Alice’s stomach performed an elaborate somersault and landed with a resounding splat, leaving her with a sick feeling that horrified her. ‘Will’s got a family?’ she asked in involuntary dismay. She sat up and swung her feet to the warm tiles so that she could stare at Beth. ‘Are you sure?’

Beth nodded, obviously surprised at Alice’s reaction. ‘He had his little girl with him. She was very cute.’

Will had a daughter. Alice struggled to assimilate the idea of him as a father, as a husband.

Why was she so surprised? Surely-surely, Alice-you didn’t expect him to stay loyal to your memory, did you? she asked herself.

Why on earth would he? She had refused him. End of story. Of course he would have moved on and made a life of his own, just as she had done. It wasn’t as if she had been missing him all these years. She hadn’t given him a thought when she’d been with Tony. Well, not very often, anyway. Only now and then, when she was feeling a bit low. If things had worked out, she would have been married by now herself.

Would that have made the news less of a shock? Alice wondered with characteristic honesty.

She could see that Beth was watching her curiously, and she struggled to assume an expression of unconcern. So much for her fears about Beth’s matchmaking plans!

‘I didn’t know that he had married,’ Alice said, hoping that she sounded mildly surprised rather than devastated, which was what she inexplicably felt. ‘What was his wife like?’

‘I didn’t meet her,’ Beth admitted. ‘But I asked them to your welcome party tomorrow, and he said they’d like to come, so I guess we’ll see her then.’

‘Oh.’ The sick feeling got abruptly worse. Somehow it seemed hard enough to adjust to the mere idea of Will being married, without having to actually face him and smile at the sight of him playing happy families, Alice thought bitterly, and then chided herself for being so mean-spirited.