They always argued on the way to parties. She never could just relax, Simon would claim as he started the car. Not when they were already half an hour late, she couldn’t, no, she retorted, still fixing her hair in the passenger mirror.

It might have been the fact that she always seemed to be seated next to the bore. (She occasionally timed how long it took for a man to ask her what she did; her current record was a little under two hours.) It might have been the fact that she always seemed to be the designated driver. (This was never up for discussion—she would ask him, Who’s driving? And be met, inevitably, with a jokey look of horror and a confession that he’d already had several large ones.) But worse, this party was taking place in a tent, a fact she had remembered fifteen minutes after she finally left home. In gray satin stilettos.

“You okay if I drink?” Simon said as they pulled up in the gravel car park. “I drove last time, if you remember.”

Krista Nightingale (Beth always suspected she’d made up her name) was a life coach and former neighbor. No mundane dinner parties for her; her “gatherings” took place in disused fire stations or candlelit churches. She was always investigating new methods of detoxification or disappearing on freebie trips with rich clients. Simon had urged Beth to ask her how she might do the same (“You’re good at bossing people”), but Beth had never been any good at networking. It all seemed so calculating somehow, complimenting someone on her handbag while trying to plunder her address book.

“Wow,” said Simon, eyeing the crimson maharaja-style tent that spanned the length of Krista’s garden. Around it flower beds sat in full-blooming glory, wafting scent into the warm evening air. Chinese lanterns dangled from the trees, sending a soft red glow into the sunset.

“Burlap flooring,” Beth said despairingly.

“Oh, come on, love. Look on the bright side. It’s gorgeous!”

“Gorgeous if your heels aren’t going to sink into that ground like meat skewers.”

“Well, wear different shoes.”

“That might have been useful advice an hour ago.”

“You can borrow my shoes.”

“Funny.”

“Beth! Don’t you look gorgeous!” Krista picked her way across the matting. She was one of those women who moved effortlessly among people, collecting pieces of information that she then redistributed in perfectly appropriate parcels, like some kind of social Robin Hood.

“Everyone else is here. No, don’t worry! Don’t worry!” She waved a hand as Beth began to apologize. Beth stared at that perfectly untroubled brow and wondered about Botox. “The food is running late anyway. Here, let me get you both a drink.”

“I’ll sort us out. This looks absolutely amazing, Krista. Just point me toward the bar.” Simon kissed Krista’s cheek and disappeared. He would be there for a good half an hour, Beth thought. Picking at snacks.

And waiting for her bad mood to evaporate.

Krista was steering her into the tent. “You know the Chisholms, don’t you? And the McCarthys? Hmm. Oh, look,” she said. “Let me introduce you to Ben. He’s in the same line of work as you.”

And there he was, standing in front of her, slowly lifting a hand.

“Actually,” he said, as Beth’s mouth dried to powder, “we’ve already met.”

Her gaze slid sideways to where her husband was standing, picking his way through the Bombay mix. “Yes.” She looked at Krista and swallowed, recovering her smile. “We . . . we used to work together.”

Krista looked delighted. “Oh, really? What a coincidence! What did you do?”

“We used to put brochures together. I wrote the words, Ben did the images.”

“Until Beth left.”

“Yes. Until I left.”

They stared at each other for a moment. He looked exactly the same, she thought, no—better, damn it—and then she was suddenly aware of the redheaded woman beaming at her.

Ben’s gaze dropped briefly to his feet. “And this is my wife, Lisa.”

“Congratulations.” Her smile was swift and seamless. “When did you get married?”

“Eighteen months ago.”

“That was quick. I mean . . . you weren’t married when we worked together.”

“It was a whirlwind romance, wasn’t it, sweetie?” The woman slid her arm across his shoulder, just a hint of possession in the way her hand lingered on his collar.

Ben nodded. “And your husband? Are you . . .”

“Am I what? Still with him?” It was snappier than she’d intended. She half laughed, trying to make it seem like a joke.

“. . . here with him?”

She recovered. “Yes. Of course! He’s just over there. By the bar.”

His gaze landed just a little too long, assessing. “I don’t believe I ever met him.”

“No, I don’t believe you did.”

She felt Krista’s hand on her back. “We’ll be sitting down in two minutes. Will you excuse me while I see how the pakoras are doing? Beth, you’re not vegan, are you? I’m sure somebody said they were vegan. Because we have some curried tofu.”

“Nice to see you, Beth.” Ben was already turning away.

“You, too.” She kept her smile on her face the whole way across the room to Simon.

“I’ve got a headache.”

Simon threw a peanut into his mouth. “But I haven’t even got my pants off.”

