They arrived back at Alex’s house at around nine o’clock that evening. Scott had met Chloe for dinner, insisting that regardless of her workload, she should make time to eat. Alex’s car wasn’t in its usual spot at the kerbside, and Chloe felt a flutter of anticipation in the pit of her stomach, knowing that time alone with Scott that evening was likely to end only one way. She had spent so much of her twenty-six years looking behind her and focusing on the things that were gone that she had missed what was happening around her. Thinking of how she’d reacted to the night at the hotel on Friday filled her with regret. Chloe wondered where Alex might be, already knowing the answer. One day I will be an old lady, she thought. If she was lucky enough to make it there, she didn’t want to spend her old age consumed with regret for all the things she hadn’t done.

In the house, she offered Scott a cup of tea, realising he was unlikely to accept. Their evening together had been short, yet they both knew where it had been headed, and tea-drinking was going to be a waste of what little uninterrupted time they might have.

She took him by the hand and led him upstairs to her bedroom, shoving her previous doubts to the back of her brain. She pulled the curtains shut, swallowing the last light of the evening, and held his face in her hands, pulling him towards her. She kissed him urgently, pressing her body to his. Already she could feel him hardening against her, and for the first time she found herself able to focus on him without the past infiltrating the moment and ruining it.

She gave him a gentle shove towards the bed and he sank back on to it willingly. She straddled him, kissed him again and moved down the length of his body, reaching to undo the buttons on his shorts. She felt his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it gently.

‘You sure about this?’

Ignoring him, she pulled down his shorts. Thoughts nagged at the back of her mind, but she moved them aside one by one, obliterating them with the overriding desire she felt. The things she had done; the things she had once been: none of those mattered any more. She wanted this man. She hadn’t told him yet – would keep it to herself a while longer – but she was pretty sure she was in love with him, and if this wasn’t it, she doubted she would ever know it.

She wished she hadn’t let her insecurities mar the time she’d had with him when they’d gone away at the weekend, but she was going to put all that behind her now.

Scott’s head pressed against the pillows and an involuntary groan passed his lips. ‘Jesus … what was in that pasta?’ He sat up and slipped an arm around her waist. The other hand moved to the back of her head, his fingers grasping a length of her hair. ‘God, you’re lovely.’ He kissed her, then pushed her from him and laid her on the bed, covering her body with his.

When they heard the front door open an hour later and Alex’s voice calling to see whether Chloe was home, she pulled the duvet over their heads and the two of them lay giggling beneath it like a couple of wayward teenagers almost caught in the act. She didn’t want to get up from the bed. It felt safe, it was warm, and for the past hour she had been able to shed her life along with her clothing, stripping herself of the responsibilities that came with her career and lifestyle choices.

‘You should go and see her,’ Scott said as he reached for his shorts from the carpet. ‘Be rude to stay up here.’

She pulled him back for one last kiss before letting him go. She didn’t want to see him leave, but he was right: it would be wrong for them to stay in bed when Alex was downstairs. This was one of the things she had grown to love about him: how considerate he was; how mindful of other people’s feelings.

She watched him dress, then reluctantly got up from the warmth of the bed and retrieved her own clothes from the carpet, checking her appearance in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. Scott reached his arms around her and turned her for a last kiss.

‘Right,’ he said, moving to the bedroom door. ‘It’s the left side that’s less creaky, isn’t it?’

She smiled and followed him out on to the landing and down the stairs. He snuck from the house like a burglar and Chloe straightened her clothes before heading to the back of the house and into the kitchen. Alex was standing at the sink washing dishes, her back to the door.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’ Alex gestured to a saucepan on the cooker top. ‘I’ve got some soup on if you want it.’ She shook excess water from her hands and turned to Chloe, her expression altering on eye contact. Chloe realised why: it had been hard to conceal. Although she’d pulled her hair back in a makeshift style, her cheeks were flushed.

‘I’ve had dinner. Thanks, though.’

Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘Scott gone, then?’

Chloe might have blushed if she hadn’t already realised Alex was trying to wind her up. ‘Yeah, he’s gone.’

Alex continued smiling to herself as she began to ladle soup from the saucepan into a bowl. ‘You still haven’t told me what happened at the weekend,’ she reminded Chloe.

Chloe smiled as she took a seat at the kitchen table. She didn’t mind the fact that Alex wanted to know more than she would normally be comfortable sharing. It was nice to have somebody care; reassuring to have somebody who showed a bit of interest in her happiness. It had been odd at first. Kindness wasn’t something Chloe was accustomed to being on the receiving end of, although all that had changed in the previous six months. For the first time in a long time, she felt as though she had some form of family. She had Alex and Scott to thank for that.

‘I don’t want the sordid details, by the way,’ Alex added, sitting opposite Chloe and placing her bowl on the table. ‘Just a yes or no will do.’

‘Yes,’ Chloe said, rolling her eyes.

‘Bloody hell, thank God for that! Good. Excellent. Right, change the subject.’

Chloe felt an inescapable twinge of guilt. She had been careful to keep her new-found happiness concealed where possible from Alex, although she knew Alex would never have expected – or wanted – her to do so. The previous year, Alex had become re-involved with her ex-husband. It had gone on for a few months before eventually leading to disaster. Then there was the issue of her mother’s rapidly deteriorating health, something Alex rarely spoke of and had only recently made Chloe aware of. Until then, she had managed expertly to keep her professional life and her personal life separate. She was under an enormous amount of pressure, although Chloe realised she would never admit it. Hearing about Scott and how well things were going between them was the last thing she needed.

‘Have you been to visit your mother tonight?’

Alex nodded.

‘How is she?’

Alex let go of her spoon, leaving it to rest in the soup. Perhaps she might have chosen a better topic with which to change the subject, Chloe thought, silently reprimanding herself.

‘She’s OK. Well, not OK, obviously. She’s as well as can be expected.’

Chloe watched her push the spoon through her soup, purposely avoiding eye contact. And with that, she knew the conversation was already over.