In truth, when Andrea first met Tony, he wouldn’t have been able to afford it himself. He’d been working as an accountant, doing well enough for himself but certainly not wealthy. But then earlier this year he’d sold his book. It had been a huge shock. He hadn’t even told anyone he’d been working on something.

His two younger brothers were already published authors. There was Pete, the middle brother, who earned a decent living writing an adventure series for middle-grade readers. And Darren, the youngest, had won the Esther Arlo Prize for an unpublished manuscript.

Andrea had been astonished to discover that both his brothers were published authors. Tony had shrugged it off though. Is it any different to families of actors or singers? he’d said, perhaps a little defensively. Later, she’d understood why he was defensive about it. He’d been secretly working on something himself and was nervous to admit he was following in his younger brothers’ footsteps. He was afraid he might not live up to their success.

But everything changed when Tony’s crime novel, Don’t Breathe, was put out to auction and there was a frenzied bidding war for the rights. It hadn’t even been released yet but he’d already made more money than his two brothers combined with the exorbitant advances he’d received from all over the world. They’d started looking at new apartments almost the second the first payments hit their bank account. The book was due out in February and the publicity campaign was ramping up. Meanwhile, Tony was already hard at work on the sequel.

It had been a big adjustment for Andrea to get used to an author husband as opposed to an accountant husband. Especially when they’d only been married such a short time before everything had changed. It was almost as though a personality shift had accompanied the professional switch. Not necessarily in a bad way . . . just different. She still wasn’t sure if she was entirely used to the new him. One of the things she’d always loved about Tony was his gentlemanly nature; he had an almost old-world charm, the way he would hold doors open or insist on walking on the road-side of the footpath. Some women might have found it sexist for this day and age, but Andrea had always thought it was sweet, if a little formal at times. And it was such a divergence from her previous relationships. Before Tony, she’d made some bad choices. She’d mistakenly believed she wasn’t worth better treatment. Tony had shown her that she was.