One Night with Morelli. KIM LAWRENCE

I wouldn’t throw him out of bed if he was broke. Imagine him stripped and ready for action…’

      During the general laughter and crude comments that followed Eve found herself responding with a mixture of indignation and distaste… It wasn’t so much that someone had hijacked her secret fantasy, although that was bad enough, it was that she’d been forced to admit she’d had one, that she had pictured a total stranger naked and sprawled on a bed that bore more than a passing resemblance to her own!

      So you wondered what he looked like naked, Eve, big deal, she told herself. Did you think you were the only woman whose creative juices were switched on by his sexual charge?

      ‘He’s been staring at me all day, can’t take his eyes off me. Have you noticed?’ Louise boasted.

      Eve’s nostrils flared as she hung onto her temper. So he’d been eyeing up all the women—what a sleaze! It was just as well she hadn’t felt special…well, not much. She could genuinely say she hadn’t wanted his attention, but it was one thing not to want it and another to know he pulled the same tired trick with every woman in the room!

      ‘You mean he came on to you? When?’

      ‘I wrote my number on his hand.’

      ‘No…how much have you had to drink? What if your Rob had seen?’

      ‘What did he say?’

      ‘He just looked at me and I went shivery! He’s got the most incredible eyes… Then he said…’

      ‘What? What did he say, Louise?’

      The dramatic pause had not just her friends, but Eve in her hiding place, on tenterhooks.

      ‘I could tell by the way he’s been looking at me that he wants me. You always can…’

      ‘Yes, but what did he say?’

      ‘He said he had an excellent memory and if he wanted to remember a number he would, and then…’

      ‘What? What did he do then?’

      ‘Then he wiped it off!’

      Louise had clearly decided this was encouraging. Her cronies, a lot less under her thumb than in the old days, were less sure. The subsequent squabble continued until they found a subject that they all agreed on—they were united in their contempt of the wedding.

      ‘I think in this day and age when people are losing their jobs and everything this sort of lavish display is totally insensitive.’

      So why did you come? mouthed Eve from her hiding place. Someone seemed to hear her silent question.

      ‘Yeah, but the champagne is good.’

      ‘She’s only the cook.’

      ‘But good-looking. I wouldn’t mind looking half as good as E-E-Eve’s mum when I’m her age.’

      ‘You’ve got to hand it to E-E-Eve’s mum—she got her man in the end. My mum says they’ve been at it for years.’

      With a militant light in her eyes, Eve reached for the door handle. No one, but no one, was about to bad-mouth her mother when she was around and get away with it.

      ‘What about E-E-Evie? What does she think she looks like?’

      Eve’s hand fell away as she listened to the cruel malicious laughter. It brought the memories flooding back and for a moment she was the misfit stigmatised as a swot and taunted for her stutter.

      ‘And that hair!’

      ‘And the eyebrows, and she’s still flat as a pancake, talk about molehills… Do you think she still stutters?’

      ‘I don’t know. The snooty cow walked straight past me and acted like I wasn’t there. Well, whatever money she is supposed to have made I think that it’s exaggerated as she hasn’t spent any on make-up. I was right all along—she’s definitely a lesbian.’

      ‘You only have to look at her.’

      ‘Definitely.’

      ‘To think we got detention for saying it at school! The girl has no sense of humour.’ There was the sound of rustling and another blast of hairspray before someone said, ‘That’s my mascara.’ The sound of the door opening and then, ‘She was always full of herself, looking down her nose at us, the little swot.’

      Old insults and she’d heard them all before.

      The door to the ladies’ room closed with a dull clunk and the room fell silent, but Eve stayed inside the cubicle giving them another few minutes just to be on the safe side and let the tears dry.

      She lifted a hand to her damp face… How crazy was that? She had sworn that they would not make her cry again, that the bullies who had made her life a misery had long ago lost their power to hurt her.

      So why are you hiding in the loo, Eve?

      Because she had nothing to prove.

      ‘I’m not hiding.’ She was about to slide the latch when a soft reply made her jump.

      ‘I know but it’s all right—they’ve gone.’

      The kind voice didn’t belong to any of the three faces from the past.

      The only person in the otherwise empty ladies’ room was a young girl. Even in her flat ballet pumps she was several inches taller than Eve and slender. The encouraging smile she gave when Eve stepped out lit a face that had perfect features.

      Eve could feel the girl’s warm brown eyes as she walked across to the washbasin. ‘Are you all right?’

      Eve smiled at the girl’s mirror reflection and turned the tap, allowing the warm water to flow over her hands.

      ‘Fine, thanks,’ she lied, mortified to hear the wobble in her voice. This was crazy; she was a hard-headed businesswoman, so why was she fighting the sudden and utterly uncharacteristic urge to unburden herself?

      The girl continued to look troubled. ‘Are you sure?’

      What a nice girl. She reminded Eve a little of Hannah at the same age. Not in colouring, as the teenager had raven-black hair, golden-tinged skin and liquid brown eyes, but in the confidence and innate grace that would set her apart from her contemporaries. Eve nodded and the girl walked towards the door.

      Her hand was on the handle when she stopped and turned back, her expression earnest. ‘My dad,’ she began hesitantly. ‘Well, he says you shouldn’t let them get to you, or at least not let them see they get to you. It’s the pack instinct—bullies react to the scent of fear, but underneath they’re insecure and cowards.’

      ‘Sounds like you have a good dad.’

      ‘I do.’ A grin flashed that made her look much younger all of a sudden. ‘But he’s not perfect.’ The grin appeared again. ‘Though he thinks he is.’

      The girl’s grin was contagious.

      ‘Do you mind me asking…? Are you…?’

      For the first time that day Eve felt the urge to laugh. She swallowed the tickle of hysteria in her throat, horrified to feel tears pricking her eyelids. ‘A lesbian?’ Eve finished for her.

      ‘It’s fine if you are,’ the girl said.

      The kid was so sweet, so kind, the contrast with the women’s malice so profound that Eve felt the tears press hotly against her eyelids. She blinked hard and stretched a hand to lean heavily on the wall.

      The mental exercise she’d employed to lock her emotions in a neat box required energy, and Eve’s reserves were severely depleted. If she could have played the scene again she wouldn’t have hidden but old habits once learnt were damned hard to break.

      ‘No, I’m not.’ The sob when it came emerged from somewhere deep inside her. Eve did not