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So, my fingers REALLY shaking, I wrote, ‘I haven’t seen you for a while.’ And clicked send.

I waited, praying he’d reply because if he didn’t I’d feel like a complete idiot.

After seven minutes (yes – I was counting) he wrote back, ‘I heard you were spending time with Daisy’s father. So I thought you needed some space. The last thing I want to do is break up a family.’

Whoa!

My heart was absolutely pounding when I read that.

I don’t think I’ve ever typed a reply so fast.

I wrote that I’d only seen Nick once, but there was practical stuff to sort out with Daisy.

Alex wrote, ‘I heard you saw him the day after we went out. And again two days later. And that the two of you were working on a reconciliation.’

I wrote, ‘According to who?’

And he wrote, ‘You mean ‘whom’. And a gentleman doesn’t reveal his sources.’

I wrote, ‘Well tell your sources they got it completely wrong.’

He wrote, ‘I will happily tell Helen Jolly-Piggott exactly that.’

Andthenhe wrote, ‘Are you going out for your birthday tonight?’

I wrote that I wasn’t. And that everyone I knew was working or studying or in Cornwall teaching their son the value of shells.

And then he wrote, ‘I’ll pick you up tonight. Eight o’clock.’

I wrote, ‘Are we going running then?’

And he wrote, ‘No. I’m taking you out for your birthday.’

And then he came up as ‘offline’.

Felt so happy I thought my chest might explode.

Spent a few minutes dancing Daisy around the bedroom.

Then I started to get paranoid.

What if Alex is only taking me out so he can sleep with me again? What if I’m just some easy single mum target he’s using for sex? How did he know Nick came to the pub, and why didn’t he call before that?

Called Laura. She told me I was beautiful and funny and she always suspected Alex liked me. Zachary thinks so too, apparently.

Felt better then. But am now panicking about going out tonight.

Where’s Alex going to take me? What should I wear?

Brandi offered to give me a makeover and pummelled my body with salt scrub. She dabbed the bleeding bits with t-gel, but I know there’ll be scabs.

I refused to let her fake-tan me, so she did me a facial instead.

It took twenty cotton wool balls to get my face clean. She shouted at me for not removing my make-up properly, saying, ‘Did you know that every night you leave make-up on, it ages your skin by seven days.’

Honestly! She gets all this scaremongering crap from people who sell cosmetics. If what she said were true, I’d look sixty years old.

I stupidly let her wax off my eyebrows and draw them on in black pencil. When she’d finished, I looked like a blonde Cleopatra.