SPOILERS!!!
Even though she is not named, it is obvious that the woman who Tom had the affair with is Louise, and in this part of the book she goes out of her way to go against Tom and Octavia. When Octavia confronts Tom, he admits to the affair, but says that it is over. He hoped she didn't get to know, and he refuses to tell her who the woman is. I think he is wrong because after what he has done, he is leaving her vulnerable without this information which is vital.
When Octavia goes to visit Anna, who is dying, she learns that Louise is pregnant, and she is happy for her. Louise tells her that she needs to tell Tom about her pregnancy, a request that Octavia finds odd. Anna dies a couple of days later, and Louise tells Octavia that she should come to the funeral and bring Tom, her father and Marianne. When Louise tells Tom about the pregnancy, he reacts in disbelief, but Octavia doesn't think anything of it. Then the day of the funeral Marianne sees Tom and Louise having an argument, but she keeps quiet about it. And Octavia talking to Sandy, Louise's husband, realises that Louise has lied to her, because he tells her that there is no way Louise can have a child because he had a vasectomy at her request.
When Octavia talks to Louise on the phone next, she is very upset, telling her that she lied to her and the baby she expects is her lover's and she almost made a mistake when she was talking to Sandy. Then Louise says that she is not pregnant at all; she believed she was, but she isn't. And she did believe that she pregnant and it was one of the cases that the vasectomy failed. That placated Octavia and even apologised for jumping to the wrong conclusion.
Business is a big part of this novel. Things start going wrong when Octavia, already upset about Tom, decides to talk and give her support to the committee agains the development of a forested area. The developer was her client as well as Tom's. An article appears in the newspaper, damaging Tom's relationship with the developer and he lost the client. Nobody can tell who sent the information to the newspaper, and I'm sure that it is Louise. With the loss of the client Tom's company is having financial problems, and the bank people tell him and his partner that they need an injection of money, and they consider to bring a third partner. Tom tells Octavia that things are difficult for the company financially, and he asks her not to tell anybody. Yet, foolishly Octavia tells Louise about the financial difficulties, and Louise gets a list of Tom's clients from his secretary, pretending to be from the press, and then she send letters telling those clients about Tom's company going through difficulties, and then many of the clients decide to terminate their contracts. Tom wants to know if Octavia has told anybody, but she denies it. I have to say that even though I think that what Tom did was wrong, I have to say that I don't like Octavia's attitude at all. When Tom tells her that he will have to ask her father for help, she recriminates his attitude instead of being helpful. Tom tries to make her see that he might end up bankrupt and that will affect her and the children, but she is safe in the knowledge that she has her own company and her fahter won't let her go hungry. I think she is being very selfish now.
Octavia now seems to be blinded to the truth, and instead she is silly with an MP, Gabriel, who she has met as she got involved in the defence of the forest. Gabriel finds her interesting, and she has started to flirt with him, and she feels giddy with contentment. I can understand that after Tom's unfaithfulness she really needs this to feel appreciated, but what I can't understand is how she is so selfish in connection to Tom's company and her children's emotional welfare.
Apart from this, Marianne is having a difficult time with her daughters. She knows that Zoe is hiding something, but she doesn't know what. And Romilly has changed since she won the contest and was offered the contract by the cosmetic company. Romilly's father is against her being a model and disrupting her education, but Marianne, trying to be fair to her daughter, thinks that she can do some modelling at weekends and holidays as long as her education does not suffer. What she doesn't know is that the cosmetic company have a parallel plan, and behind Marianne's back they are manipulating Romilly. I hope the girl doesn't come to harm.
Apart from that, Marianne's relationship with Felix is suffering. Now more than ever she realises that she comes a second best for him, and it is always his daughter that comes first. It does not help that Marianne is being wooed by Nico Cadogan, and he is not indifferent to her.
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