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As soon as she left the McDonald’s, her head spinning, Marina got a text from Xavier.

Can’t stop thinking about you X

She stood on the pavement staring at her phone and wondering how on earth she should reply to this.

Xavier was not Xavier. He was also Zachary and also Zander and God knew how many other aliases. He was married to one woman and engaged to another. And he was a thief.

“What do you mean, revenge?” Marina had asked Opal, and Opal had shaken her head grimly.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I still have to work out the details. But the important thing is that none of us let on to Zander what we know. We need to take him by surprise.”

“You think Lilah is going to keep quiet? She’s very upset.”

“She doesn’t believe me. And you’ve seen her. She’s a librarian. She’s not built for confrontation. I don’t think she’ll say anything just yet.”

She said it with an edge to her voice, a note of almost-contempt that made Marina think, You say you want revenge on your husband, but it feels like it’s Lilah and me who are suffering .

But she didn’t say that, of course. She, also, was not built for confrontation, even though she did imagine it quite a bit, often in gruesome detail.

So now five minutes later here was Marina, standing outside a McDonald’s, not having had the chance to eat any lunch other than a few fries and due to pick up her children in fifteen minutes, staring at a text from a man who she knew was a love rat, would-be bigamist, thief, and con artist, and also with whom she’d had the best sex of her life.

Let’s be honest. She’d also daydreamed about their wedding.

She texted back, truthfully:

I can’t stop thinking about you, either.

* * *

The kids were in bed, though it had taken three bedtime stories before Lucy Rose would settle down. Marina brought the baby monitor into the bathroom with her as she showered.

The fact was—she thought as she caught a glimpse of herself in the steamy mirror—she looked better now than she had in many years. Her stomach was firmer, her hips had slimmed down. Her skin had a glow to it that had been lost to too many sleepless nights because of babies or anxiety. Even her stretch marks from three babies appeared lighter: like silvery tracings rather than the angry red smears that she’d smoothed coconut oil on every morning.

She didn’t look like a baby machine or a worn-down and betrayed overweight single mom. She looked like a beautiful woman whose body was voluptuous and capable of both nurture and pleasure.

And that was all down to Xavier. Whatever he was in reality...in her reality, he had done all of this for her in a very short time.

Was she ready to give it up?

She put on makeup and dried her hair. She chose one of her new dresses that she’d splurged on in the thrift store in town. Richmond had very good thrift stores. Underneath, she wore a tiny wisp of silk in the shape of pants. No bra. Then she took the baby monitor downstairs to the kitchen, where she prepared a cheese, charcuterie, and salad board—only from Aldi, but it looked more impressive when you took the packaging off and arranged it on a platter with a quick homemade fig compote.

This afternoon after they’d parted ways, Opal had set up a WhatsApp group chat including Marina and Lilah, titled “Z.”

THANK YOU FOR MEETING ME, LADIES. DON’T FORGET, WE NEED TO KEEP THIS TO OURSELVES FOR NOW.

Marina saw that, like her, Lilah hadn’t replied. But neither of them had left the chat.

Now, there was a quiet knock on the door.

She took a deep breath and reminded herself of her new underwear.

When she opened the door, she was confronted with a huge bouquet of flowers. Roses, sweet-smelling freesias, her favorite tulips, and even a couple of those strange artichoke-y/cabbage-y things that seemed to be in all the expensive bouquets these days.

That’s Lilah’s MasterCard , she thought.

But she said, “Oh, Xavier, you shouldn’t have. These are beautiful! I don’t even think I have any vases left.”

“We don’t need a vase,” said the man calling himself Xavier, as she took the bouquet. “We can scatter the petals on the bed.”

She thought about Xavier lying on his back on a bed of rose petals as she straddled him and rode him hard. God help her, the image turned her on.

“Thank you for not using the doorbell,” she said. “It probably won’t wake the kids, but it’s better to be safe.”

“I can’t wait to meet them. They sound charming.”

“Well,” said Marina honestly, “they’re charming to me .”

