Looking up as Kate entered the workshop, he flicked his sunstreaked blond hair out of his eyes and flashed his trademark dazzling smile.

‘Hi.’

He loves me.

‘Hi.’ Kate felt herself go fizzy all over; when a man smiled at you like that, you knew that yesterday had meant something extra-special. ‘Listen, what are you doing tonight?’

This was Jake’s cue to do his sparkly-eyed thing and murmur flirtatiously, ‘I don’t know, what am I doing tonight? You tell me.’

Instead he said, ‘I’ve been bullied into taking Sophie to the cinema to see the new Spiderman movie. I must be mad, the last one scared me witless.’ He pulled a face. ‘But that’s Soph for you. What can you do with a girl who has three pairs of Spiderman pyjamas?’

‘Well, it’s my night off,’ said Kate, ‘so why don’t we all go? Then I can hold your hand during the scary bits.’

‘It’s good of you to offer, but it’s Spiderman.’ Jake shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Hardly your kind of thing. You wouldn’t enjoy it.’

Actually, this was a fair point. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy sitting in the darkened cinema holding Jake’s hand, but as a breed, movies starring comic-book heroes left her cold.

‘OK, better idea. I’ll meet up with you after the cinema and we’ll go for a pizza.’ Kate beamed, pleased with herself, then realised that Jake was hesitating and added hurriedly, ‘I meant all of us go for a pizza, you, me and Sophie.’

‘Kate, look, I’m sorry, but I have to say no.’

Time stood still. She wondered if she’d somehow misunderstood this last sentence; if, in fact, he was actually saying yes. But that was taking fantasy too far.

Slowly Kate said, ‘No to what? Pizza?’

‘No to all of it. Meeting up, visiting cinemas together, doing the kind of things couples do, the whole works.’ Jake shook his head. ‘Yesterday was great, OK? We both enjoyed ourselves. But that’s as far as it goes. I keep my private life and my family life separate. It wouldn’t be fair on Sophie, introducing her to an endless stream of girls, letting her think I might be getting serious about this one or that.’ He paused, then said gently, ‘Does that make sense to you?’

It made about as much sense as being hit across the face with a wet towel. This wasn’t what Kate had been expecting to hear at all.

Stunned, she said, ‘Is it because of the way I look?’

‘Oh, please. I thought we’d cured you of that. I just don’t want to confuse Sophie, that’s all. If I know I’m not going to be settling down with someone, why get her hopes up?’

What about my hopes? Kate wanted to scream, and the awful realisation that he meant what he said struck her like a stake through the heart. This was rejection of the most brutal kind, brutal because she genuinely hadn’t been expecting it.

Despising herself for being pathetic, already knowing the answer deep down but still needing to hear it from Jake’s mouth, she heard herself ask, ‘So do you want to carry on seeing me when Sophie isn’t around? Or was yesterday just a one-off?’

Jake sighed. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. But OK, it was a one-off.’

‘So you lied to me.’ There was a telltale tremor in Kate’s voice. ‘I thought you really liked me. You told me you liked me. But it was just a big lie.’

‘That’s not fair. I do like you,’ Jake said evenly. ‘But we’re never going to be a couple.’

Kate felt her fingernails digging into her palms as a glimmer of hope shone through. ‘We could be!’

Her heart raced as she realised what this was all about. ‘Is this because your family’s poor and mine are rich? Jake, it doesn’t matter a bit, I don’t care that you don’t have any money—’

‘Well, nice of you to say so,’ Jake interrupted, ‘and I’m very flattered, but it’s nothing to do with that.’

Helplessly Kate blurted out, ‘It is my face.’

‘Stop jumping to conclusions and just listen to me. And you do have to stop blaming everything on your face, by the way,’ said Jake. ‘Because, trust me, it matters to you a damn sight more than it matters to anyone else.’

‘Go on then, fire away.’ Outside the workshop, Kate could hear Norris and Bean playing, happily rolling around together – not unlike Jake and herself yesterday afternoon. Now, fiddling with the button of her thin navy jacket, she said, ‘What, then?’

‘It’s quite simple,’ said Jake. ‘When you fall in love with someone, it doesn’t happen because you want it to. Sometimes it’s the last thing you want – crikey, look at the mess Maddy’s got herself into – but you don’t have any kind of control over it. It just happens.’ He paused, and there was compassion – or sadness – in his green eyes. ‘Or not, as the case may be.’

And that was that. Stung by the rejection, Kate stalked back up the hill to Dauncey House at such a rate that poor Norris’s paws barely touched the ground.

So much for having thought she might actually be about to discover how it felt to be happy. Now she was back to square one, all over again.

Chapter 33

‘Oh God, not you again.’

‘Enchanting to see you too,’ Will Gifford said amiably, stepping to one side as Kate swept past him. Catching the front door before it had a chance to slam shut in his face, he added, ‘Is your mum in?’

‘Does it make any difference?’ Kate shot him a look of irritation. ‘You usually enjoy a good nose around whether anyone’s here or not.’

‘Ouch,’ said Will with a grin.

Contemptuously Kate hissed, ‘Oh, grow up.’

Estelle had her mouth full of mint Aero when Will came into the kitchen. Jumping guiltily away from the fridge where she kept her stash of chocolate, she covered her mouth with one hand and gave him an embarrassed wave with the other.

‘Just passed the ray of sunshine on her way out,’ said Will.

Estelle winced, managed to swallow a giant chunk of Aero in one go and said shamefacedly,

‘Hence the comfort eating.’

‘Still giving you the run around?’

‘I don’t know what’s happened. Yesterday she was fantastic, so cheerful you wouldn’t believe it.’

