For Evan things were almost perfect. Long walks in the park, movies, intimate meals were as pleasurable as the late night telephone calls to Maddie. They met up several times a week, and spoke a lot. She was excelling at work, Eric couldn’t praise her more highly, and his new venture was starting to take shape. So what could possibly be wrong?

Evan hated it, but he was still confused. Whether she knew it or not, Maddie was evasive and distant and he still didn’t know where he stood with her.

He grabbed his clubs from the back of his car, and made for the clubhouse pushing his confusion to the back of his mind. He’d been playing golf once a week with Danny his old college mate, and he was never more relieved to be playing than today. Trying to avoid a crushing defeat was more than enough to block his own problems for a day. Danny worked as a finance controller for his family construction company, and he saw the games as a way of switching off, relaxing. A mutual thing.

Danny was stood in reception talking to someone that Evan didn’t recognise when he approached. By the time he’d approached the other man had left, and his friend was smiling at him.

                “Tate! You’re looking shattered...too much new love?”

Danny knew exactly what to say to push his buttons, and Evan could only groan. “I wish. Just never realised going after my dream would be so hard!”

Danny chuckled, “so you’re telling me that creating a small kitchen is more taxing than the five restaurants you’ve set up?”

Following his friend out on to the course he nodded, “maybe it’s because this is my chance to create what I want as oppose to what I think people want. I need this to be perfect and that’s hard.”

With a clap on Evan’s back Danny laughed, “you of all people should know that perfection is unobtainable...unlike me!”

Shaking his head Evan followed out onto the first tee already laughing at the tonic that was his friend.

                “So how are things with this new love?” It had taken to the fifth hole and a huge tee shot for Danny to finally broach the subject. He’d married the love of his life five years ago and Rachel was expecting their second child. Evan envied him dreadfully for so many years, and he now realised it was this envy that had led him into a far too serious relationship with Stephanie. The woman he’d taken five years to get over.

Evan sighed “okay”, as he hit the ball, but for a change he seemed to hit it sweetly off the tee and straight up the fairway. He hated thinking about Stephanie, and did so rarely these days that the sudden reminder almost caused pain. Not pain at what she’d done, but pain at how much of his life he’d wasted getting over her. With a sigh he followed Danny in the direction of their balls and it was only as he paced across the green that he thought things through. The timing of all this was perfect, if she hadn’t hurt him so much he may never have met Maddie at the exact right time. No, the past was not his problem; his future depended on the present, and Maddie herself.

Three hours later and they’d discussed everything under the sun from work, to football, even TV. Everything but the hot woman who was absorbing Evan’s every thought. As they grabbed a beer in the clubhouse and made for a window seat, Danny was still hounding him.

                “I’ve known you long enough to know that ‘okay’ is not the real answer!”

Evan took a sip of his pint, glad of the distraction for a moment, “I like her a lot.” He finally offered.

Danny nodded, “that much is obvious, I mean she’s the first one to make it to more than date two since Steph!”

It was the second time that woman had spoiled his afternoon, but his friend spoke the truth, whilst Maddie visibly beat herself up for her promiscuity prior to and including them meeting up with each other, she was almost embarrassed at the way she was, he didn’t care. He saw his loose morals as an opportunity to find the right person, and for him it had worked. He’d found Maddie and already his heart and brain were lurching into the future, together.

                “Danny, we can’t all be as happy as you and Rachel! I’ve known the woman three months; give me some time to work things out?”

Danny knowingly sipped at his own drink, “bring her to dinner? Rachel asked.”

Evan laughed, “she wants to cook for us?”

Laughing too Danny raised his arms, “apparently she’s finally got over her fear of cooking for a chef!”

By the time they’d finished their drink they’d provisionally agreed on the coming weekend, as long as Maddie was free.

After leaving the golf club he drove straight to Maddie’s, he hadn’t seen her for a few days, and whilst they both needed their own lives he hated not seeing her more often. The trials of a new relationship.

Cindy answered and smiled, he liked her best friend, she was both protective, fiery, and friendly and happy, and once she realised he wasn’t messing Maddie around she was always so welcoming.

                “Hi! Maddie’s still out running. Don’t think she was expecting you this early!”

He nodded, “for a change my gold balls seemed to go where they were meant to, so the game finished about twenty shots earlier than it usually does!”

She smiled stepping back to let him in, “I’m about to go out...cinema. You ok to wait for her?”

                “Well I might burgle the house?”

She chuckled, “you are so silly!”

Leaving him in the lounge in front of the football round up shows, he could hear her pace up the stairs. When she came back down he was lounging on the sofa.

