The Longing: A bestselling psychological thriller you won’t be able to put down. Jane Asher

layers of optimism – supposing there hadn’t been any eggs there, after all? Supposing they had been bad, or broken, or addled or whatever happens to human eggs when they’ve gone wrong? ‘Excellent,’ he had said, ‘excellent.’ She saw the magnificent word rolling around her head like a ball of wire wool inside a kettle, cleaning out the furry bits of fear and uncertainty and leaving a shiny, refreshed brain, ready for the wonderful new thoughts that she would let creep into it when she was ready.

      ‘Five,’ she whispered out loud, ‘and three of them excellent. Yes!’ She wiggled her legs, this time in glee and impatience, and laughed to herself at the very thought of it all. She could sense the image of five cherubic little babies hovering again on the edge of her mind’s eye, just waiting to be let in, but she resisted the temptation to look at it, and instead tried to picture the small glass dish containing the eggs that she supposed at this very moment was making its way down to the laboratory.

      She was quite surprised to see Michael when he came into the recovery room, and realised she hadn’t given him a moment’s thought since she had come round from the anaesthetic.

      ‘Hello, darling,’ he said as he bent to kiss her. ‘How are you feeling? You look fine.’

      ‘Yes, I am fine.’ Why didn’t she tell him? What was stopping her shouting out the glorious news?

      ‘Julie – they found five, darling, did you know? Isn’t that wonderful?’

      She felt cheated that Michael already knew. Not because she wanted the pleasure of telling him herself, but because she counted it as a personal triumph, a special secret between her and those hovering babies that she hadn’t been quite ready to share, and she resented his hijacking the moment for himself.

      ‘Of course I know. I was there, remember?’

      ‘I didn’t know how long you’d been awake. Anyway, it’s great news.’ Michael had grown so accustomed to Juliet’s irritability over the last few weeks that he deflected it automatically, almost without being aware of it. ‘Oh, here comes our tea.’