“Of course it’s your choice as to when I meet them. I was reading an article about dating as a single parent, and it had some helpful advice. This is all so new to me.” He hung up his jacket on the coat rack.

“Me too,” said Marina.

“I’ll send it to you. First, come here.” He pulled her in for a kiss.

Marina had wondered what she would do when he kissed her, now that she knew the truth. Misleading someone was one thing when you were using words. But it was a totally different thing when you were using your body. Would she feel repulsed by being kissed by a liar who was dating two women at once in order to steal their money, while married to another woman who he’d already robbed? Would she be able to fake desire?

More troublingly: was Xavier faking his desire? Had he been lying to her when he whispered that she was sexy, when he told her what he wanted to do with her, when he got aroused by her and they had sex? You couldn’t fake that, could you? There must be at least some part of him that found her sexy, or he wouldn’t be able to perform.

But it might be different for men than for women. It was a cliché that men could get turned on by anything, even a pair of coconuts or whatever. He could have been closing his eyes this entire time, and picturing someone else. Lilah, or Opal, or one of his other women, or a porn star. This whole time he could have been laughing at her behind her back. Or literally between her legs. The poor desperate worn-out mom of three who couldn’t even tell when a man was using her like a disposable sex doll.

That was at least one reason why she’d invited him over. She needed to know if he genuinely wanted her, despite lying to her. And she needed to know if she genuinely wanted him, despite being lied to.

So she kissed him back. She wound her arms around his neck, and swayed her body towards his so she was pressing against all of him. She opened her mouth and welcomed his tongue, warm and wet.

And she felt rising lust, felt herself getting warm and wet too.

Apparently she could desire someone even when she’d been shown evidence that he didn’t respect her. This was a little disturbing, but not enough to turn her off.

“Do you want me?” she whispered. She let her hand trail down his chest and to his crotch. He stiffened against her hand.

“God, yes,” he said. “I want to fuck you against this wall right now.”

His words conjured up a mental image that was so hot that she moaned involuntarily.

What did that say about her? Was she, as Lilah had said, a hussy?

She pulled away. “Not here,” she said. “We can’t wake up the children. And besides, I’ve made us something to eat.”

“I’d like to eat you up,” he said.

She shook her head playfully and led him to the kitchen, where she put the flowers in the sink.

“This looks amazing,” he said. “I don’t know how you pulled it together at the last minute.”

“All organic,” she lied. “Anyway, I couldn’t resist when you said you were unexpectedly free.” She took two wine glasses from the cupboard. “You can have one glass, can’t you?”

“I could probably stretch to two. If I did some exercise afterwards.” He gave her a filthy, thrilling look.

Oh God. The line was cheesy, probably well-rehearsed, but it worked. She wanted to rip his clothes off.

How could she give this up? What if she never found it again and she lived the rest of her days as a dried-up prune undesired by anyone?

She cleared her throat. “Do you mind choosing a good bottle for us from the cellar?”

“You have a wine cellar?” His eyes gleamed. Now she could see it was with something more than oenophilia. “I’d love to.”

“You’ll need a flashlight—there’s one on the hook next to the cellar door.”

As he tested the flashlight by turning it on and off, she edged closer to him. “Should I choose a white or a red?” he asked.

“You decide. There are some impressive vintages down there. Why don’t you choose something special? Wednesday’s the new Friday, after all. Here, would you mind taking this down with you and putting it with the other preserves?”

She handed him a big jar of pickles. She’d scraped the Aldi label off and replaced it with a hand-written one.

“Will do.” He opened the heavy cellar door. “There’s a light switch here.” She watched him flick it, but nothing happened.

“Yes, but it’s not working. I need to get an electrician out. These old houses, you know.”

She waited just behind him as he descended one of the rickety steps.

Then she rushed at him and, as hard as she could, she shoved him in the back.

With the flashlight in one hand and pickles in the other, he couldn’t grab for the banister or the wall. He didn’t cry out. He toppled over right away, and far more easily than she’d thought he would.

The jar smashed and she heard his body hit the stairs several times on the way down and then land, with a clunk, on the bottom.