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year and Gaby had time to let her mind wander. What was wrong with Luke this morning? Yesterday evening, once the storm with Heather had blown over, he’d been polite and, while not chatty, she’d thought they’d begun to form an acceptable sort of working relationship. Even outbursts of frustration were better than this stony silence. He seemed so distant.
    â€˜Straight on at the crossroads.’
    There it was again! That little edge in his voice that made it seem like an order and not a request. As she slowed to wait at the junction, she looked sideways at him. His face was blank and he was staring straight ahead.
    At least he wasn’t criticising her driving. David had always had something to say about how fast she was going. Well, how slow, to be exact. He always had an opinion on how things ought to be done. But he’d seemed so charming and knowledgeable in the early days of their relationship—and she’d been so young—that she’d deferred to him on everything. He’d been her husband, after all, and she’d wanted to make him happy.
    A little dig here, a cutting remark there, and David had moulded her into the image of the perfect corporate wife. And the really tragic thing was she’d let him, without hesitation or question, because she’d been so stupidly grateful a dashing young banker like him had even looked at her, let alone wanted to marry her.
    She suspected now he’d just seen her as a blank canvas. And when they’d separated she’d gone about changing herself, scrubbing away the traces of his influence on her.
    She’d lost quite a bit of weight. That had given her a grim satisfaction. David had always made little remarks about how she should get down the gym more. And now she dressed how she wanted to dress, in comfortable clothes, not a designer label or a gold earring in sight.
    She had never really loved him, she knew that now. She’d just been so terrified of losing him that she’d erased her own personality. And, in doing so, she’d paved the path to rejection herself. He’d run off with Cara, a career woman, who was exciting and intelligent and unconventional…All the things she wasn’t, according to David.
    She’d become a suburban version of Frankenstein’s monster. A patchwork person, put together with all the right bits in the right places, but somehow the life—the spirit—had been missing.
    Luke’s voice boomed in her ear. ‘I said, “Get into the right-hand lane.”’
    â€˜What?’ She came to and realised they’d reached the outskirts of a town. ‘Sorry. Must have drifted off.’ She didn’t look at him, but she could tell he was giving her a long hard stare. When he thought he’d made his point, he folded his arms and looked straight ahead.
    She turned right, following his directions, and managed to park near the town centre without further embarrassment. Luke unfolded his long frame from the passenger seat and got out, slamming the door as he did so. When she’d finished untangling her handbag strap from around the gear stick and joined him, she found him staring down the street.
    â€˜I’ll meet you back here in half an hour,’ he said and marched off without looking back.
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    He walked into the car park and spotted her leaning against the car, a crowd of shopping bags at her feet. She looked like so many of the other shoppers in her jeans and hooded jacket. If he hadn’t been looking out for her, he probably wouldn’t have given her a second glance. She looked quite ordinary.
    But he was looking out for her. And, as he looked more closely, he noticed something. Even without make-up and her hair scragged into a ponytail, she looked fresh and vibrant—not in the same way as Lucy, who’d been packed so full of restless energy she had hardly been able to contain it—but in the sense that she seemed full of