He assumed that I had spent fifty hours shivering in coach, terrified and desperate and thoroughly humbled, and that I was probably hiding somewhere at the back of the train, waiting for him to decide whether to forgive me.

“Where do you think she is?” Chloe asked sweetly, adjusting her fur collar as they walked down the icy platform.

“She probably lost her phone somewhere.

She looked so pathetic when you told her to stand.” “Let her wander around,” Julian sneered, pulling on his leather gloves.

“She’ll come crawling to the car eventually.

My dad’s picking us up.

Once we get to the house, I’ll tell my parents she threw some hysterical tantrum on the train, and we’ll quietly start setting up the legal separation.

By New Year’s it’ll all be handled.” It is a strange thing, to know how a scene played out before you appear in it, to have it reconstructed for you later.