CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I’M GOING to have an affair.’

      Pel had been running on the treadmill next to hers at an enviable pace, and with an extremely irritating lack of effort, but Freya was delighted to see that he missed his step at that. ‘You’re going to do what?’ he demanded as he recovered.

      Freya grinned, pleased at the impact of her deliberately casual announcement. ‘You heard.’

      ‘Who with?’

      ‘Dan Freer,’ she said as nonchalantly as she could between gasps for breath. She was new to the gym and had yet to master the art of using any of the machines without puffing and panting and generally teetering on the verge of collapse.

      ‘No!’ Pel stared at her, flatteringly impressed. ‘Not Dan Freer, as in ace reporter and owner of the coolest leather jacket on television?’

      ‘That’s the one.’

      He whistled soundlessly. ‘Well! When did all this happen?’

      ‘It hasn’t yet,’ Freya had to confess. ‘But it’s going to! I’ve decided that you and Lucy are right. It’s time to change my life, and seducing Dan Freer is the first step.’

      ‘What brought this on?’ asked Pel curiously, and Freya adjusted her speed to a walk so that she could talk properly.

      Of course, she knew she was supposed to be pushing herself to the limit, but it was a question of priorities, and she had to balance convincing Pel to support her new mission in life against the trim, taut, toned body she had been promised by the instructor who had set her the torture otherwise known as a fitness programme.

      ‘It’s my birthday next week,’ she told Pel, who was obsessive about keeping fit, and had barely broken into a sweat after running for twenty minutes. ‘I’m going to be twenty-seven. Only three more years and I’ll be thirty!’ she added melodramatically. ‘What’s going to happen to me after that?’

      ‘You’ll be thirty-one?’ suggested Pel. ‘Just a wild guess, of course!’

      Freya stuck out her tongue. ‘You know what I mean. It’ll be downhill all the way into middle age and before I know where I am I’ll be wearing a felt hat and keeping cats. I want to live a little before then! I’m stuck in a rut,’ she complained. ‘I never go anywhere. I never do anything. I never meet any men.’

      ‘You do meet men. Lucy and I are always trailing eligible types under your nose.’

      ‘Like who?’

      ‘Like Dominic. I know he’s an estate agent, but he couldn’t help that. He was clean and solvent, and he really liked you.’

      She stared at him. ‘How many estate agents called Dominic do you know, Pel? The one I met wasn’t the slightest bit interested in me!’

      ‘Yes, he was, but you never gave him any encouragement.’ Pel shook his head knowingly. ‘Your trouble is, you don’t read the signals right.’

      ‘So you and Lucy keep telling me,’ said Freya crossly. It was an old argument. ‘Anyway, he wasn’t my type. I know I said I was going to wait for Ben Affleck, but there’s no saying when he’ll be free, and in the meantime I want someone more exciting than an estate agent from Chigwell. I’m tired of being a good girl. I want to live dangerously for a change, and I’ve decided that Dan would be perfect for me.’

      Pel looked a little