‘Oh. Sure.’

P.J. felt a bit better for some reason. He checked the mirror and pulled out into the heavy traffic as Nell engaged the children in conversation, discovering that they were nine, seven, and five and a quarter respectively, that they didn’t mind school but that they all hated Mrs Tarbuck, who shouted at them if they were naughty.

Nell had always been good with children, he remembered, and had longed to have a baby of her own. He was the one who had resisted the idea, thinking that they were too young and that there would be plenty of time to start a family. More fool him, he thought bitterly. While he had still been hesitating, Simon Shea had swept Nell off her feet with his easy promises.

P.J. was a quick learner. After that, he had seized every opportunity that had come his way. It had led to astonishing success and wealth beyond anything he had ever been able to imagine, but somehow none of it had ever quite compensated for the bitterness of that first hard lesson.

In the back seat, the children were still chatting happily to Nell about the contents of their lunch boxes.

‘It sounds yummy,’ said Nell, thinking what engaging children they were. They didn’t look exactly like P.J., but there was a definite family resemblance and Jake, the boy, had the same alert blue eyes. Would their children have looked like this if they had married? she wondered a little wistfully.

‘But I don’t like banana,’ little Flora was grumbling, sticking out her lower lip. ‘Mummy always makes me have one. She says I have to have a bit of fruit, but I don’t see why I should.’

‘I’m afraid I make Clara have fruit every day, too,’ Nell confessed to Flora’s disgust. She might not like the idea of P.J. having a wife, but on some things mothers had to stick together.

‘Here we are.’ P.J. pulled up outside the school and opened his door to get out. ‘Out you get.’

The three children scrambled out of the back seat and he stooped, giving the girls a kiss and Jake an affectionate tweak on the nose, and then they were gone, running into school with their friends.

‘They’ve forgotten us already,’ he said wryly to Nell as he got back into the car, and she nodded, grasping at the chance to fill up this first moment when they were alone with polite chit-chat.

‘Clara’s like that. The moment she meets up with her friends, she’s completely absorbed in their own world. I’m sure she never gives me a thought when she’s with them.’

P.J. sent her a sidelong glance. ‘You should be pleased that she’s not clinging to you. You want your child to grow up well balanced and independent, don’t you?’

‘Of course, but sometimes it’s a little hard when you spend your whole life thinking about them and you realise it’s all one way.’

‘That’s your job as a parent, isn’t it?’ he said with a lopsided smile. ‘And Clara’s the kind of child who’ll go far. She’s got charm in spades.’

‘When she wants to use it,’ said Nell in a dry voice. ‘She’s like her father that way,’ she added without thinking.

‘Ah, yes, Simon,’ said P.J. evenly. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s well. He’s got a new wife and a new family now, though, and I don’t see much of him.’

‘Janey told me that you were divorced,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been hard for you. I know how much you loved him.’

Had she loved Simon, or had she just been carried away by an illusion? Nell wondered. It was hard to remember now.

‘You were right,’ she said abruptly.

‘I was right?’ P.J. glanced at her in surprise. ‘What about?’

‘You said that Simon didn’t really know me, so he couldn’t really love me. You said I didn’t really know him, so I couldn’t trust him. You said he’d break my heart and leave me…and he did.’ Nell’s smile was twisted. ‘I think you’re fully entitled to say “I told you so!’”

‘Nell…’ P.J. wished he could say something to help, but he couldn’t think of anything. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, quite simply. ‘I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was just lashing out because I was raw and bitter. I suppose I wanted to hurt you because you’d hurt me, but I swear I never wanted to be proved right.’

‘I know. I’m sorry, too,’ said Nell quietly. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, P.J., but I know that I did.’

‘Hey, I survived.’ The corner of P.J.’s mouth turned up in his crooked smile as he tried to lighten the atmosphere, and Nell found herself remembering with piercing clarity exactly what his lips had felt like against her skin. Shivering a little, she turned away.

‘I can’t say I thought so at the time,’ he admitted, hoping to take some of the sadness from her expression, ‘but it didn’t take long for me to realise that it was all for the best.’ He hated the thought that she had spent years feeling guilty about the way their relationship had ended. She had had enough to bear without that.

‘Oh?’ Nell kept her eyes on the car ahead as they inched towards a busy junction. Naturally, she was pleased to know that P.J. hadn’t been heartbroken, but surely he ought to have had some regrets?

