Chapter One

      Fear and bewilderment mingled in Ed’s soft brown eyes as we faced each other in the garden. I stared at him, vibrant with indignation, then slowly drew back my right arm.

      ‘Take that!’ I shouted as a Wedgwood Kutani Crane seven-inch tea plate went whizzing past his left ear and smashed into the garden wall. ‘And that!’ I yelled as he raised his hands to fend off first the matching saucer, then the cup. ‘You can have these too!’ I spat as I frisbeed three dinner plates in his direction. ‘And this!’ I bawled as the accompanying soup tureen flew through the air.

      ‘Rose!’ Ed shouted, dodging bits of projectile china. ‘Rose, stop this nonsense!’

      ‘No!’

      ‘What on earth do you hope to achieve?’

      ‘Emotional satisfaction,’ I spat. Ed successfully deflected the gravy boat and a couple of pudding bowls. I lobbed the milk jug at him and it shattered into shrapnel as it hit the path.

      ‘For God’s sake Rose – this stuff’s bloody expensive!’

      ‘Yes!’ I said gaily. ‘I know!’ I picked up our wedding photo in its silver frame and flung that at him, hard. He ducked, and it hit the tree behind him, the glass splintering into shining shards. I stood there, breathless with exertion and raised adrenaline as he picked up the dented frame. In that picture we looked radiantly happy. It had been taken just seven months before.

      ‘It’s no-one’s fault,’ he said. ‘These things happen.’

      ‘Don’t give me that crap!’ I yelled.

      ‘But I was so unhappy Rose. I was miserable. I couldn’t cope with coming second to your career.’

      ‘But my career matters to me,’ I said as I slashed the matrimonial duvet with my biggest Sabatier. ‘Anyway it’s not just a career, it’s a vocation. They need me, those people out there.’

      ‘But I needed you too,’ he whined as a cloud of goose-down swirled through the air. ‘I didn’t see why I had to compete with all those losers!’

      ‘Ed!’ I said, ‘that’s low!’

      ‘Desperate of Dagenham!’

      ‘Stop it!’

      ‘Betrayed of Barnsley.’

      ‘Don’t be mean!’

      ‘Agoraphobic of Aberystwyth.’

      ‘That’s so nasty.’

      ‘There was never any room for me!’

      As I gazed at Ed, the knife dropped to my side and I caught my breath, once again, at his looks. He was so utterly, ridiculously good-looking. The handsomest