In the hush of the close, faintly scented air of the waiting room, I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for the Accidental Dater, who was still busily blogging against us.

‘Mr Angry Man – met through: Angel Eyes,’ I read on my phone.

It is over before it really begins with Mr Angry Man. Because he is quite obviously disappointed in what he sees when he looks at me for the first time. He has been drinking for a while when I arrive at the restaurant. I have a couple of glasses at the table to settle my nerves but he is clearly pissed off with me for being so disappointingly ordinary so I tell him thanks so much for meeting but I am texting a friend to pick me up now. He simmers silently at the table until my friend arrives and that’s when he really loses it. As my friend and I leave the restaurant, he follows us into the street. First he calls us dykes. And then we are whores. He tells me it’s not over between us until he says it is over and bangs once, very hard, on the windscreen of my friend’s VW Beetle until we fear for our lives. And only then does he go away. For this is what you have to understand – it’s not about sex with Mr Angry Man. It’s about control. It’s about humiliation. Revenge. Power. That’s what it’s all about with Mr Angry Man.

It all had the horrible ring of truth, I thought. The Accidental Dater was no jealous business rival trying to harm my company. She was a woman who had been misused by the men that we had matched her with, and my heart sank because I knew that this one blogger with a grudge had it within her power to end everything for me, all the hard work and the grand dreams and the million setbacks and anxieties and occasional triumphs that come with building your own business in a world that owes you nothing. And who would support my family then?

The Accidental Dater could quite easily wreck my life. Assuming, that is, that I had not wrecked it already, all by myself.

‘Mrs Carver?’ the receptionist said. ‘The doctor will see you now.’

CHRISTIAN

I showed James Caine into our home.

His daughter – Amy, he told me, because she didn’t say a word when I introduced myself – trailed behind us, a gawky overgrown child with apparently no interest in the world beyond the screen she clutched, totally immune to the charms of Buddy as he tagged along with a big grin, Lab-happy to have a young stranger come to visit.

‘Are you guys local?’ I said.

‘No, we’re down in Brighton,’ Caine said, his eyes drifting to the framed magazine cover of Tara in our hallway. I moved towards the stairs but he remained where he was, gazing up at the picture.

‘My wife,’ I said proudly.

He nodded, not taking his eyes off her. She did look great in that photograph. But he stared at Tara smiling in her short black dress until I had to clear my throat to snap him out of it.