“I…” I swallow. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” he echoes incredulously. “I’m reacting to this! You didn’t answer any of my calls, I had no bloody idea what was going on…. ‘Meet me at the top of the Oxo Tower.’” He shakes the letter at me. “What is all this crap?”

Crap?

“It’s not crap!” I cry, stung. “I was trying to save our marriage, in case you hadn’t realized—”

“Save our marriage?” He stares at me. “At the Oxo Tower?”

“It works in films! You were supposed to turn up, and it was all supposed to be lovely, like in Sleepless in Seattle.…”

My voice is thickening with disappointment. I so thought it was going to work. I so thought he was going to be there, and we’d run into each other’s arms, and be a happy family again.

“OK, I’m obviously missing something.” Luke is frowning down at the letter again. “This letter doesn’t even make sense. ‘I know you had an——’ Blank. What did I have? An embolism?”

He’s mocking me. I can’t bear it.

“An affair!” I yell. “An affair! Your affair with Venetia! I know about it, remember? And I just thought maybe you wanted to give our marriage another shot, but obviously not, so please just go. I have a Vogue shoot to do.” I brush angrily at my tear-filled eyes.

“My what?” He seems genuinely shell-shocked. “Becky, you’re joking.”

“Yeah, right.” I make to close the door, but he grabs my wrist hard.

“Stop.” Luke’s voice is like thunder. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. I get this letter out of the blue…you’re accusing me of having an affair…. You can’t run away without explaining.”

Has he moved in to a parallel universe? Did someone hit him over the head or something?

“You admitted it yourself, Luke!” I practically shriek in frustration. “You said you’d been trying to ‘protect’ me, because of my blood pressure or whatever. Remember that?”

Luke’s eyes are scanning my face, back and forth, as though searching for answers.

“The conversation we had in the hospital,” he says suddenly. “Before I left.”

“Yes! Does it all come flooding back now?” I can’t help sounding sarcastic. “You were planning to tell me after the baby. You were going to see how things ‘played out.’ You basically admitted it—”

“I wasn’t talking about having a fucking affair!” Luke explodes. “I was talking about the crisis situation with Arcodas!”

“I…” The wind is instantly taken out of my sails. “Wh-what?”

I suddenly notice two children standing on the pavement, staring at us. I guess we do look quite conspicuous, what with my huge bump and everything.

“Let’s adjourn inside,” I say in dignified tones. Luke follows my gaze.

“Right. Yes. Let’s…do that.”

He steps into the house and I close the door. For a moment there’s silence in the hall. I don’t know what to say. I feel totally thrown.

“Becky…I don’t know what wrong end of what stick you’ve got hold of.” Luke exhales long and hard. “There’s been some trouble at work and I’ve been trying to shield you from it. But I’m not having an affair. With Venetia?”

“But she told me you were.”

Luke looks astounded. “She can’t have done.”

“She did! She said you were leaving me for her. She said—” I bite my lip. It’s too painful to remember everything Venetia said.

“This is just…bloody…madness.” Luke shakes his head in exasperation. “I don’t know what kind of conversation you had with Venetia, what kind of…crossed wires or misinformation….”

“So you’re saying nothing’s been going on between you? Nothing at all?”

Luke clutches his hair, closing his eyes briefly. “Why would you think anything was going on?”

“Why?” I stare up at him. “Luke, are you serious? Where do I start? All those times you’ve gone out with her, just you and her. All those texts in Latin, which you wouldn’t tell me about. And everyone was so weird toward me at the office…and I saw you sitting together on her desk…and you lied, the night of the Finance Awards….” My voice is starting to wobble. “I knew you weren’t really there….”

“I lied because I didn’t want to worry you!” Luke sounds more fraught and angry than I’ve ever heard him. “My staff were weird to you at the office because I’d sent round an e-mail saying that nobody, but nobody, was to mention the company problems to you. On pain of being fired. Becky…I’ve been trying to protect you.”

I have a sudden flashback to him, sitting at his desk in the gloom, his brow creased. That was weeks ago. He’s been moody and absent ever since.

But then why would Venetia have said…

Why would she have…

“She told me you were leaving me for her.” My voice is really jumping around now. “She said you’d still want to visit the baby.” I give a sudden sob.

“Leaving you? Becky, come here.” Luke wraps his arms tightly around me, and all of a sudden I’m burying my head in his chest, tears streaming into his shirt. “I love you,” he says firmly. “I’m never leaving you. Or little Birkin.”

