Page 57 of The Work Husband

I’d caught myself sighing wistfully as I imagined being in her five-thousand-pound Gianvito Rossi shoes, with nothing to do but look as pretty as possible and help someone spend their father’s money, with the guarantee of a lifetime of the same at the end of it.

Then I’d thought, I couldn’t stop my own boyfriend – who, while absolutely wonderful in my eyes, was essentially just a regular bloke – from going after another woman, so what chance would I have keeping hold of the heir to a billion-dollar fortune?

Every thought I had came back to Sam.

Sam and Ava.

Ava and her letter.

I still hadn’t found the courage to mention it to Sam. After Jamie’s nocturnal visit, things between us were still frosty, although not actively hostile. Gradually, though, the frost had been thawing, and we’d even laughed together a few times, been out for dinner together and had sex.

He wouldn’t have done that if he was sleeping with her as well. Would he?

Then I remembered Jamie’s words. What a player. Maybe Sam was a player. Maybe he was enjoying having two women going at the same time – the illicit thrill of it. Jamie had loved it, until he got caught.

But Sam wasn’t Jamie. I was sure of that.

These thoughts, coupled with my guilty knowledge of Jamie passing stories to Gossip Guru, made me feel deeply uneasy around him. So when, on this Thursday afternoon, there was a power cut at the office that could apparently last several hours, I was relieved to take my laptop and head home to finish that day’s work there.

Except I’m not going to get a whole lot done with that baby screaming its head off, I thought as I approached the front door. Freya had apparently found her voice.

Then, as I slipped my key into the lock, I realised it wasn’t a baby. There was something different about the sound – it was less shrill, more raw than the sound Arthur made when he was hungry or annoyed. It was a woman. And the sound was coming from inside my flat.

I pushed the door open, my heart hammering. I knew what I was going to see, and I didn’t want to see it. But I was here now. There was no going back and no hiding from the truth.

‘I can’t go on…’ I could hear a voice now, not the wordless keening there had been before. ‘I can’t bear it. It’s too hard…’

‘Ssssh. It’ll be okay. I promise.’ It was Sam, his tone low and soothing. ‘You have to trust me to do what’s right. We’ll come out the other side, and it won’t seem so bad.’

I froze in the doorway.

This was it. The moment I’d see with my own eyes what I’d imagined had been happening all these months.

Adrenaline coursed through me, making my scalp prickle and the soles of my feet tingle. My whole body wanted to run, to be somewhere else. But my mind resisted. My mind was determined to know the truth.

My bag still slung over my shoulder, my keys still in my hand, I walked silently through the hallway. The bedroom door was closed but that didn’t matter – the voices had come from ahead, from the living room.

I stepped around the corner and looked.

Sam and Ava.

They were on the sofa together, the sunlight from the balcony falling on their intertwined bodies. Sam’s arms were tightly around her back, hers around his shoulders. I couldn’t see her face, but his was gazing tenderly down at her. Her mass of copper hair spilled over his forearms and hands.

They were both fully clothed but so close they might as well have been one person.

I must have made some sound – a gasp or a cough or perhaps a sob – because Sam looked up and saw me.

‘Georgia.’ He didn’t sound surprised – more resigned. And I couldn’t tell whether it was me or Ava he was addressing.

Either way, she pulled away from him as if he’d suddenly become red hot – or perhaps ice cold.

She turned to look at me. She was just the same as I remembered – pretty and elfin, with huge hazel eyes, high cheekbones and a pointy chin – but also not. Back then, when she was half of SamandAva, she’d been slim to the point of wispiness; now, she was heavier, curvy where before she had been gamine. She’d worn artsy clothes in vivid colours; now, she was dressed in baggy black jeans and a grey T-shirt. Her skin had been pearly perfect; now, it was red and blotchy.

Although to be fair, if I’d been crying like she was, my skin wouldn’t look like a foundation advert either.

She was staring at me, her pretty eyes wide. I wondered if she was doing a before-and-after comparison in her head too. Except she probably hadn’t even been aware of my existence back at uni, on account of being so engrossed in Sam.

That hasn’t changed, at any rate, I thought – she’d looked pretty damn engrossed when I walked into the room. I felt sick, like any moment my lunch might come rushing up from my stomach and I’d have to run to the bathroom. But I couldn’t run anywhere – my legs just weren’t capable of moving.