“Funny. Do we really have to stay? I’d much rather go home.” She glanced around the crowded tent. As night fell, the smells of roses and freshly cut grass mingled with those of Indian spices. From his cross-legged position on a cushion in the corner, a man picked lush tunes on an ancient sitar. English people were no good at sitting on the floor, she thought absently. Not bendy enough. Across the room a man was wrapping a napkin around his head in a feeble facsimile of a turban, and she winced for him.

“I really have got a headache.”

Simon allowed the barman to refill his glass. “You’re just tired. We can’t walk out even before the food.” He gave her a squeeze and a quizzical look. “Just hang on another couple of hours. You’ll feel better once we eat.”

There was an empty seat on her left. She knew as soon as she saw the name carefully inscribed beside it that it had been inevitable.

“Oh,” he said when he saw it.

“Yes,” she said. “Lucky you.”

“Lucky both of us.”

Why had she agreed to come tonight? There’d been eighty-nine excuses she could have made, including the fact that she had rare medical conditions to investigate on Google, perhaps an afghan to crochet out of the cat’s sheddings. But how had she ended up within inches of this man—a man who not even two years earlier had turned her life inside out?

The man who had transformed her from invisible, unappreciated wife to sex goddess, flirtatious fox. Adulterer.

She swiveled determinedly toward the florid man on her right. “So,” she began, “what is it that you do? Tell me everything about yourself. Everything!”

Even before she finished her starter, Beth knew everything she was ever going to need to know about damp-proofing, about polymer-modified plastering and water ingress. Not that she had really registered much that the large man said anyway; her every sense was trained on Ben on her left, on Ben laughing, talking to the woman beside him.

But then, after a series of involved observations about ultramembranes and cavity walls, Henry the Damp-Proof Consultant decamped to have a cigarette in the garden, and it was just the two of them, marooned on their part of the table.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, gazing at the flower arrangements.

“Lovely party.”

“Yes.”

“You look well,” he said.

“Thank you.” She wished she had worn the red dress. Why hadn’t she worn the red dress?

“Are you working?” he asked.

“Yes. A small marketing company in town. You?”

“I’m still at Farnsworth’s.”

“I see.”

They lapsed back into silence while a teenage waitress self-consciously handed them fresh plates.

Beth refilled her glass. “Congratulations. On getting married.”

“Thank you. It was unexpected.”

“You make it sound like an accident.” She took a large slug of wine.

“No. Just unexpected, as I said. I didn’t think I was going to get involved with anyone. Not for a long time.”

“No. You never were a big one for commitment, were you?”

She felt his eyes on her and flushed. Shut up, she told herself. Simon is only a matter of feet away.

His voice dropped to a murmur. “Are we really going to do this?”

Beth felt a kind of recklessness building within her. How many times had she wanted to have this conversation? How many times had she rehearsed all the things she wanted to say to him? When they had sat down at the table, she’d half expected him to simply get up and leave. How could he sit there eating and drinking and behave as if nothing had happened after all?

“You really want to get into this now, Beth?”

She lifted her glass. Her husband was laughing at something Krista was saying. He looked over and winked at her.

“Why not?” she said, waving back. “It’s only been two years. I figure that’s a pretty decent period of time to put off an argument.”

“It’s funny.” He spoke through a rictus grin. “I don’t remember you being this angry.”

“Angry?” she said sarcastically. “Why would I be angry?”

“I don’t know. Especially as, if I remember correctly, you were the one who made all the decisions.”

“Decisions?”

Ben leaned a little closer to her. “Not to meet me? Not even to discuss what we had promised to discuss?”

“Not to meet you?” She turned and stared at him. “Are we talking about the same relationship?”

“Beth, darling, would you mind passing the wine?” Krista’s voice broke across the conversation.

She held it up abruptly as if she had won a prize. “Certainly,” she said, her voice unnaturally loud.

“The day you left,” he hissed beside her, “you were going to meet me in the Old Hen, so that we could discuss our future. And you never even turned up. I knew you were having trouble working things out, but not a call, not an explanation? Nothing?”

“The Old Hen?”

Krista’s voice again. “And the white? Sorry, darling. Just can’t reach from here.”

“Sure!” She leaned forward with the chilled bottle.

“And you knew I couldn’t reach you once you had handed in your work phone. What was I supposed to think? Don’t you believe that after everything we’d been through, everything we’d promised each other, that I deserved a little more than just a no-show?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It was the Coach and Horses. We were due to meet at the Coach and Horses. And you were the one who didn’t turn up.”

Their eyes locked.

Lisa appeared between them. Beth noticed, with vague satisfaction, that Ben flinched slightly at her hand on his shoulder. “What did you think of the lentil pâté, darling?”

“Delicious!” His smile landed on his face like it had been dropped there.

“I thought you’d enjoy that. Krista’s going to give me the recipe.”

“Great!”

There was a brief, awkward silence.

Lisa nodded wryly. “Business, eh? It’s okay . . . you two can get back to your marketing discussions now. I’m trying to locate the ladies’.”