How did he…

Oh. He must have found my list of names.

“It’s Armageddon now,” I correct him, through my snuffles. “Or Pomegranate. That’s what I told your mother.”

“Excellent. I hope she passed out.”

“Nearly.” I try to smile, but I can’t. It’s all still too raw. I’ve had weeks and weeks of worrying and imagining and fearing the worst. I can’t just snap my fingers and act normal again.

“I thought I was going to be a single mother.” I gulp. “I thought you loved her. I didn’t know why you were being so weird. It’s been awful. If you had problems at work you should have told me.”

“I know I should.” He’s silent for a bit, resting his chin on my head. “To be honest, Becky…it’s been nice to have somewhere to escape from it all.”

I lift my head up and study Luke. He looks grim. And tired. It suddenly hits me. He looks really, really tired.

“What’s been going on?” I wipe my face. “What’s the trouble? You have to tell me now.”

“Arcodas,” he says shortly.

“But I thought it was all going so well,” I say, confused. “I thought that’s why you were opening the new offices.”

“I wish I’d never fucking pitched for them.” He sounds so bleak, I feel a thud of dread.

“Luke…what’s happened?” I say nervously. “Let’s sit down.” I make my way into Fabia’s sitting room and sink into a squashy suede sofa.

“A load of things,” says Luke, following me. He raises his eyebrows briefly at the B and L cushions, then sits down, resting his head in his hands. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do. I want to know everything. From the start.”

“It’s been a nightmare.” He turns his face toward me. “The main nightmare being a harassment claim.”

“Harassment?” I gape at him.

“Sally-Ann Davies. Remember her?”

“Of course.” I nod. “What happened?”

Sally-Ann has worked for the company ever since I’ve known Luke. She’s quite reserved, but really sweet and reliable.

“There were…incidents between her and Iain. She says he came on to her in an aggressive, unpleasant manner. She made a complaint. Which he laughed off.”

“God, how awful,” I breathe. “So…what did you…”

“I believe Sally-Ann one hundred percent.” Luke sounds totally resolute.

I’m silent. My mind has flashed back to the manila file from Dave Sharpness’s office. The dossier he collected on Iain. All those hushed-up cases.

Should I tell Luke?

No. Not unless I have to. It would raise so many awkward questions, and he might get angry when he hears what I did. Anyway, I shredded everything in the file, so I haven’t even got the evidence anymore.

“Yes,” I say slowly. “I’d believe her too. So…what did Iain say?”

“Nothing that I’d care to repeat.” Luke’s face is tight. “He accused her of inventing the story to get a promotion. His opinion of women is pretty unspeakable.”

I frown, trying to think back over the past weeks. “Was that when you couldn’t come to my prenatal class?”

“That was the start of it, yes.” He massages his brow. “Becky, I couldn’t tell you. Believe me, I wanted to, but I knew how upset you’d get. And Venetia had just told me you needed to stay calm.”

Stay calm. Yup, that plan really worked.

“So what happened?”

“Sally-Ann was incredibly generous-spirited about it. She said she wouldn’t take it any further if she could be moved to another account. Which obviously we did. But the whole company was upset by it.” He sighs. “To be honest, Arcodas have been difficult to work with, right from the start.”

“Iain’s awful, isn’t he?” I say bluntly.

“It’s not just him.” Luke shakes his head. “The whole ethos. They’re bullies, all of them.” A shadow passes over his face. “And now…it’s happened again.”

“With Sally-Ann?”

Luke shakes his head. “Amy Hill, one of our assistants, was reduced to tears by another of the Arcodas team. He got violently angry and she said she felt physically threatened.”

“You’re kidding.”

“They walk round my company like they bloody own it.” He exhales sharply, as though trying to keep a grip on himself. “I called a meeting and requested that the member of Arcodas staff in question apologize to Amy.”

“And did he?”

“No.” Luke’s face twists. “He wants her fired.”

“Fired?” I’m aghast.

“His story is, she’s incompetent, and if she could get the job done he wouldn’t need to get tough. Meanwhile, all my staff are up in arms. They’re writing me e-mails of protest, refusing to touch the Arcodas account, threatening to resign….” Luke thrusts his hands through his hair, looking totally beleaguered. “Like I said, it’s a nightmare.”