'Driving,' she said, holding up her hand against it.

'Of course, sorry. I forgot. That's a shame, darling.'

'I wish I weren't going,' she said.

James sighed. 'It'll do you good to be with your friends. And it's not as if it's for ever. You'll be back in the blink of an eye.'

Lara nodded, trying not to look upset that he didn't say that he didn't want her to go either.

'I know,' she said. 'I just wish I'd known that you were going to be alone in the house. It seems such a missed opportunity.'

James took a long sip of the Chenin Blanc and nodded slowly. 'Well, can't be helped. And you're hardly going to Timbuktu. I do believe they have mobile signals in Yorkshire.' He winked, polishing off that first gla.s.s of wine in double-quick time. Lara wished she could abandon all her plans, pull a gla.s.s out of the cupboard and join him.

'Are you going to be okay in the house by yourself?' she teased. 'Not too lonely without me?'

'Possibly,' mused James. 'I think I know the way to the kitchen and to the clean underpants in the drawer. Kristina will point me in the right direction if I get lost, I'm sure.'

'Will you miss me?'

'Of course I'm going to miss you.' He replied. 'But I'm very busy at work, as you know. At least with you gone I won't have to feel guilty about being late home. I do feel awful that I'm leaving you alone so much with the children and their teenage hormones. It won't be for long, I promise you. I'll make more time for us when you come back. I'll be counting the days and, selfish as this sounds, I hope every one speeds by.'

Lara beamed. At last an admission that he was going to miss her and wanted the time when she was away to go fast and an acknowledgement that he knew things weren't easy for her in the house.

'You'd better go soon, hadn't you?' said James, checking his Rolex. 'By now the roads should be much clearer of traffic and the sooner you get there and are safe, the better.'

Lara moved forwards and placed her head on his chest. She loved him so much. She wished Miriam would have an epiphany and decide she wanted the children to live permanently with her in France. She felt James's lips kiss her hair. She lifted her head and let him kiss her lips, which he did slowly and deliciously. That felt so much better. He wasn't going off her after all. What a stupid cow she was.

'You take care and ring me when you get there,' he said. 'Drive carefully and not like a loony in that fast car of yours. Promise?'

'Promise,' she said.

He picked up her suitcase and carried it to the car for her.

'I won't ask you if you have everything, because you're Lara and so you will have,' he said. He always said she was the most capable, organized woman he had ever met. Then he kissed her softly on the mouth again and stood on the doorstep, waving to her until she was finally out of sight.

But in fact Lara's brain hadn't been functioning to full capacity recently and all the needles that Keely had been using against her had punctured her self-belief. Half an hour into her journey she realized she had forgotten her gla.s.ses. It really was too far to turn back and get them, but at the same time she needed them. She intended to do a lot of reading on holiday and she couldn't even read a menu with big lettering very comfortably without them. b.u.g.g.e.r. There was nothing else for it. She pulled into the side of the road, texted May that she was going to be slightly late, and turned back.

Someone had taken her s.p.a.ce so she had to park further up the road than usual. The front door was locked. She slid in her key and breezed inside, then straight up the stairs to get them from her side of the bed where she remembered she had taken them off after making her packing list.

''S only m-' she called, her words dying in her throat when she heard the small excited pants.

A female voice.

'Yes, yes, oh G.o.d, don't stop.'

Lara's footsteps slowed and she took the remaining eight of them with the stealth of a Siamese cat with slippers on. Was James watching p.o.r.n? But she knew he wasn't. That voice wasn't coming out of a TV.

'Do you like this?' she heard James say, followed by a crescendo of delighted female yelps. Lara pushed open the bedroom door, then froze. Secured to the bed with a selection of his best Austin Reed silk ties was a naked woman, and an equally naked James was just lifting his head from between her legs.

's.h.i.t, oh s.h.i.t, oh s.h.i.t,' said James, attempting to scramble from the bed and reach something to cover himself up with, whilst the woman made no effort to struggle from her restraints. Her long dark hair fanned out around her head.

Tianne.

It couldn't be anyone else.

'Lara, it's not what you think,' said James, who had quickly wrapped himself in his blue robe. The one she had bought him for his birthday.

