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wear jeans and a little top, but what if I do that and he thinks it means I don't like him?'
        'Can't risk that. Go for it,' Stella pronounced. 'Get the dress.' She turned to Erin and said, 'Amy's being taken out to dinner tonight. By Jack Lucas.'
        'Gosh. Lovely.'
        'I'm so nervous!' Amy's eyes sparkled as she did an excited twirl in front of the mirror. 'I won't be able to eat a thing! I can't believe it's actually happening!'
        Erin couldn't think why she couldn't believe it; when you'd been out with as many girls as Jack Lucas had, it was hard to find someone who hadn't been one of his conquests. In fact she, Erin, was practically the only female she knew who hadn't been there, done that. Then again, she'd never been tempted; it was far more entertaining to stand back and let all the other girls do their moths around-a-flame thing, and to watch them crash and burn.
        For the female inhabitants of Roxborough, it was practically their number-one pastime.
        'I'll take it,' said Amy, dancing back into the cubicle to change out of the dress.
        'See, if Fergus looked like Jack Lucas, I could understand him doing what he's done.' Stella shook her head in disbelief as she draped a pale turquoise scarf experimentally around her neck. 'But how does he have the nerve to do it when he looks like Fergus?'
        'Maybe he'll change his mind and come crawling back,' Amy offered.
        'That's what I've been waiting for! But it's been six months now and he still hasn't! You go to the Fox sometimes, don't you?'
        Her skin prickling, Erin realized this question was being directed at her. Unwillingly, she looked up from the computer screen. 'Sometimes.'
        'Have you heard any rumors about my husband? Any gossip, any signs that he's seeing another woman?'
        Erin's mouth was dry. 'No. No, I don't think so.'
        Stella's immaculately shaped eyebrows rose slightly. 'You don't think so?'
        'I mean no, definitely, no signs, nothing.'
        Stella gave a nod of satisfaction. 'He'd better not be. For God's sake, he's trying to ruin my life. I deserve so much more than to be treated like this. Talk about selfish. I mean, how old are you, Erin?'
        What? Why? For a moment Erin's own age escaped her.
        'Thirty-three?' Stella hazarded. 'Thirty-five?'
        Ouch.
        'Actually I'm twenty-eight,' said Erin.
        'Oh. I thought you were older than that. And I know I look young for my age but I'm thirty-seven. Thirty seven ! We were supposed to be starting a family this year, and my husband's had some kind of bizarre mental breakdown and buggered off instead. Meanwhile my fertility is declining. Ooh, it just makes me so mad . There should be a law against men being allowed to do this to women.'
        'Quick, I didn't realize it was nearly two o'clock.' Bursting out of the cubicle, Amy frantically waved the Nicole Farhi dress at Erin and scrabbled for her credit card. 'I've got an appointment at the hairdresser's in five minutes. Can't meet Jack Lucas tonight without having my roots touched up!'
        Two minutes later they were gone. Erin could breathe again. Breathe, but not relax, because the dilemma currently tearing her in two was still inescapably there.
        Fergus was the best thing that had happened to her in years; he was the light of her life. Currently, he was the first thing she thought of when she woke up in the morning and the last thing she thought of at night.
        But nothing was ever simple, was it? Because Fergus had spent the last eleven years being married to Stella, and although he was now desperate to put those years behind him and divorce her, Stella was digging her heels in, still unable to grasp the concept that he might not change his mind and go back to her.
        The irony was that although she had known them both for years, ever since she'd moved back to Roxborough, in all that time Erin had never,