CHAPTER ONE

      IT WASN’T BECAUSE of lack of opportunity for there had been plenty of them.

      In fact, here was one now!

      A late spring storm had come from nowhere and lit up the London sky.

      Adele stood at the bus stop across the road from the Accident and Emergency department, where she had just finished working a late shift. The rain battered the shelter and she would probably be better off standing behind it. Her white dress, which was not designed to get wet, clung to her and had shrunk to mid-thigh and her shoulder-length blond hair was plastered to her head.

      She wore no mascara so she was safe there—Adele wouldn’t be greeting Zahir with panda eyes.

      It was ten at night and she could see the blinkers on his silver sports car as he drove out of the hospital, turned right and drove towards her.

      Surely now? Adele thought, as she stepped out from the supposed shelter just to make sure that she could be seen.

      Surely any decent human being who saw a colleague standing shivering and wet at a bus stop, caught in a sudden storm, would slow down and offer them a lift home.

      And when he did Adele would smile and say, ‘Thank you,’ and get into the car. Zahir would see her clinging dress and wonder how the hell he had not noticed the junior nurse in that way before.

      And she would forgive him for a year of rudely ignoring her. Finally alone, they would make conversation and as they pulled up at her flat...