                “Help yourself to anything you want?” When he nodded, she added awkwardly, “and be nice to Mads, she’s...not herself today!”

Instead of clarifying further, she disappeared out of the door with a wave.

What the hell did that mean?

Madeline never ran for exercise, she ran from frustration, anger. It was her coping mechanism, and the last few months she hadn’t run much, that was the calming influence of her new beau. As she turned towards home she thought about Evan, he offered her everything. And she was beginning to believe that he was as genuine as he came across. So why was she pounding the streets of the city instead of getting herself ready for an evening with him?

She was glad of the sudden incline to take her breath and her conversation because thinking of her family, of the dubious envelope that had arrived that morning, the handwriting most definitely her mother’s was too painful to contemplate. She barely spoke to her family, she saw them even less frequently, whilst that was equally her choice it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. The fact that her parents had chosen to snub her, that she’d become the black sheep of the family still hurt her. When she had needed family over the years they’d not been there for her, and it was five years since she’d been back to her family home. That sounded ridiculous, but it was true. At Christmas and birthday’s she had a card from them, but that was the limit of their contact. And they’d never tried for more. Never got over things. That’s what hurt!

As she threw herself at the front door, bursting into the hallway of her home, she checked her watch, she’d been running for fifty minutes, she had no idea what the letter from her mother was about, but she also knew that she didn’t care. Evan would be here soon, he was picking her up after golf, not that they had major plans, maybe wine and a DVD, but either way it sounded amazingly relaxing.

Striding into the lounge she froze, there was Evan relaxed on the sofa, his eyes lifted from the TV to her as soon as the door opened. She looked a mess! Sweating, bedraggled hair, her running top and shorts were almost stuck to her. Her grimace made her laugh.

                “I’m early.”

She groaned, “and I’m looking rough as!”

Pulling himself to his feet, he shook his head, “au contraire, what you look is amazingly sexy!”

Her eyes widened in surprise as he stalked across the room towards her and with a little gasp she turned and ran for the stairs.

Laughing he took off after her in hot pursuit and managed to snag an ankle as she was half way up the stairs, tugging her back down under him.

He didn’t know why he was so aroused, why he was stripping her there on the stairs, but something in him had roared when she’d opened the door. And now that he had her she was groaning, sighing and reciprocating fully.

His head was resting on her chest, his arms wrapped around her, and he was still deep inside her when she tried to move. “Evan, I am minging I must smell of sweat!”

Smiling he lifted his head, “you smell and taste divine Miss Newman!” And with that he slid down her body kissing every inch of her until he knelt further down the stairs, poised between her thighs, devouring her so completely.

An hour later, showered...another exquisitely pleasurable experience, they were in his car, heading to his. Maddie looked at him, “so what was that all about earlier?”

Evan shrugged, unwilling to explain his concerns to her, after all was it a coincidence that he’d pounced on her within moments of seeing her the very day Danny made him think of the past and Stephanie not once, but twice?

On the surface everything was going well, Maddie enjoyed every moment she spent with Evan, despite the converse low that she felt when she wasn’t with him. Then there was the sealed envelope that sat on her dressing table, she hadn’t had the strength to throw it away, and every time she entered her room its presence burned a hole in her visual field. But not only had she not opened it, she’d also not told anyone else about her. It was her secret torment. And it was almost killing her.

Ten days it had sat glaring at her, and the fact that Evan was in Paris at a conference leaving her alone seemed to make her more vulnerable. She’d gone out for a few glasses of wine after work with Gina, and to come home to an empty house was all she needed to tip her over the edge. Taking the letter she ripped at the envelope, pulling out the thin paper it contained. Then she dropped it onto her bed as though it had burned her fingers then went to the bathroom.

A hot shower didn’t detract from the distraction that lay on her bed, but she painstakingly dried her hair, slathered her body in moisturise, and dressed in clean pyjamas. Anything to keep her mind busy. But it was still there flashing like a beacon on her duvet.

With a sigh of frustration she snatched at the letter and opened it. The writing was the same, the loopy perfectly formed letters that she remembered from her childhood, her mother.

                “Madeline”, no endearment, no familiarity. Sighing she read on.

                “We just wanted to let you know that your grandmother died last month. When the will was read she left something for you. It’s enclosed. Your mother.”

There was so much to digest, firstly that no one had told her about her grandmother, she’d not seen her in years, but surely the option to attend the funeral could have been extended? Then there was the impersonal nature to the letter. Though what did she expect? They’d done little more than perfunctory gestures since they’d asked her to leave their home six years earlier.
Then she tipped up the envelope and a cheque fell out, picking it up she gasped, it was for forty thousand pounds.