Chapter 1

The council enforcement officer was still shouting when Julian appeared.

I was at my usual spot in the market, Lily beside me, packing up the pet clothes and small accessories I'd spent the week making — scrambling to move before he wrote us up — when Julian walked over and told the officer to calm down.

Afterwards he looked at me.

"Come back," he said. "Remarry me. Lily's still small. I can't watch the two of you live like this."

I said yes without hesitation.

And then I changed.

After we remarried, I stopped being jealous. I stopped making scenes.

Lily stopped fighting for her father's attention.

When Julian stayed out all night with Victoria and her daughter Hannah, we didn't call. We didn't ask.

When we ran into the two of them in public, we stepped aside.

We became exactly what Julian had always wanted us to be: quiet, accommodating, no trouble at all.

But then, one evening, Julian looked at me with reddened eyes.

"Why aren't you angry any more?"

And to Lily: "Why don't you come to me for anything?"

I looked at him and said nothing.

I supposed he had never expected that getting what he wanted would feel like this.