The Stepmothers’ Support Group. Sam Baker

since her first date with Simeon, maybe even before then. Shaking the thought from her mind, she tried on and promptly discarded another outfit, before reverting to wide-leg jeans, smock top and flats. Exactly what she’d have put on if she hadn’t been thinking about it at all.

      And certainly no date with Vince had ever engendered this sense of excitement or dread. Theirs wasn’t that kind of relationship. This was no bad thing; she didn’t want it to be that kind of relationship. Stomach-churning excitement was not part of her plan right now. Easy and comfortable was what Melanie needed. Someone to chat about the day’s work and watch DVDs with—and it was what she’d had, until Vince had dropped his ten-year-old daughter on her.

      You look just fine, Melanie told herself as she knotted her shiny black hair at the back of her head, slicked on lip balm and grabbed her jacket. Better than fine.

      If she messed around any longer she’d be late. And she didn’t want to give the other women—the group, the club, whatever they were—any excuses to reject her. They had enough already, given that she hadn’t yet met the child she was going there to talk about.

      C’mon, Melanie, she thought as she ran down the stairs, pulled the door to behind her, and stuck her arm out at a black cab, which sped straight past. Chase down your inner lawyer.

      She had managed it the day she did her presentation to the private equity firm who agreed to help finance personalshopper.com. That had taken reserves of guts she’d forgotten she had since moving to London. As had pressing send on her e-mail to Eve Owen, Beau’s features director, inviting herself to the next Stepmothers’ Support Group meeting. She could manage it now.

      Another cab passed without a light on, and then another.

      Shit, now she really was going to be late. If she walked really fast she could be there—covered in sweat, but there—in about twenty minutes, maybe thirty. The Tube, on the other hand, would take a fraction of that; signal failure, overcrowding and bodies on the line permitting. Melanie hated the Tube, just as she’d hated the Subway in Manhattan. It was hot, stuffy, dirty and crowded, especially at this time of the day; the tail end of rush hour. But Kings Cross to Oxford Circus was ten minutes on the Victoria line, and since ten minutes was as long as she had, she headed underground anyway.

      The truth was, Melanie was lonely. Her yearning for someone to talk to, someone who didn’t work for her, someone who might just ‘get her’, was more powerful than any fear of rejection. Her sense of isolation had been growing ever since she’d left her home, her friends and her hard-won career in Manhattan to follow Simeon to London. Infatuation made you do stupid things; but as stupid went, falling for Simeon’s lines and finding herself divorced and alone in London took some beating.

      It wasn’t that Melanie didn’t know anyone here. But the people she knew were hedge fund wives, the women on the charity circuit. Other women with nothing to do but spend what was left of their husbands’ money on personal trainers, high-maintenance and time-consuming beauty regimes, and expensive meals they never ate. That wasn’t Melanie’s scene, much as she’d tried to make it so to keep Simeon happy.

      More than anything, she missed her friends. The women she’d had to resist the overwhelming urge to go fleeing back to the second Simeon told her he’d instructed his lawyers to make her a reasonable settlement, and suggested she instruct her own lawyers to accept it.

      But it wasn’t their reaction that had stopped her…The inevitable, we told you so her mind’s eye could see on their faces. No, what stopped her was her family; her mother in particular, who had also told her so. Far more explicitly.

      It had been bad enough making the call home to tell them her marriage was over. She wasn’t about to go creeping home with her tail between her legs, too.

      Was it mean to ask Clare to arrive at six-thirty, instead of seven, so they could talk before the others arrived? It wasn’t exactly true to the spirit of a support group. Even Eve wasn’t a hundred per cent convinced by her own excuse that she and Clare were friends and this was something just for her friend’s ears. Already, after only one meeting it felt unfair to exclude Lily. The adult Lily had been a revelation to Eve—smart, ballsy, irreverent and full of common sense. Like her sister, in fact, but without the enormous chip weighing her shoulder down.

      Clare, as usual, wasn’t prepared to humour Eve.

      ‘You invited Melanie,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Your choice. Either this is a support group or it’s not.’

      Eve shrugged. ‘She might not show anyway. I wouldn’t, if I were her.’

      The fact that Eve could hear the petulance in her own voice annoyed her, because she hadn’t said what she wanted to say at that point. Which was, ‘Whose choice?’

      The group had been Clare’s idea, and she’d pretty much bulldozed Eve and Lily into it.

      ‘We’re going on holiday,’ Eve said instead. Trying the words for size. As if speaking them aloud might break the spell and it would cease to be true.

      ‘You’re what?’ Clare yelped. ‘When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?’

      Eve grinned. ‘I haven’t seen you. And I’m telling you now.’

      ‘There’s such a thing as the phone! Anyway, you did phone me. Why didn’t you tell me then?’

      ‘Only just happened,’ Eve said. ‘Anyway, I wanted to tell you in person. You know I went around for pizza on Saturday?’

      ‘Mmm-hmm.’

      Eve could see what Clare was thinking: Yes, and I knew it had gone well because I didn’t hear from you. God, had her friend always been this transparent? For that matter, had she?

      Still, Eve was grateful when the flicker of resentment that crossed Clare’s face didn’t translate into words. Instead, Clare said, ‘What is it with pizza?’

      ‘Kid-friendly, I suppose,’ Eve said. ‘If the world wasn’t full of every-other-weekend dads I swear Pizza Express and Domino’s would go out of business.’

      Clare snorted.

      ‘Anyway, it was good. Well, as good as can be expected. Hannah wasn’t exactly friendly, but she wasn’t unfriendly.’

      No head-to-toe soakings in cola, thought Eve, though she didn’t say it.

      ‘And the other two were great. Sophie spent most of lunch relating the entire plot of that book I bought her. And Alfie’s adorable, it’s like he’s adopted me. Ian says not to take it seriously. It’s my novelty factor, plus the fact my Spiderman tolerance threshold is unfeasibly high. We managed a full three hours. Impressed, huh?’

      Clare nodded. ‘So,’ she said. ‘About this holiday?’

      ‘We-ell, holiday might be a slight exaggeration,’ Eve said, trying unsuccessfully to conceal her excitement. ‘When school breaks for summer they’re going to Cornwall for a couple of weeks—Ian’s parents have a place there—and Ian suggested I join them. Not for the whole time,just for a week at the end, so it’s not too much for the kids.’ Or me, she added in her head.

      ‘What holiday?’

      Neither of them had seen Lily arrive. ‘Don’t tell me you and Ian are getting away from it all. Just the two of you?’

      ‘Can tell you don’t have any kids!’ Clare snorted.

      Lily ignored her. ‘Not you and Ian?’ she asked Eve.

      Eve grinned, aware the euphoria she’d barely been able to contain since Ian made the suggestion was now flooding her face. ‘Me, Ian, Alfie, Sophie and Hannah…’ For now, it didn’t seem necessary to mention that, for some of that time at least, Ian’s parents would be there too. Clare would have plenty of theories on that, Eve knew. She also knew that right now she didn’t want to hear them. She was more than capable of adding two and two and