Lara didn't know what she thought. She felt as if a bomb had been put under her world and it had just blown up and none of the pieces falling around her could be put back in any order that made sense. She viewed the carnage in front of her strangely objectively. So this was younger, smoother Tianne. Tianne who didn't want commitment, just 'spicy s.e.x', fun with no strings. She had small pointy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rather pudgy thighs, a waist far from the trim one of Lara's imaginings, and she was sporting a Brazilian. She seemed quite content to lie there, tethered to the bed their bed .

Lara picked up her gla.s.ses from the bedside table, brushing past James, who was stuttering, holding out his hands as if he wanted to touch her but found there was an invisible force-field holding him back.

Lara turned on her heel and marched out of the door on automatic pilot. James followed her, pleading for an audience, beseeching her to listen.

'Please just hear me out. Listen, darling.'

With her hand stretching out to open the front door, Lara twisted back round to face him. He's only given me oral s.e.x once ever thought Lara, unable to take her eyes away. Tianne got foreplay. That hurt. She hated him. She wanted to slap him and she wanted to throw herself against him and cry and feel his arms around her.

'Okay, then. I'm b.l.o.o.d.y listening.' Keely would have loved the way she said that pure South Yorkshire.

Given the platform to speak, James now found he couldn't say anything. He stammered and stroked his forehead a bit and then paced up and down in front of Lara until eventually he halted, shook his head and said, 'I'm sorry.'

'Oh, that's all right, then,' Lara said, and smiled.

'Is it?' James looked delighted.

'Is it f.u.c.k!'

'Oh.'

'b.i.t.c.h, you said. Evil cow. I wouldn't touch her again even with a barge pole, you said.' Lara was shouting and hoped the podgy-thighed, fat-waisted, pointy-t.i.tted naked cow upstairs heard.

'I know, I know,' said James, looking very much as if he was in pain.

'I haven't been out of the house an hour. My, you had this well planned, didn't you?'

'I . . . I just . . . I just wanted . . .'

'Don't tell me, let me guess a s.h.a.g. A spicy s.h.a.g?' suggested Lara. 'I think that's obvious.'

'I thought we were going a bit stale,' James explained, advancing a step towards her. 'But it was a mistake. I see that now.'

Lara's head jerked up. She rotated her finger in the air as. 'Er, rewind that a moment. What did you say stale?'

'It's the house situation, too much work, the kids being around it's not the same as it was in the beginning.' He did have the cheek to look guilty as he dropped that one, thought Lara.

'It's not the same as it was in the beginning?' she echoed back at him. Calmly, even slightly amused. He'd rushed her into his house, thrown at her the child-care and the domestic duties which his au pair refused to do, gave her rubbish s.e.x and then had the gall to say they'd gone stale. He had intimacy and attention on tap but he had still returned to Miss Spicy s.e.x. 'James. It's YOU who is at work all the time. It's YOU who isn't putting any effort in. And, in case you have forgotten, they're YOUR b.l.o.o.d.y kids!'

G.o.d, if only her friends could see her now. May and Clare thought she had such a perfect set-up. They probably imagined she was pa.s.sionately ravaged by a besotted James from the moment she walked in through the door at night whilst the children made 'I love you, Lara' cards in their bedrooms and Kristina busied herself in the kitchen cooking lobster. What would they say if they only knew the truth?

Lara's adrenaline-fuelled composure crumbled just as surely as if it had been hammered with a wrecking ball. She turned back towards the front door and her fingers closed around the door handle to open it.

'Ti- Oh G.o.d, I mean Lara, don't go like this.'

He couldn't even get her name right first time.

Lara opened the door then slammed it behind her so hard, she wouldn't have been surprised if they'd felt the reverberations in Glasgow.

Chapter 18.

Lara concentrated fiercely on the driving, occasionally wiping the unwanted tears leaking from her eyes. She didn't want to cry. James didn't deserve her tears. He had probably gone straight back upstairs and carried on where he had left off giving Tianne b.l.o.o.d.y Lee a good time. The whole Galsworthy family didn't give a toss who they stood on to get what they wanted. James hadn't got as far as he had in his career by having a selfless conscience, she should have known that. Top management had to have spare hearts of brick for when they needed to call on them.

'Stop it, now,' she told herself. 'No tears. No more.' She pressed her side where there was a real throbbing ache as if her heart were bruised from banging itself in frustration against her ribcage.

