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the rest of the afternoon. But since she wasn’t Izzy, and because she was quite incapable of casting off her own worries, as darkness had fallen so she had sunk back into depression. Women like Izzy simply didn’t understand what it was like, not being able to stop thinking about disaster, Gina had realised miserably, whereas she was constantly haunted by reminders of Andrew.
     
    And then at eight-thirty that evening, quite unexpectedly, Andrew had arrived at the house and she didn’t need to imagine him any more because he was there in the flesh, achingly familiar and even more achingly businesslike.
     
    ‘We have to discuss the financial aspects of all this,’ he told Gina, refusing with a shake of his head her offer of a drink and opening his briefcase with a brisk flick of his thumb. He wasn’t quite meeting her eyes and a fresh spasm of grief caught in her chest. Handle this with a shrug and a smile, Izzy Van Asch, she thought savagely. It was no good, it couldn’t be done. When it was the husband you loved in front of you it wasn’t humanly possible.
     
    ‘We don’t have to,’ she had wailed. ‘You could come back. I forgive you . . .’
     
    Even as the words were spilling out she had been despising herself for her weakness. And they hadn’t worked anyway. Andrew had given her a pitying look and launched into a speech he had prepared earlier, the upshot being that Gina was going to have to realise that money didn’t grow on trees. The house was hers, inherited from her parents, and he naturally had no intention of staking any kind of claim upon it, but the credit cards were no longer going to be fair game, always there to allow herself such little treats as new furniture, holidays in the sun and the latest designer outfits.
     
    ‘I’ve spoken to my solicitor,’ Andrew had explained, more gently now. ‘And I’ll be as fair as possible, but I have to warn you, Gina, I won’t be able to give you much at all. That flat of mine is costing an arm and a leg just to rent. And my solicitor says that, basically, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to get yourself a job—’
     
    ‘A job!’ shrieked Gina, horrified. ‘But I don’t work. My job is looking after my husband! Why should I have to suffer when I haven’t done anything wrong?’
     
    Andrew shrugged. ‘The law is the law. You don’t need me to support you. You have this house . . . Marvin suggested that you might like to take in lodgers.’
     
    The prospect was more than terrifying, it was unthinkable. When Andrew had - with undisguised relief - left the house thirty minutes later, Gina had made every effort not to think about it. By midnight she had come to the unhappy conclusion that pretending it wasn’t happening wasn’t going to make it go away. Andrew’s third suggestion, that she might sell the house, move into a small flat and live off the interest on the money saved, was out of the question. She had spent her entire life here and the future was going to be scary enough without having to uproot herself from the only home she had ever known.
     
    A job . . . the mere thought of it sent a shiver of apprehension through her. Apart from two terrible years spent ricocheting from one office to another in search of a job that was even semi-bearable, she had never worked. Andrew had burst into her life and she had abandoned the tedium of nine to five, office politics and fifteen-minute tea breaks without so much as a backward glance. The relief had been immeasurable; looking after a husband and a home was all she’d ever wanted to do, for ever and ever, amen . . .
     
    The very idea of allowing strangers into her house - lodgers, tenants, paying guests, call them what you will - was equally alarming. Pausing finally to consider this unpalatable option, Gina actually poured herself a vodka and tonic. Who hadn’t heard the horror stories, after all, of dubious, fraudulent, sinister and sometimes downright sex-crazed