Rick looked up sharply. ‘Oh yeah?’

At last, something that piqued his interest.

‘Yeah. I gave her my card. She came in to have her hair done. She was going on a date.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’ She paused. ‘I like her.’

It was true. Wendy did like Bailey. Certainly, the two of them were very different people and Bailey wasn’t at all like the kind of women that Wendy normally socialised with. She’d thought Bailey slightly awkward and tomboyish, and Wendy had wondered if she might even be gay. After all, she hadn’t actually specified that it was a bloke she was going on a date with. But she seemed genuinely down-to-earth, and with those unfortunate scars, she didn’t seem to present much of a threat to Wendy in terms of Rick.

Not like this fucking Kaia. The bitterness surged up again inside Wendy like bile in her gullet.

She took another large gulp of her wine.

That was the problem with men like her husband. Their money and power were like an aphrodisiac. Should she really have been surprised that he had some young nubile replacement waiting in the wings?

She twiddled the huge diamond engagement ring on her finger. She remembered when he had proposed to her on the terraces at Amalfi. It had been the happiest day of her life. And now it had come down to this.