Pictures of Tianne writhing in ecstasy from James's oral attentions tried to force their way into her head, but she drove them back. She could hear her phone ringing in her handbag and she knew it was him because she had a.s.signed the tune 'My Guy' as his ringtone. She wondered if Tianne was still tied to the bed whilst he was dialling her number. She didn't even contemplate answering it.

She parked around the corner from May's house to reapply some make-up and check that her eyes weren't even more bloodshot than she suspected them to be. Her phone rang again as she was putting her mirror back into her bag. She both didn't want to hear his voice and she did, very badly. He had bought her that phone. Stored in its memory were so many of his loving texts and photos of them together in her flat before they got 'stale'. She opened the car door, threw the phone on the ground and stamped on it hard with her heel until the d.a.m.ned ringtone stopped. Every stamp was accompanied by a primal grunt of anger. May's elderly neighbour, Mr Wilkinson, walked his Labrador hurriedly across the road to avoid her. Then Lara took a deep breath, pushed down the rest of the tears that were threatening to spill out of her, and strode purposefully to May's door.

At the sound of the doorbell, May checked her reflection, hoping she didn't look as tired and drawn as she felt. Alas, she did. She opened the door and forced a big smile, throwing her arms around Lara. May didn't want to let her go. Lara was the same build as May's late mother: warm and small, and just for a moment May let herself believe that her mother was holding her, comforting her, telling her everything was going to be all right. She pushed Lara to arm's length before the tears started falling again.

Lara needed that hug from May. She had been seconds away from crying on her tall friend's shoulder when May pulled away. Both thought the other looked tired. Both thought there was no need to mention it after all, they were tired, that's why they were going on a battery-charging holiday 'I can't believe I am actually doing this,' said May. 'After all these years of not having a proper break.'

'Well, you are,' said Lara, picking up May's case for her. 'We all are.'

'Are you okay to drive all that way during the night?'

'Course I am. I prefer to drive at night anyway.'

'Well, don't blame me if I nod off,' said May. 'I'm absolutely knackered. I look it as well, don't I?' She forced lots of bubbly cheer into her voice.

'You look fine to me,' said Lara, but it wasn't true, because May appeared to have aged five years since Lara saw her last. She looked as if she needed a much longer holiday than one of ten days.

The traffic was ridiculous across the city to Clare's flat. They crawled along, never finding a cause for the hold-up even when they turned on the radio to check the travel news. May checked her mobile. Forty-eight missed calls from Michael had been registered but her phone had been on silent so she hadn't heard a single one of them. She needed to think but everything was crowding her brain at the moment. She didn't want to give him any opportunity to talk his way out of anything.

Clare was waiting for them on the doorstep of her flat, which was one of six stylishly converted from a beautiful old Georgian city villa two years ago. The facade said grand and stately, inside said hip and trendy. Clare had the bottom one in the right-hand corner which had a small courtyard garden that Clare, being Clare, had filled with brightly coloured pots of flowers.

'I've been ringing you both but I couldn't get a reply,' she said, leaping forward to hug her before moving on to do the same to May.

'I've broken my phone,' said Lara, wondering how many more times James had rung and wishing now that she hadn't crushed it. She wanted to hear what he had to say for himself. She wanted him to tell her she had been hallucinating, and she wanted to believe whatever c.r.a.p he was going to tell her.

'I'm not sure I could live without my phone,' said Clare.

'Mine is off and is going to stay off,' said May, flicking the battery out of the back of hers. 'At least, I'm going to have a d.a.m.ned good try this holiday.'

'I've made us all coffees,' said Clare, handing out plastic-topped containers. 'Extra strong. I'm determined to stay awake and keep you company, Lara.'

'Yeah, dream on,' Lara said with a smile. 'You'll be asleep first, I bet you anything.' On the doorstep she noticed a big square tin with a carrying handle next to Clare's suitcase. 'Is that cleaning stuff?'

'Just a few bits,' said Clare.

Lara and May both shook their heads whilst grinning.

'Have you packed a lawnmower as well?' said May.

'No, otherwise I wouldn't have had enough room for my steam cleaner,' parried Clare, picking up her tin.

'I don't know why Lud hasn't made an honest woman of you yet,' Lara said as she wheeled Clare's case to her boot. 'I'll marry you.'

