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with Joe, Sasha was fed up. She had been single long enough, had wasted too much time looking for a man like Joe, without the attachments. It had taken thirty-three years, and finally she had figured out that men like Joe – attractive, intelligent, good sense of humour, bucketloads of money – were never unattached. She would simply have to steal her man away from somebody else. What else could she do?
    She took Jerry Hall’s words to heart, becoming a cook in the kitchen, a maid in the living-room, and a whore in the bedroom. Joe had never had sex like it: she would do anything, anywhere, at any time. At first it was as addictive as a drug – the sex, then the food, and all completely under his control, she was entirely at his beck and call.
    And when Sasha knew he was hooked, she started exerting pressure, not much, just enough to show Joe she meant business. A few dangerous text messages. The odd phone-call at home to hear his voice, blocking her number first for the couple of occasions when Alice would pick up and Sasha would have to put the phone down. Love notes hidden in his coat pockets in the hope that Alice would find them.
    Alice didn’t find them. Joe did. He was furious. This wasn’t part of the deal, he told her in a rage, trying hard to disguise it for fear of causing further damage. She knew he wasn’t going to leave his wife, how could they possibly continue when Sasha had breached his trust like this?
    Sasha realized immediately that she had overstepped the mark by leaving the love notes in his pocket, and she tried to apologize, to persuade him to carry on, promised she wouldn’t do it again, but Joe couldn’t take the chance.
    Some men might have been put off by such a close shave, and Joe was, temporarily, shocked into being the faithful husband. For a while. He was home every night by eight o’clock, and when he phoned to say he would be late because he was in a meeting, he was in a meeting.
    He went away on business and stayed in the best hotels, and met clients in the bar for a drink, wined and dined them, then went back to his room, on his own, and phoned Alice just before climbing into bed to tell her how much he loved her.
    Then during a trip to Denmark he met Inge, a waitress at the coffee shop next to the hotel. He met her on the first day, and was in bed with her by the third. A business trip doesn’t count, he told himself, pushing away the guilt, as long as I don’t do anything in London, on my home turf.
    That lasted precisely four more months.
    And now his latest is Valerie. Valerie who is sophisticated enough not to be taken in by his charm, who is dangerous enough to have her own agenda, to want to play games just to see what kind of reaction she can incur.
    He knows that on one level Valerie is a safe choice. Far too experienced a woman, a lover, a mistress, to believe that sex is anything other than sex, she would not actually do anything to seriously jeopardize his marriage, he knows, but Alice is not stupid, and until last night, when Valerie turned up at the restaurant to play a little mind fuck, Joe had not realized quite how close to the wind she was prepared to sail.
    Joe is much more careful now about the women he chooses, but clearly not quite careful enough. And then, at times like this, when he is nearly caught, when he is shocked into realizing quite how much he stands to lose should Alice ever discover his affairs, he vows to stop, to settle down and become a proper husband again.
    *
    ‘Valerie.’ He gazes down at her, knowing that this is the last time he will sleep with her. ‘I can’t do this any more.’
    ‘I thought you might say that.’ Valerie reaches over and grabs her robe, for as hard and ruthless as she may be, the prospect of being dumped while naked makes her instantly vulnerable, and she needs to cover herself for protection. ‘And was it because I turned up last night? Or were you growing bored with me?’ She isn’t upset, merely curious,