Or had he been wanting to end things himself, so that her decision had come as a huge relief? For some reason, that thought was worse than feeling guilty about the way she had hurt him.

‘You were right, too,’ P.J. told her, one eye on the traffic, the other on Nell’s suddenly rigid profile. ‘We’d been together too long, and our relationship was stale. It was time for us to be braver and get out there on our own. If we’d got married then, we would have been tied down with a mortgage and babies straight away. We would never have gone to Africa or done all those things we’d planned to do, would we? We’d still be there, regretting the opportunities we’d missed, and resenting each other for it. I certainly don’t think I’d have taken the risks I did to start my company if I’d had a family to think about.’

They had made it to the junction, and P.J. waited, looking for an opportunity to cut across the traffic. Nell studied him sideways under her lashes as he concentrated on driving. The set of his jaw was achingly familiar, and the line of his cheek and the curl of his mouth made her feel hollow inside.

He could have been hers. They could have spent the last sixteen years loving and laughing. They could have gone to Africa, and taken any babies with them. They would have been able to do anything as long as they were together. It wouldn’t have had to end in bitterness and resentment the way P.J. thought it would.

‘So you think it all worked out for the best?’ she asked.

CHAPTER THREE

AN ONCOMING car flashed its lights, and P.J. pulled out, easing the car in the long line of traffic and lifting a hand in acknowledgement. ‘Yes, I do.’ He glanced at Nell. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’m sure you’re right about us,’ she said quickly, in case he thought she had more regrets about their broken engagement than he did.

‘But?’ he prompted.

Nell sighed. ‘But when your marriage ends in a mess, it’s hard sometimes to think that it was all for the best.’

‘I can imagine,’ said P.J., contrite. He hesitated. ‘Does it still hurt?’

‘About Simon?’

He nodded, keeping his eyes firmly on the road ahead.

‘Not really. Not now. At the time it was horrible,’ she told him, surprised at how easily she had slipped back into the way of talking to P.J. about the things she would normally keep to herself. ‘But by the end it was just such a relief not to have to pretend and argue anymore.

‘I didn’t want Clara to grow up with us shouting at each other,’ she said, remembering how Simon had lied and blustered and finally left. ‘It wasn’t how I imagined having a family,’ she went on a little sadly. ‘I’d dreamt about giving my children a loving home with two parents but…well, it didn’t work out like that, and I think it’s better this way. At least Clara has a “normal” life when she’s with Simon and Elaine.’

‘How often does she see her father?’ asked P.J. after a while.

‘Not as often as she needs.’ Nell watched a young man walking along the pavement, a small boy perched, delighted, on his shoulders. The sight of a father being tender and loving with his children always gave her a pang, thinking about how uninterested Simon had been with Clara.

‘Simon’s not a cruel father. He pays his maintenance for Clara on time, and he does his duty by her…but that’s just what it feels like, a duty. It’s as if she’s a tiresome obligation now that he’s got a new family. And I don’t think Elaine feels comfortable with Clara. She’s always changing the arrangements when Clara is due to go over there, and they never include her in their family holidays.’

‘That’s hard,’ commented P.J.

‘I don’t mind not being part of Simon’s life anymore,’ Nell tried to explain, ‘but I do mind for Clara. She’s always been an incredibly sensible child and she never complains, but she’s only ten.’

‘I can’t imagine having a daughter like Clara and not wanting to spend as much time with her as possible,’ said P.J., stopping at a pedestrian crossing.

‘I know. That’s why I-’ Nell caught herself up just in time. She had been about to tell P.J. about her efforts to find a man who would be a better male influence in Clara’s life, but that would be taking confidences a bit too far. P.J. had only been back in her life for a matter of minutes, and a girl had her pride, after all.

‘Why you what?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

P.J. sent her an uncomfortably searching glance. ‘You’ve never thought about marrying again?’

Nell had never liked his habit of being able to follow her train of thought even when she was trying to be her most inscrutable.

Nell thought about asking him if he had any idea how difficult it was to find someone new when you were in your thirties, and had a child, and couldn’t afford to go out, and in any case were too dog-tired after working all day and then looking after your daughter to dream about anything more exciting than a hot bath and an early night. And that was before you started looking at the single men who were available!