---

---

Then my father's company went under.

Three of his major contracts were undercut and stripped away in the space of months. He filed for insolvency six months later. The stress brought on a heart attack, and then another, and the second one didn't let go.

I used what was left in the accounts to make sure his staff were paid. Then I found a council flat in East London and worked out how to live in it with a small child and very little money.

Lily wore hand-me-downs. She went to bed late because I was working. She ate what I could afford to put on the table.

I cried in the middle of the night more than I can count, all of it directed inward, convinced I'd ruined her life by not holding my marriage together.

This time, remarried, I wasn't going to do that again.

Whatever Julian did — however many Victorias — I would not make it about me. I would keep the life I'd promised Lily. I would not cry over things I couldn't change.

I had learned, the hard way, that no one was coming to save us. So I would save us myself.