Seeing from Will’s face that he didn’t, Estelle went on earnestly, ‘Really, it’s the truth. She was happy, laughing, she even made up with an old friend she’d fallen out with years ago. I thought this is it, we’ve turned the corner at last, but this afternoon we’re back to square one. It’s as if yesterday never happened, like Brigadoon, and I don’t know what’s wrong. I mean, am I being really dense here?’

As she said it, a sob burst from Estelle’s throat, as unstoppable as a sneeze. ‘Other people seem to manage to have children who don’t treat them like a pile of poo, but it just doesn’t seem to be h-happening for m-me.’

‘Hey, hey,’ Will crooned, crossing the kitchen at the speed of light. Next moment Estelle found herself being held by him, and realising that this was what she’d been subconsciously longing for ever since Will had last left for London. ‘It’s all right,’ he murmured soothingly, ‘it’s not you, you didn’t do anything wrong.’

Dizzily, Estelle breathed in the fresh Persil-scent of his diabolical plaid shirt. She was struggling to take in this startling turn of events. If she was honest, she’d daydreamed about something like this happening, but never believed for a moment it would ever actually happen.

‘I really shouldn’t be saying this,’ Will’s mouth brushed her ear, ‘but you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.’

Estelle’s stomach did a pancake flip. She couldn’t be attracted to a more wildly unsuitable man if she tried. For a start, Will Gifford was thirty-eight while she was forty-five, and when you weren’t exactly drop-dead glamorous, seven years was a lot. Secondly, Will was here because he was making a documentary about her husband, which was scarcely ideal. What’s more, she hadn’t been involved with any man other than Oliver since her eighteenth birthday. For heaven’s sake, if anyone in this house was suited to Will, it should be Kate.

But Estelle’s tangled train of thought was distracted by Will’s mouth finding hers, and she gave herself up to the sheer mindless pleasure of his kiss. Because sometimes chemistry happened and you made the discovery that you just didn’t care. Anyway, when was the last time Oliver had pressed her up against the fridge and ravished her? Determined not to feel guilty, Estelle reminded herself that the only thing that got Oliver excited these days was profit margins and business plans.

If she painted herself pink, like the Financial Times, she might have more luck.

‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’ Belatedly, her conscience kicked in. ‘What about Oliver?’

‘No problem, he’s still in London. I spoke to him before he went into his meeting. He won’t be home before six.’

‘I didn’t mean that,’ Estelle panted, because Will was still stroking her face. ‘I meant he’s my husband.’

‘ Really? The one who neglects you?’ Will raised his eyebrows. ‘The one who doesn’t deserve you?

That husband?’

‘He’s just busy, he doesn’t mean to neglect me.’

‘So you want me to stop? You’d rather I didn’t come near you?’

Trembling, Estelle whispered, ‘No. I just ... wasn’t expecting this. It’s all been a bit, um, sudden.’

‘Nice sudden or nasty sudden?’ said Will.

Estelle smiled. ‘Nice sudden. But scary too. Kate could be back at any minute.’ This was true, but it had also occurred to her that she hadn’t shaved her legs for five days; worse still, she was wearing knickers made from a kind of weird stretchy honeycomb-patterned material that, when you took them off, left an unfortunate honeycomb imprint all over your bottom.

‘I’ve thought of you more often than you’d believe,’ Will murmured. ‘Seriously. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.’

The chances were that he wouldn’t even notice her honeycomb-patterned bottom. And if he did, he probably wouldn’t care. But Estelle couldn’t take that risk. The prospect of getting naked in front of another man was terrifying enough. If Will burst out laughing she’d be mentally scarred for life.

Then again, she wouldn’t say no to another kiss.

‘Don’t you have work you should be doing?’ Estelle glanced at the kitchen table upon which were piled the bags containing his video camera and filming equipment.

‘Just a few background shots. No hurry.’ He paused. ‘I know what you’re thinking, by the way.’

‘Wh-what?’

‘You’re worried about your body. Don’t be.’ Smiling, Will said, ‘If I’d wanted a twenty-year-old stick insect, I wouldn’t have spent the last week thinking shamefully erotic thoughts about you.’

Erotic thoughts.

‘Actually, forget I said that.’ Will pulled a face. ‘Erotic thoughts just sounds sleazy, and I promise you I’m not sleazy. It’s just ...’ he paused, gently stroking her hair back from her temples and letting it fall through his fingers, ‘you’ve been on my mind.’

‘Oh,’ breathed Estelle as his warm mouth closed over her mouth and the length of his body pressed thrillingly against hers. It was the most wonderful sensation, glorious in its own right and made doubly so because who would have thought she had the power to instil such desire? She’d honestly thought that once you hit forty all the passion and excitement of youth became a thing of the pa

‘Oh!’ squeaked Estelle, less breathily this time as the kitchen door creaked open. Leaping away from Will so fast she almost cracked her skull open on the oak wall cabinet, she felt abject terror rise up in her throat like bile.

‘It’s OK.’ Will smiled as Norris, having executed his leaning-against-the-door trick in order to force it open, ambled into the kitchen.

‘I thought it was Kate. Or Oliver. God, what if it had been?’ Tingling all over with a mixture of fear and desire, Estelle rubbed the back of her head.

‘Poor you, let me have a look at it. Government health warning,’ said Will, tenderly feeling the bump. ‘Adultery can seriously damage your health.’

Adultery. Estelle’ s mouth went dry at the sound of the word. How could she take that risk?

‘Will, I’m flattered, but I can’t.’ As the words spilled out, she didn’t know whether to congratulate herself on her moral strength or despise herself for being such a wimp.

‘You don’t want to?’

Oh, how could he even ask that?

‘It’s Oliver. We’ve been married for twenty-seven years.’ Will sounded amused. ‘We don’t have to tell him, you know.’