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Kathryn’s eyes. ‘What was so important that it couldn’t wait?’
    Over several days Kathryn had spent countless hours constructing the conversation that she was about to have. The smart, witty opening. The sombre, brooding revelation. The chirpy, I don’t really care much at all breezing through of the details. Now, in the moment, she found that she could not speak. Instead, she looked down at her left hand.
    Ally’s gaze flicked down to the same hand and she gasped. ‘No!’
    Kathryn nodded.
    ‘When?’
    Kathryn shrugged.
    ‘Why?’
    Kathryn took another sip of her latte.
    ‘How?’
    Kathryn finally found her voice again. ‘He doesn’t know yet. I keep the ring on when we’re together.’
    Ally’s face folded in upon itself as one hand flew to her mouth. ‘ You’re leaving him ?’
    ‘You don’t have to say it like it’s so ridiculous.’
    ‘But, I mean, for Christ’s sake Kathryn it’s Stephen !’
    ‘I know who it is.’
    Kathryn’s quiet response carried far more weight than she had intended. So much for the carefully imagined responses and elegantly cultivated demeanour she had believed would be required to reveal the greatest catastrophe of her life. In truth, the revelation itself was enough.
    Ally’s hand reached out and held Kathryn’s. ‘What happened?’
    Kathryn sucked in a breath, felt it quiver slightly as her resolve began to crumble. She swallowed hard and held the grief at bay as she replied.
    ‘Stephen is seeing somebody else,’ she said.
    ‘Oh my God,’ Ally uttered. Her grip on Kathryn’s hand tightened. ‘You’re sure?’
    Kathryn nodded. ‘One hundred per cent certain. I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about it otherwise.’
    ‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ Ally acknowledged, her brow furrowed as she examined Kathryn’s features. ‘You want to tell me about it? In your own time, of course. Just tell me what happened, from the beginning.’
    Kathryn hid behind her latte for a few moments more and then spoke quietly.
    ‘I found a key in Stephen’s belongings, when I was searching for some of my own stuff after we moved into the apartment. Stephen has this little lock–box, and he never really spoke about it to me before but it was always just around in his apartment, before we moved in together. I guess I figured it was personal to him, and maybe he’d talk about what was in it at some point.’
    Ally’s eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. ‘You opened it, didn’t you?’
    It was strange, how although Kathryn had herself been wronged she still felt somewhat ashamed at having betrayed Stephen’s trust. The little mahogany box with its brass lock had always been sitting somewhere in Stephen’s apartment, on a mantelpiece or in a cupboard, never hidden and yet its contents never revealed either.
    ‘I knew the key looked about right for the box, so I opened it,’ she confirmed.
    ‘What was inside?’ Ally asked, leaning forward a little, her drink forgotten.
    Kathryn sighed softly, staring at the table as she spoke.
    ‘Jewellery,’ she said, ‘women’s jewellery, and a lock of hair. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but none of the jewellery matched so it belonged to different women. I thought maybe that it all belonged to his mother, but Stephen’s an orphan so I couldn’t be sure and I didn’t want to ask. I knew that it could be something innocent, but it got me thinking.’
    Ally nodded. ‘So you started digging?’
    Kathryn nodded. ‘Stephen travels a lot and I realised that some of his travel costs don’t quite add up.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Gasoline,’ Kathryn explained. ‘Sometimes he drives long distances to business meetings that last days, but the money he spends on gas doesn’t cover the distances so he can’t have travelled that far.’
    Ally frowned. ‘Maybe he gets driven by other people while he’s there?’
    Kathryn smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s where I went with it for a couple of months.’
    ‘A couple of