“Over there.” Beth pointed through the crowd of people. “In the main house.”

“The Coach and Horses?” Ben repeated as his wife disappeared.

The rice had arrived in front of Beth. She passed it to Ben, feeling an electric jolt as their hands made contact. “Two hours I waited.”

They stared at each other. For a moment the tent disappeared. She was there on a wet Thursday, weeping into her sleeve in an empty pub.

“Did I hear you two talking about pubs?” Henry had arrived back on her right.

“Yes.” She swallowed. “The Coach and Horses.”

“Oh, I know that one. Up by the ring road, isn’t it? Isn’t it quite busy?”

Her eyes met Ben’s. “Not as busy as some of us would like, apparently.”

“Shame. A lot of pubs seem to be headed that way around here. It’s the landlords, you know. Charge them extortionate amounts. They’ll put them all out of business.”

They sat and ate the main course, something containing chicken breast. She didn’t know.

She could no longer taste anything.

“Do you want some more wine?”

She watched his hand as he poured, remembering how much she had loved the shape of his fingers. Perfect men’s hands, long, strong fingers with squared-off ends, lightly tanned as if they’d been working outside. She had always compared her own husband’s unfavorably to them and hated herself for doing so.

“I don’t know what to say,” he told her.

“There’s nothing to say. You’re married, I’m married. We’ve moved on.”

She felt the faintest pressure and realized with shock that it was his thigh against hers.

“Have you?” he said quietly, and the words went through her like a seismic tremor. “Really?”

She had eaten half a chocolate mousse, and the coffee cups were empty in front of them. She fingered her wineglass, watching as Ben’s redheaded wife talked animatedly to a group of people at the other end of the long table. That could have been me, Beth thought.

“All this time,” Ben said quietly, “both of us believing the other had bailed out.” His leg was still resting against hers. She didn’t like to think how she would feel when it was taken away.

“I just figured you’d tired of my indecision.”

“I’d waited the best part of a year. I would have waited another.”

“You never said that.”

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to.”

She had grieved for him. Privately, hiding it from her unsuspecting husband. Tears in the bath or in the car, tears of loss for what might have been and of guilt for what had been. But even then with a vague relief that a decision had been reached. She was not naturally a duplicitous person; this thing had left her incapable of concentrating on anything—work, house, family. And the prospect of breaking Simon’s heart had been almost too much to bear.

Ben leaned in toward her, his eyes trained on the dance floor. “What do you think would have happened to us?”

She kept her own eyes straight ahead. Her husband was talking to Krista. They broke off briefly to laugh at someone who had fallen from his chair.

“I think . . . speculating on that is the road to madness.”

His voice was a low murmur. “I think we would be together now.”

She closed her eyes.

“In fact, I know it.”

She turned to look at him. His eyes were soft, searching, terrifying.

“Nobody ever made me feel like you do,” he said.

The world stalled around her. She felt her blood rising, her heart race. Two years fell away.

Then she looked up, and as she did, she saw Lisa at the other end of the table. Lisa had turned from the group of people and was watching them both, her expression briefly unguarded, bearing the tense weariness of the constantly vigilant. She smiled awkwardly at Beth, then looked down at the table. Beth felt the color rise to her cheeks.

Yes. That could have been me.

She looked over at her husband, laughing. Unaware. Blameless. We’re doing okay, aren’t we? he’d said the previous Sunday evening. Uncharacteristically, he had studied her face as he said it. She took a sip of her drink and sat very still for a moment. Then she stood, feeling for her handbag at her feet.

“Beth?”

“It was good to see you, Ben,” she said.

Incomprehension flickered across his face. “You never told me where you worked,” he said hurriedly. Henry the Damp-Proofer sat a short distance away, nodding in time to the music.

“Maybe . . . we could have lunch sometime? We’ve hardly begun to catch up.”

She looked over again at Lisa. She put her hand gently on his arm, just for a moment. “I don’t think so,” she said. “We’ve both moved on, haven’t we?.”

“I’m sorry—what did you say you did?” Henry called out as she left the table.

Simon was standing near the bar, picking his way through what remained of the canapés. He would be searching for cashew nuts, his favorites. He found one and held it aloft like a prize before tossing it into his mouth. She realized she’d never seen him miss.

“Let’s go home,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“Still tired?”

“Actually, I thought we could have an early night.”

“Early night?” He glanced at his watch. “At a quarter past twelve?”

“Gift horse, mister,” she said.

“Ah. I’m not looking. Promise.” He smiled, helping her on with her jacket.

Perhaps she imagined, rather than really saw, the way he glanced behind him at where she’d been sitting, a flicker of something unreadable on his face. But with her husband’s arm around her, just enough to stop her heels from sinking too far into the matting, Beth made her way carefully through the tables to the entrance of the tent and home.