Her attractiveness has always been one of her best weapons.

Patrick struggles all morning at the office, unable to concentrate. He notices that Niall is humming quietly to himself, which only irritates Patrick. Around lunchtime he hears Niall leave his office and talk to Kerri at the front desk on his way out.

From his window, Patrick stares out at the river, his mind dull. He has so much work to do, but instead he thinks about how Erica had come to his office, pretending she didn’t know him, when she’d known he was here all along. She’d deliberately put him in an awkward position.

Yesterday, he’d casually asked Niall how the interview went and Niall had said, ‘She’s not the best candidate,’ and Patrick had felt relief. She wouldn’t be back in the office. He will never have to explain that they actually know each other, although they hadn’t let on. And she’s not interested in the job anyway.

He rises from his chair and walks tiredly over to his draughting table. He’s working on a high-end new build of a house for a prominent doctor, and he needs to focus.

Niall looks across the seat to the woman driving the car. The windows are down and the wind is blowing her hair around her face. He notices she’s wearing designer sunglasses. Again he wonders why she was interviewing for a temporary admin position. Perhaps her husband has left her recently. Perhaps he will find out.

He’d been surprised when Erica Voss called him at the office that morning, inviting him to lunch. Not typical behaviour for someone hoping to get a job – a bit forward. He’d hesitated briefly, until she said she could pick him up in front of the fountain downtown.

He feels a familiar stirring in his blood – he suspects he knows why she asked him. She’s looking very sexy today, he notices. When she came to the office on Monday for her interview she’d been conservatively dressed in a trouser suit, but today she’s wearing a tight-fitting skirt and a silky blouse, and showing some leg and cleavage. He studies her appreciatively.

‘What?’ she says, glancing at him playfully.

‘I’m wondering why you’ve asked me to lunch.’ He hadn’t called her back about the job. In fact, he’s not going to make her an offer. She’s too gorgeous – too sexy – to have around the office. His wife, Nancy, would go ballistic. He hopes she doesn’t think this is how she’s going to get the position. If so, he’ll have to let her down. He doesn’t mix business and pleasure.

‘It’s a celebration lunch,’ she says.

‘What are we celebrating?’

‘I’ve just got a job at the hospital in Newburgh.’

He feels his smile broadening. This isn’t going to be a problem then. The mutual attraction he’d suspected during their interview hadn’t been his imagination after all.

She brings the car to a stop in the parking lot of the Connaught Hotel, at the end of Water Street.

‘I’ve made a reservation,’ she says and gets out of the car. Together they step up the front stairs of the hotel, past the doormen, and proceed into the fine dining room on the first floor. As they’re escorted to their table, he follows her, his eyes watching her as she weaves among tables. They’re seated by the window. He glances around quickly to see if he recognizes anyone – Aylesford is not a big town. There’s no one here he knows, and he begins to relax. If someone should recognize him – perhaps one of his wife’s friends – he will introduce her as a potential client, a custom home build. She certainly looks the type.

She smiles at him and he orders wine.

‘So, Niall,’ she says, ‘tell me about yourself.’

The lunch goes as he expected. She’s interested in him, he’s interested in her. The only question is how to go from the dining room to the hotel room with a minimum of fuss and notice. And how to pay for it. He can’t let her pay, and he can’t have a hotel room in Aylesford showing up on his credit card bill. Nancy will check. She checks everything since she caught him in his first – and only – indiscretion. He’d made it through eight years of marriage – past the seven-year itch – but last autumn he’d had a brief, thrilling affair with a woman he’d met at the golf club. His wife had found out. There had been tears and recriminations; it had been awful and the fallout had gone on for weeks. She’d insisted they do marriage counselling. He’d gone because he didn’t want his marriage to end; he loved Nancy and their young son, Henry, and he couldn’t imagine life without them – and divorce would be both inconvenient and financially ruinous, it always was. So he’d broken off the affair and done everything Nancy had asked. He’d promised her he would never stray again. He’d been as good as his word, but now, there is a gorgeous woman flirting with him right across the table, and he is sorely tempted.

In the end, he doesn’t really struggle with the decision. He’s only concerned about not getting caught. He tells himself that what Nancy doesn’t know won’t hurt her. What possible harm can there be – as long as his wife doesn’t find out?

He glances towards the lobby and wonders if there’s an ATM out there. He needs to get some cash. Erica meets his eyes and they both know what’s going to happen next.

They smile at each other and he pays the lunch bill with his business credit card and then they leave the restaurant. He withdraws cash from the ATM and takes a room under an assumed name while she goes to the ladies’ room. He texts her the room number when he gets into the lift. On the ninth floor, he lets himself into the room with the key card and takes off his jacket and loosens his tie. He sends a quick text to Kerri that his lunch is running late and to reschedule his 3 p.m. meeting, then he hears a soft knock on the door.

He’s doing it again. Nancy must not find out. And then he opens the door and forgets all about his wife.

It’s a lovely summer day, perfect for an outing to the wading pool in the park beside the public library. Stephanie and Hanna had arranged to get together, and Stephanie had invited some of the women from her mom’s group to join them. Amy and Jen are there with their baby boys, and Barb with her little girl.

Stephanie wiggles her bare toes in the warm, shallow water, sitting on the concrete edge of the pool. Hanna is nearby, splashing with Teddy beside her. Jackie and Emma happily gurgle at each other in front of her. All the babies are in swim diapers and brimmed hats, and Stephanie has her girls in inflatable rings to help support them because she can’t really hold them both up at once. The women chat about the babies companionably. They’ve already been in the library and picked up some baby board books to take home – a caravan of buggies. They all had lunch in the park, Stephanie and Hanna sharing tuna sandwiches. By the time she gets the twins home, Stephanie thinks, she will be able to put them down for their afternoon nap and she can get some sleep.

‘Isn’t this great?’ Hanna says grinning, watching Teddy laugh.

Stephanie has to agree with her. She feels a little more rested than usual today and it’s done wonders for her mood. She felt able to reach out to these other women, whom she doesn’t really know well. It’s hard to be social when you’re exhausted. She looks at her two baby girls, their big, round blue eyes, so cute splashing in the baby rings, chortling with glee. She’s lucky, and she knows it. She’s so lucky to have Patrick, and Emma and Jackie – two perfect, healthy babies. She has everything she ever wanted. The colic will pass.

‘Oh, looks like somebody’s getting sleepy,’ Hanna says, smiling at Jackie, who is yawning.

They all start to pack up for the walk home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TOWARDS THE END of the workday, Patrick gets a call on his cell from Erica. He’s been expecting it, but his heart still begins to pump uncomfortably when he sees her number.

‘Meet me for a drink?’ Erica asks. ‘Same place? In half an hour?’

He briefly considers refusing. But he knows he must meet her. ‘Okay.’

For him, at least, the attraction is gone; if anything, she frightens him a little. He will be absolutely clear that he’s faithful to his wife, and then he will leave. He’s not going to make the same mistake twice. And she needs to know it.

On his way from the office to the bar, he tells himself that things have changed. He’s with Stephanie now. He has a family.

He spies her in the same corner as the day before. He tells himself to relax. He’s got nothing to worry about. He’ll set her straight and he can be on his way. He sits down across from her – he can smell her perfume again, and it bothers him.

She gives him a conspiratorial, seductive look over her beer. For a long moment neither of them speaks. Finally she says, ‘So … you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.’

He smiles uncomfortably. ‘I am, actually.’