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Julian didn't come home until the next afternoon.

I was reading Lily a story before her nap. I didn't ask where he'd been.

After she fell asleep, Julian came over and held out a box.

A black diamond pendant on a delicate chain — the one I'd spotted at auction months ago and someone had outbid me on. I'd mentioned it once, half-forgotten, and apparently he had not.

In another version of my life, I would have thrown my arms around him.

Now I felt very little.

I'd changed since those days. Not long after our divorce, I'd had a necklace ripped from my neck on a stairwell in East London. I'd gone down hard, gashed my head on the steps. Nothing valuable was worth wearing after that.

"Let me put it on you," Julian said.

I smiled and stepped back. "Thank you. But I don't really wear jewellery these days."

Something shifted in his face. He left the room.

When I came back from the kitchen with a bowl of fruit, he was gone.