Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall

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      Was that really how he saw her—unhappy and afraid? Alice lay in bed that night, scowling into the darkness, hating the memory of the pity she had seen in Will’s face. She didn’t need him to be sorry for her. She was fine. She could look after herself. She didn’t need anybody.

      She had thought that she needed Tony, and look where that had got her. She had placed him at the centre of her life and told herself that she was safe at last. Tony hadn’t made her head whirl with excitement, it was true, but it wasn’t passion that Alice was looking for. She had had that with Will, and the power of those unmanageable emotions had left her uneasy and out of control. With Tony, she had felt settled and as if her future was safe at last. It had been a wonderful feeling.

      Until Sandi had come along, and her carefully constructed world had fallen apart.

      All those years she had dreamed of feeling secure, and with one meeting it had been shattered. Was it the loss of that dream that hurt more than losing Tony himself? Alice wondered for the first time. And did that mean that she had never really loved Tony at all?

      For some reason, it was that thought that made Alice cry in a way she hadn’t been able to cry since Tony had left. Trapped in a straitjacket of hurt and humiliation, she had taken refuge in a stony pride, but all at once she could feel the careful barriers she had erected around herself crumbling, and she lay under the mosquito net and wept and wept until at last she fell asleep.

      Her eyes were still puffy when she woke the next morning, but she felt curiously released at the same time. Having spent her childhood trying not to let her parents guess how unhappy she was, Alice felt uncomfortable with crying. Until now, it had just seemed another way of admitting that everything was out of control, and she’d been afraid that, once she started, she might never be able to stop.

      But this morning it felt as if a heavy hand had been lifted from her heart.

      Perhaps she should try tears more often, Alice thought wryly.

      Will had gone by the time she got up. She found Lily in the kitchen with the cook, a severe-looking woman called Sara. Alice was quite intimidated by her, but Lily seemed to accept her and was already picking up some words of the local language, a form of French Creole.

      Alice was relieved not to have to face Will just yet. She might feel better for a good cry, but she had told him more than she wanted about herself last night, and now she felt exposed. At least she hadn’t cried in front of him—that was something—but he had still been sorry for her, and that wasn’t a feeling Alice liked at all.

      She spent the morning exploring the garden with Lily, and together they crossed the track to the beach. In the daylight, the lagoon was a translucent, minty green, its surface ruffled occasionally by a cat’s paw of breeze from the deep blue ocean that swelled and broke against the protecting reef. The leaning coconut palms splashed the white sand with shade, but it was still very hot and Alice was glad to keep on the shoes she had put on to pick her way through the coarse husks and roots that littered the ground beneath the trees.

      She had bought the sandals on impulse at a market the previous summer, and Lily was frankly envious. They were cheap but fun, their garish plastic flowers achingly bright in the dazzling sunshine.

      ‘I wish I could have some shoes like that,’ said Lily wistfully.

      ‘Let’s see if we can find you some in town,’ Alice said without thinking, and Lily’s face lit up.

      ‘Could we?’ She sounded dazzled by the prospect.

      ‘We’ll go this afternoon,’ said Alice.