Blu felt her heart stop, holding the phone in her shaking hands. Right on cue, her friends ring all at once. Bloody alerts, social media is alight with the picture of Brodie and Lana Smith exiting Annabel’s, some even going as far as setting the wedding date, others speculating if Lana is already pregnant. Leila…

‘Mrs Sterling. How lovely to see you again.’ Franny was waiting for her coat from the cloakroom at Annabel’s having just finished a lunch meeting, when she spotted a familiar face amongst other diners. She would know that face and hair style anywhere; Leila Sterling. She decided to drop by to say hello to the…

‘Good morning.’ Abi finds Blu in the kitchen, she went looking for her in the guest bedroom where she slept, but she was already out of bed, her sister the consummate early riser. She never could understand how Blu could wake up before the sunrise, even in the summer. ‘Morning.’ Blu was going to sit…

Brodie woke up at 2am, his phone having ping’d with an email; force of habit, he sleeps with his phone on and on his bedside bureaux. Another ping another email. Another ping another email. ‘What the fuck?’ he reached for the phone, 22 emails. Ping! 23. All from Blu Braithwaite. Ping! 24. ‘Fucking hell.’ He…

‘Good morning Mum.’ Anais is sitting at the table waiting on her mother to appear for breakfast. She flew in last night from a buying trip and is exhausted but this conversation with her mother is one that needs to be had. Her brother is hurting, and it is his entirely their mother’s fault. He…

‘Hi Mum.’ ‘Hello darling, nice of you to show up at last.’ Leila Sterling welcomes her son with a hug. She knew he was home, heard her other children discussing it without them knowing she’d heard. ‘You finally decided to come and see your poor old mother.’ ‘Mum you’re neither poor nor old.’ ‘You know…

‘You did what?!’ The friends had just broken the news to Blu about Brodie being in town and she in turn just told them about the money she paid into his account. ‘Why the fuck would you do that? Why?’ Dada scolds her cousin. ‘I don’t know… I don’t know! I wasn’t thinking I panicked.…