'Get to the end of the queue, love,' said Clare.

'I presume you've got your swimming costume?' Lara closed the boot and they all climbed into the car. As well as her love of all things domestic, Clare was pa.s.sionate about swimming. The gorgeous pool in Wellem spa had been the deciding factor when Lara was checking out its credentials on the net. She knew her friend would go nuts about the large crescent-shaped pool with the Grecian pillars and feature waterfall.

'I would forget my own legs before I'd forget my cossie,' replied Clare, clicking on her seat belt.

Lara took a long drink of coffee before putting the car into gear.

'And we're off,' she announced.

'Good riddance, London at least for ten days,' cheered Clare from the back.

May and Lara could have said goodbye to it for so much longer.

Despite all their plans to gabble their way through a catch-up in the car, Clare, as Lara predicted, was the first to drop off to sleep within twenty minutes of setting off from her house. Then May followed, although she fought it because she did want to stay awake and chat to Lara so the journey wasn't so boring for her. But her head was weary, exhausted from thinking about, and then from trying not to think about, Michael. She drifted off to sleep wondering what he would do when he turned up at her house tomorrow and found her gone.

Considering the late hour there was a surprising amount of traffic on the roads. That was good for Lara because it made her concentrate on the job in hand and kept her thoughts from drifting back to the scene in the bedroom. Ridiculously her brain seemed fixated on trivia: that the tie at Tianne's left leg was the one James wore when he met the prime minister. And how very skinny and white James's b.u.m had looked from the back. She hadn't realized how small his b.u.t.tocks were.

The aftermath of an accident on the M1 added another half-hour to their journey, not that the others would notice. Clare was snoring softly in the back and May was fast asleep in the pa.s.senger seat, her head resting on the window. Lara was glad to be going away now. She would flush James sodding Galsworthy out of her system with lots of cool, clear water and fresh fruit. She would run from his image on treadmills and imagine Tianne's face on a punchbag as she pummelled it. She would emerge from the spa holiday a fully purged and stronger person. Thank G.o.d she hadn't sold her flat in Islington. Too bad it would be another three months before her tenants left it, though.

The satnav was telling her that she was on the home straight at last. Less than half an hour away from the postcode that she had typed in. However, the satnav was also telling her there were no named streets pertaining to the postcode, so she hoped she'd keyed in the right one. She was getting tired now. She wanted a hot shower and a hard scrub-down with a loofah and to fall into bed too tired to think and hopefully too weary to dream.

She left the A64, as instructed by Brian Blessed's voice, and headed down and up a twisty country lane which seemed to go on for ever. It was a good job there was a bright full moon ahead because there was absolutely no street lighting here and the roads were muddy and full of unfriendly hairpin bends. Her headlights picked up an old signpost and she slowed down to read it.

'Useful,' she commented to herself, seeing that all the letters seemed to have been scratched out. Only the last 'em' remained. She carried on until the satnav told her to take a right. This must be wrong, Lara thought to herself, driving down a road that seemed to be a fly-tippers' paradise. Old mattresses and sofas lined the verges. This did not herald the drive up to a sw.a.n.ky and very expensive spa complex.

'What the f-' A finishing post showed up on the satnav and then Brian boomed a congratulations to her for reaching her destination a destination which looked absolutely nothing like the Internet picture she remembered. This holiday cottage was made of old stone, whitewashed long ago, and now, with the aid of lots of honeysuckle clinging to it, had acquired a shabby-chic charm. It was a one-storey build with a neat grey slate roof and lots of tiny windows set in two-foot-thick walls. To the left was a small terraced garden with a bench affording a view of what she supposed, in the daylight, would be a cove. It might have had an old charm of sorts, but it was hardly the newly built log cabin she was expecting. And where were the surrounding cabins: Robin, Lark, Swift and Finch Cottages, not to mention the main manor house? She reached in her handbag for her phone to check the email confirmation, then remembered she didn't have a phone any more.

She pulled on the handbrake and killed the engine. There appeared to be a note pinned on the door.

Miss Lara Rickman key under mat.

It was too much to think there was another Lara Rickman expected in the area. This had to be the place, then. She was too weary to go looking around for the main complex.

Clare stirred in the back. 'Are we here?'